Database Develop

so i have a lot of questions

so to start off, ill say i know absolutly nothing about linux, but i managed to root and flash modacos custom rom to my phone. i have no idea what any of the commands i used to do it mean, or how to use any of them to do anything else (other than removing a bunch of the crap that sprint puts on the phone, i managed to do that with the help of one of the other threads on here). anyways, ive got that done and am wondering what to do now. i came from a titan and am used to when im done flashing things, everything is totally different. like going from stock rom to having m2d and it being super sweet. with the new rom it seems like there isnt a lot of new stuff going on or a lot of changes. wifi tether works amazingly though. anyways, im done with the pointless ranting and heres what im trying to figure out....
1. are all of my contacts really saved to gmail? like all of the stuff from all of them? so if i hard reset, and just sign into my gmail account, will it reload all of my contacts? im used to pim backup and knowing that its all gonna be there after im done doing stuff (ive never used gmail before and am not sure how it works)
2. if i do a hard reset, do i need to redo everything like root and re-flash the custom rom or will all of that stay intact? will all of the sprint garbage like nascar be back on there after doing the cmd propmt remove of it or will i have to do that again? im not nessicarily worried about the apps that i have installed already so im not worried about that at all, i can find them later.
3. is there anything usefull that i can do with root that will increase performance or anything. like i said earlier, i dont know anything about linux , so is there like a list of comands somewhere to look through that might help me out?
4. does a2sd see your programs and automatically move them to the sd with the proper formatting of the sd card? i did the fat32, ext2 and swap. since i didnt know if it moved them over, i manually uninstalled everything and reinstalled them. after uninstalling everything i had 104 free and after reinstall i had 101.
5. would it be benificial to go ahead and do a hard reset, if the sprint crap is back on on all of that other **** that can be erased is back, get rid of that, and start from scratch to install all of my stuff i want. i dl a lot of **** that i uninstalled before. i hear linux is really good at installing and uninstalling things, but if ive dl'ed 75 things then uninstallled them, is there gonna be any garbage left on my phone from it? i know there was a lot of garbage left on the sd before i formated. actually, there was **** on there (on the sd) from progs i dl'ed and uninstalled awhile ago, even after formating so im thinging a hard reset would be helpful.
im sure ill have a lot more questions about this whole linux/android stuff sooo.....if people are trying to be helpful and help me out that would be awesome. if your going to be an asshole and blast me for my nubbish questions, dont bother.
thanks in advance
ix3u

The super-custom ROMS are on their way, they just take some time (we only got root this past weekend afterall!)
1.) Some contacts are saved to your phone, but I believe the default is to save it to gmail. You can check by going into the People App, click menu->View and the numbers should show you how much is on google and how many are on your phone.
2.) I'm afraid I'm not sure on a hard reset...I use Nandroid and if all else fails, the RUU to recover (Nandroid is just a snapshot in time...it will be however it was when you backed it up when you restore....while the RUU puts it back to true "factory", as if you just pulled it out of the box).
3.) There's a few things you can do to the UI settings that can increase performance, but the real performance gains are pending the release of the CDMA Kernel by HTC for us to play with and port some of the performance changes that were done to the GSM Kernel (Google for Teknologic's Kernel 1.8...it's included in MoDaCo 2.9). Teknologic kept a very good changelog and site describing some of the things he did and why.
4.) I have no experience with A2SD, but there's a bunch of threads about it...hopefully one of them will have teh answer you seek?
5.) I suppose a hard reset couldn't hurt...it would certainly rule a lot of things out when troubleshooting. I download a lot of apps too only to find I didn't like them enough to keep them and removed them. From what I can tell, it does clean up the application files pretty thoroughly on the OS partitions...the SD card I believe most apps leave alone on uninstall just to be careful not to delete too much because the SD card is designed for people to access and drop files onto, whereas the OS is meant to be managed by the OS...so it's just being careful to leave data on the SD card to play it safe rather than risk deleting someone's favorite picture of their kid or something.
Xda has been one of the more gentle forums I've seen in a long time. You're in good hands here. Hopefully some of that info was useful...if not, someone else will likely be along shortly to give better/more complete answers. ^_^

[Q] Change application external write locations

I have been wondering if it is possible to modify where programs store their external data on the SD card, but have not been able to find an answer yet.
Example...
I have the program "FolderOrganizer" and it stores it's backup data to /mnt/sdcard/FolderOrganizer. Now what I would like to do is to clean up my SD card a bit by moving all my program saves to the /mnt/sdcard/Android/xxxxx folders. This way I know where all my backups, skins and etc are located at while keeping my file structure clean.
I have been using Root Explorer to poke around and see if I can find any indication of where these programs set their external save directories at (xml files etc), but I have not been able to figure it out yet.
I bet it is something easy that I am just missing. Can anyone help out or point me in the right direction?

djstaid said:
I have been wondering if it is possible to modify where programs store their external data on the SD card, but have not been able to find an answer yet.
Example...
I have the program "FolderOrganizer" and it stores it's backup data to /mnt/sdcard/FolderOrganizer. Now what I would like to do is to clean up my SD card a bit by moving all my program saves to the /mnt/sdcard/Android/xxxxx folders. This way I know where all my backups, skins and etc are located at while keeping my file structure clean.
I have been using Root Explorer to poke around and see if I can find any indication of where these programs set their external save directories at (xml files etc), but I have not been able to figure it out yet.
I bet it is something easy that I am just missing. Can anyone help out or point me in the right direction?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No... it's not something you're just missing... there is no standard and as a result it's almost impossible to achieve what you're aiming for. I too wish for the same, everything simply under <sdcard>/android/ ...
Some apps are hard coded in their code, some allow the user to select, some store in /data/data/xxx/shared_prefs/ - it's a lottery.

djmcnz said:
No... it's not something you're just missing... there is no standard and as a result it's almost impossible to achieve what you're aiming for. I too wish for the same, everything simply under <sdcard>/android/ ...
Some apps are hard coded in their code, some allow the user to select, some store in /data/data/xxx/shared_prefs/ - it's a lottery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the response. That is a bummer though, I was really hoping to be able to tell everything where to write to. I currently have a ext4 partition on my SD and that is where all my apps install to... if I can't tell the apps where to save on my SD partition, it would be nice to at least move it all to the ext4 partition.
There is crap all over on my SD card and my OCD is starting to kick in!

Yeah, I know the SD card can get messy... it's really stupid and annoying... Unfortunately, there is no SD card data saving guidelines for developers... and writing to an ext partition is completely out of scope for market apps because not all users have ext partitions... it would be nice, though, to have apps save data under one common folder... say /sdcard/data or /sdcard/Android... maybe we need to petition developers or Google!!

I agree with the saving to and ext partition. I just think it is silly that you can't at least specify a directory to save external data. I know some apps allow this, but I guess that if Google forced a change then everyone would have to change their code.
I wonder what would happen if you took out your SD and tried running those apps. Where would they write to then?

djstaid said:
I agree with the saving to and ext partition. I just think it is silly that you can't at least specify a directory to save external data. I know some apps allow this, but I guess that if Google forced a change then everyone would have to change their code.
I wonder what would happen if you took out your SD and tried running those apps. Where would they write to then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apps that require the sdcard for storage will usually either give an error when run without an sdcard or just not work at all.
I am also pretty anal about my storage and neatness, and I have given up on my sdcard being organized. What I have done is create folders with capital first letters to bring them to the top of the listing when browsing by default sort, at least I can find what I want easily without sifting through all the data folders..

That is pretty much what I have done. I guess it it better than nothing. If I knew more about programming I would try and build something to look for and modify those paths. I just never really understood/got into the whole programming thing... that is why I ended up in Infrastructure. lol

djstaid said:
That is pretty much what I have done. I guess it it better than nothing. If I knew more about programming I would try and build something to look for and modify those paths. I just never really understood/got into the whole programming thing... that is why I ended up in Infrastructure. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm with you there, long time (20+ years) building and repairing pcs, 0- years programming.
As far as building something to modify the paths used by programs accessing the sdcard in Android, that seems a nearly impossible feat. Each program would have to be modified, requiring reverse-coding (baksmali) each one individually, modifying the code, and recompiling (smali). This would also require re-signing and reinstalling each application, making updating from the market impossible, and would take a lot of work.
Due to the fact that applications are "sandboxed" (so to speak) in Android, I wouldn't think there was a global %externaldata% path variable that can be modified from /mnt/sdcard to /mnt/sdcard/Android, I am pretty sure that path is set in each application.
Though, I could be wrong. However, it is worth noting that if it is a global variable, changing it would result in applications that are already properly coded to use /mnt/sdcard/Android/%appname% or /mnt/sdcard/data%appname% to instead attempt to write the data to /mnt/sdcard/Android/mnt/sdcard/Android/%appname% as they would append their string to the global variable.
I believe, all we can do is petition developers to use a more structured data path in their programs, and learn to live with disorder!

daveid said:
I believe, all we can do is petition developers to use a more structured data path in their programs, and learn to live with disorder!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lmao!
this is true though... at least I know that I am not alone. haha

I am definitely with you all on this. I found this post after having the same epiphany just now. There needs to be more structure to the use of external storage. These little things are what set our OS apart from say, the "forbidden" iphone...

I have actually tried digging into different apps to see where the store locations are set at and have had no luck. I guess if I knew how to program or at least modify that one part of the app I would have more luck.
Problem with that is if I modify something in an app and it gets updated, I would have to do it all over again. I guess that is the gift and curse of having such an open OS. I will post back here if I figure something out though. I have been digging into the Android OS a little more, but I am still having problems understanding how it all works underneath.

can we increase the size of /datadata on cm7 with a symlink?

throughout the time ive spent with my captivate i have seen more people saying they are having issues with this /datadata folder getting too full on the root of the cappy when running cm7 than anything else (except BLN but thats not a true issue as much as a feature request of many) and i was wondering if there was any way i could increase the size of /datadata? is there any way we could rally together and get the size increased by the cm team themselves? if this /datadata folder getting low on space hadnt caused most of the problems i have read of people encountering with cm7 i wouldnt have made this thread.
but basically what im talking about is this:
1. new cm7 user installs the rom
2. they comment about how awesome and smooth it runs and how its better than anything, and "how could i have waited so long for this" type statements
3. they install all their user apps, generally not even close to enough to fill up the phone's "internal storage"
4. they come to the cm7 nightly or rc threads and make a post about force closes, lag, performance complaints, market download issues, or whatever random problem the tiny /datadata folder has caused them to experience
5. 1-4 people tell them about the /datadata folder needing more room to wiggle in and everything is fine after that
if there was some way to increase this mysterious (and entirely too small) /datadata folder's size then we could stop the steps above at 3, and to my knowledge the system doesnt act the same way on samsung roms, therefore a developer for samsung knows how to make the /datadata location work differently, or better in some way. if there is a partition specifically for that folder then i would like to know how to make it larger without screwing up the rest of the phone (i.e. making caches too small can cause market issues and such nonsense)
does anybody else have any information to add to this? if so please let me know to update the OP because i would enjoy how clean the threads will be, how well cyanogen will work out of the box, and not having to relay the same information repeatedly because some just simply will not use the search function to find one of the dozens of users experiencing the same problems in the threads they are posting in.
I know there has to be some way because no other phone i have used has acted this way, and no other rom, thus it is a 100% fixable and do-able thing. if anybody can do it its those here on xda so i figured i would post this to try and get the development needed for the fix going strong.
I know very little about these things honestly, but i do know some and i shall contribute as much as i can

Shame, shame. You know better than posting something for Q&A in Development.

This sounds like something a bounty should be started for.
Sent from something from somewhere

Shell Script?
Would it be possible to create some kind of script that can run periodicly that can empty the /datadata folder?

n0r4d said:
Would it be possible to create some kind of script that can run periodicly that can empty the /datadata folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can format datadata from CWM in recovery mode, so maybe tell the CM7 kernel to format it on startup... Just a thought.

[Q] Lost the widget Data

Hi there,
I recently rooted my Galaxy y (ah! that feeling). After rooting I used Rom Toolbox to move some of my apps to sd card. While doing this I also moved two of my widgets to sdcard - Sticky notes and Extended control. It didn't take long to realise that moving widgets to sd card was not a good decision!
I lost all the sticky notes that I've put up on my home screen (and there were LOTS of them). I've put up a lot of information on those sticky notes and now I don't have access to any of it.
Also, rooting didn't cause this as notes were there even after rooting.
Can somebody help me with getting them back. I mean, I didn't delete them, so they have to be there somewhere in memory..
Help! :crying:

probably best to ask these questions in the Galaxy forum rather than dream, but whatever.
as you found out widgets dont play nice on the sd card and you need to move them back (yes you are right that rooting didnt do anything bad to your phone)
you need to see where the data attached to these apps/widgets are stored and make sure they are not lost, commonly found in
data/data

demkantor said:
probably best to ask these questions in the Galaxy forum rather than dream, but whatever.
as you found out widgets dont play nice on the sd card and you need to move them back (yes you are right that rooting didnt do anything bad to your phone)
you need to see where the data attached to these apps/widgets are stored and make sure they are not lost, commonly found in
data/data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Moveing the widgets back to phone memory enabled the widgets but didn't recover the data. Tried to find folder of sticky notes in data/data but couldn't.
How to proceed now?

Files disappeared,

Yes, I know how to use google, yes, I tried many things now and I don't know where else to look for help so I'm asking here, a place with many smart heads full of ideas.
I was doing pretty normal thing on my phone this morning, just trying to copy all the files from internal memory onto the PC. Of course I couldn't do that thanks to "Unspecified error" during copying some of the folders, including Downloads and DCIM. I managed to copy only some of the files from internal storage. I thought a reboot might help. And so the nightmare began. All the other files I wanted to copy disappeared from gallery and Total Commander. They must be on the phone though, as there is something on the phone that uses 2gb of memory. I did not delete them, the system just fails to see them. I already tried deleting all the ".nomedia" files, clearing cache and data from Media Storage app, disabling it, rebooting and enabling again but it was of no use. I'm helpless and I don't know what to do, why did android even do this? I lost a lot of photos and images and I'm really upset about that. Any ideas what to do? The phone is not rooted, never played with software in it, it's updated to 5.1

Download any File Manager from Play Store, check if the files are on the phone memory. If not, well, they are somehow lost. Maybe you cut-paste them onto your PC, and the files were deleted, but you got an 'unspecified error' on moving.

Thanks a lot for a response. I use Total Commander on every android phone I had, I can see that my files look like they disappeared completely, android just generated empty generic folders ("Pictures etc) after I cut off the previous folders along with their content so I saved a little bit that I could. On the other hand something is occupying 2gb of data but the phone refuses to show what, so there is a chance my files are there. After copying the whole content of the phone to the folder on desktop it just shows it weight few hundreds KB. I'll be trying to use some recovery software for android. The question is how did this happen at all? It had no right to happen, what if this happened to someone who has completely no idea about that stuff? Who's to blame and who's responsible for helping such a person? Motorola? Google? Anyway, this is the last phone with no micro-sd card slot I used. A memory card is the best backup

You COULD recover your files even if they were deleted if Android still had a mass storage mode. I don't think any of the data recovery softwares play nice with the MTP transfer that android offers. Of course, the SD card is infinitely better, but a rarity these days. I am sorry for your lost data. You seem like you did everything within your reach to get it back.
EDIT: Just to be sure, did you cut-paste the folders on your PC from phone, or just copy-paste. It might be possible for files to be deleted in cut-paste, if some error occurs in copy.

Thanks for contributing. It seems Google knows better then any of us what we need and there's no more Mass Storage option which gives free access to memory. Unfortunately I don't have that option. First I ensured which files are not affected by error by trying to copy them folder after folder. Then there were left files I couldn't copy, it was DCIM with most recent photos (unfortunately) and download where I kept lots of images with cool infographics found on the internet. I thought a reboot would help to get access to them and you know the rest. Files were there no longer. I'm seriously considering switching to Windows Phone, it seem it's too much to ask for a phone that just "werks" nowadays...I have a painful lesson to use memory card as well as cloud synchronizing but didn't give up yet, still trying anything I can I also wrote to Motorola with help request but I don't think they'll help me any better than people here, although it's more their responsibility to fix that stuff, the phone is barely 6 months old.