Is the onUpgrade method ever called?

Question

Is the onUpgrade method of SQLiteOpenHelper ever called? If so, when is it called and by what? If it is not called by the developers, then why is it there? What really happe

Answer 1

Looking into the SqliteOpenHelper source code, we can know onCreate(),onUpgrade() and onDowngrade get called in getWritableDatabase() or getReadableDatabase() method.

public SQLiteDatabase getWritableDatabase() {
    synchronized (this) {
        return getDatabaseLocked(true);
    }
}
public SQLiteDatabase getReadableDatabase() {
    synchronized (this) {
        return getDatabaseLocked(false);
    }
}

private SQLiteDatabase getDatabaseLocked(boolean writable) {
    if (mDatabase != null) {
        if (!mDatabase.isOpen()) {
            // Darn!  The user closed the database by calling mDatabase.close().
            mDatabase = null;
        } else if (!writable || !mDatabase.isReadOnly()) {
            // The database is already open for business.
            return mDatabase;
        }
    }
          . . . . . .  

        final int version = db.getVersion();
        if (version != mNewVersion) {
            if (db.isReadOnly()) {
                throw new SQLiteException("Can't upgrade read-only database from version " +
                        db.getVersion() + " to " + mNewVersion + ": " + mName);
            }

            db.beginTransaction();
            try {
                if (version == 0) {
                    onCreate(db);
                } else {
                    if (version > mNewVersion) {
                        onDowngrade(db, version, mNewVersion);
                    } else {
                        onUpgrade(db, version, mNewVersion);
                    }
                }
                db.setVersion(mNewVersion);
                db.setTransactionSuccessful();
            } finally {
                db.endTransaction();
            }
        }

        onOpen(db);

        if (db.isReadOnly()) {
            Log.w(TAG, "Opened " + mName + " in read-only mode");
        }

        mDatabase = db;
        return db;
    } finally {
        mIsInitializing = false;
        if (db != null && db != mDatabase) {
            db.close();
        }
    }
}