Can We Install an APK From a ContentProvider?

Question

I am working on a library to allow apps to self-update, for those that are being distributed outside of the Android Market.

My original plan was to include code that

Answer 1

I agree with Jules analysis, and I would add concrete precisions :

In PackageInstallerActivity, which is called by ACTION_VIEW on an apk, there is this in the onCreate() method:

315 String apkPath = mPackageURI.getPath();
316 File apkFile = new File(apkPath);

And before that, this method from PackageUtil is called:

73 public static  PackageParser.Package getPackageInfo(Uri packageURI) {
74     final String archiveFilePath = packageURI.getPath();
75     PackageParser packageParser = new PackageParser(archiveFilePath);
76     File sourceFile = new File(archiveFilePath);
77     DisplayMetrics metrics = new DisplayMetrics();
78     metrics.setToDefaults();
79     return packageParser.parsePackage(sourceFile, archiveFilePath, metrics, 0);
80 }

All this tends to confirm that the PackageManager do expects only File Uris.

The log you have, Skipping dir: is found in packageParser.parsePackage, which tests whether the path given in the Uri is a file or not.