How to use the new SD card access API presented for Android 5.0 (Lollipop)?

Question

Background

On Android 4.4 (KitKat), Google has made access to the SD card quite restricted.

As of Android Lollipop (5.0), developers can use a new API that

Answer 1

It is just a complementary answer.

After you created a new file, you might need to save its location into your database and read it tomorrow. You can read retrieve it again using this method:

/**
 * Get {@link DocumentFile} object from SD card.
 * @param directory SD card ID followed by directory name, for example {@code 6881-2249:Download/Archive},
 *                 where ID for SD card is {@code 6881-2249}
 * @param fileName for example {@code intel_haxm.zip}
 * @return null if does not exist
 */
public static DocumentFile getExternalFile(Context context, String directory, String fileName){
    Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/" + directory);
    DocumentFile parent = DocumentFile.fromTreeUri(context, uri);
    return parent != null ? parent.findFile(fileName) : null;
}

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
    if (requestCode == SettingsFragment.REQUEST_CODE_STORAGE_ACCESS && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
        int takeFlags = Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION | Intent.FLAG_GRANT_WRITE_URI_PERMISSION;
        getContentResolver().takePersistableUriPermission(data.getData(), takeFlags);
        String sdcard = data.getDataString().replace("content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/", "");
        try {
            sdcard = URLDecoder.decode(sdcard, "ISO-8859-1");
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        // for example, sdcardId results "6312-2234"
        String sdcardId = sdcard.substring(0, sdcard.indexOf(':'));
        // save to preferences if you want to use it later
        SharedPreferences preferences = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
        preferences.edit().putString("sdcard", sdcardId).apply();
    }
}