Android application self-update

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Android: install .apk programmatically

I need to update my android application. Internally the program, I download the new version. How can I replace the current version by that new was downloaded (programmatically)?

URL url = new URL("http://www.mySite.com/myFolder/myApp.apk");
HttpURLConnection urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
try 
{
    FileOutputStream fos = this.getApplicationContext().openFileOutput("myApp.apk", Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE|Context.MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE);

    InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(urlConnection.getInputStream());
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in, "UTF-8"));

    StringBuilder  sb = new StringBuilder();

    byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];
    int len;
    while ((len = in.read(buffer)) != -1) 
    {
       // EDIT - only write the bytes that have been written to
       // the buffer, not the whole buffer
       fos.write(buffer, 0, len);  //  file to save app
    }
    fos.close();

    ....     here I have the file of new app, now I need use it

Solution

If the updated apk has the same package name and is signed with the same key you can just send a intent which will call a default android installer. The installed apk will be overriden.

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(new File(pathToApk));
intent.setDataAndType(uri, "application/vnd.android.package-archive");
startActivity(intent);

Comments

[nonickh]

Hi @lexmiir, thanks for reply, I do what you said and now I got an alert dialog saying Parser Error - There is a problem parsing the package. Any clues? :-)

[Alexei]

Hi @nonickh, did you signed both apk's with the same key? This error may appear when the applications with the same package name are signed with different keys

[nonickh]

Hi @lexmiir, Sorry for the delay, I compared the two files and they are different, probably caused by the process of copying the site, I first try to resolve this problem, grateful for your support

[David O'Meara]

probably already resolved, but for future reference you should not write the full buffer, only the number of bytes read ie fos.write(buff, 0, len) where len will probably be less than buffer.length when the last chunk is written.

[2red13]

I had the same error and solved it by uploading the apk file by using binary mode in the ftp program.