Using Sharedpreferences in android

In this blog post, I would like explain how to use SharedPreferences in Android.

so lets get started.

What is SharedPreferences?
Android provides many ways of storing data of an application. One of this way is called Shared Preferences. Shared Preferences allow you to save and retrieve data in the form of key,value pair.

In order to use shared preferences , you have to call a method getSharedPreferences() that returns a SharedPreference instance poiting to the file that contains the values of preferences.

SharedPreferences sharedpreferences = getSharedPreferences(MyPREFERENCES, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);

The first parameter is the key and the second parameter is the MODE. Apart from private there are other modes availaible that are listed below:
1) MODE_APPEND – This will append the new preferences with the already exisiting preferences
2) MODE_ENABLE_WRITE_AHEAD_LOGGING – Database open flag. When it is set , it would enable write ahead logging by default
3) MODE_MULTI_PROCESS – This method will check for modification of preferences even if the sharedpreference instance has already been loaded
4) MODE_PRIVATE – By setting this mode , the file can only be accessed using calling application
5) MODE_WORLD_READABLE – This mode allow other application to read the preferences
6) MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE – This mode allow other application to write the preferences

You can save something in the sharedpreferences by using SharedPreferences.Editor class. You will call the edit method of SharedPreference instance and will recieve it in an editor object. Its syntax is:

Editor editor = sharedpreferences.edit();
editor.putString("key", "value");
editor.commit();

Storing Data:
You can save data into shared preferences using editor. All the primitive data types like booleans, floats, ints, longs, and strings are supported. Call editor.commit() in order to save changes to shared preferences.

editor.putBoolean("key_name", true); // Storing boolean - true/false
editor.putString("key_name", "string value"); // Storing string
editor.putInt("key_name", "int value"); // Storing integer
editor.putFloat("key_name", "float value"); // Storing float
editor.putLong("key_name", "long value"); // Storing long
 
editor.commit(); // commit changes

Retriving Data:
Data can be retrived from saved preferences by calling getString() (For string) method. Remember this method should be called on Shared Preferences not on Editor.

// returns stored preference value
// If value is not present return second param value - In this case null
pref.getString("key_name", null); // getting String
pref.getInt("key_name", null); // getting Integer
pref.getFloat("key_name", null); // getting Float
pref.getLong("key_name", null); // getting Long
pref.getBoolean("key_name", null); // getting boolean

Clear/Deleting Data:
If you want to delete from shared preferences you can call remove(“key_name”) to delete that particular value. If you want to delete all the data, call clear()

editor.remove("name"); // will delete key name
editor.remove("email"); // will delete key email
 
editor.commit(); // commit changes

Following will clear all the data from shared preferences

editor.clear();
editor.commit(); // commit changes

Check whether SharedPreferences contains any data or not:

sharedpreferences.contains(MyPREFERENCES)

Its Boolean, so it returns either true or false only.

Hope this helpful. Your valuable comments are always welcomed. It will help to improve my post and understanding.

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durga chiranjeevi

I'm currently working as Android developer at Energy Alternatives India. Interested in Application and Game development.

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