How to use existing database in android

Why you want to put the database file direct into the data/data folder? For testing purposes? Don't make sense to me, I would choose one of the options below:

• Load data from the server and insert it into the database.
• Put the database file in the assets folder, and then copy the bytes to create the app database (you can't move the database file).

Example (as requested):

First you need to put your database file inside the assets/database folder. If your database is bigger than 1mb you need to split it. (i.e. database1, database2, database3...)

You probably have a class to do all database tasks, here I have a class called DatabaseHelper (extends SQLiteOpenHelper). Don't forget to set you database path and name.

private static String DB_PATH = "/data/data/com.example/databases/";
private static String DB_NAME = "mydb.sqlite";

If you had to split your database, declare the pieces into a variable too.

private static String[] sFiles = {'database1','database2','database3'};

You can create/open your database quickly using the getReadableDatabase() method.

Then, create an implementation like this:

private void copyDatabase() throws IOException {
    // Path to the empty database.
    String outFilename = DB_PATH + DB_NAME;
    // Open the empty database as the output stream.
    OutputStream outputDatabase = new FileOutputStream(outFilename);
    // Transfer bytes from the input file to the output file.
    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

    for (int i = 0; i < sFiles.length; ++i) {
        // Open the local database as the input stream.
        InputStream is = mContext.getAssets().open("database/" + sFiles[i]);

        int length;
        while ((length = is.read(buffer)) > 0) {
            outputDatabase.write(buffer, 0, length);
        }
        // Closing stream.
        is.close();
    }

    // Closing the streams.
    outputDatabase.flush();
    outputDatabase.close();
    // Closing database.
    close();        
}

Copy your sqlite database file in data/data/<package_name>/databases directory.

Then be sure you are opening the copied sqlite database file..

Also to check whether you are opening a correct database and which table in this, look at this query,

SELECT * FROM sqlite_master where type='table' and name='my_table_name'