Android column '_id' does not exist?

Question

I\'m having trouble with something that works in the Notepad example. Here\'s the code from the NotepadCodeLab/Notepadv1Solution:

String[] from = new String[         


        

Answer 1

This has been answered and I would like to make it more comprehensive here.

SimpleCursorAdapter requires that the Cursor's result set must include a column named exactly "_id". Don't haste to change schema if you didn't define the "_id" column in your table. SQLite automatically added an hidden column called "rowid" for every table. All you need to do is that just select rowid explicitly and alias it as '_id' Ex.

SQLiteDatabase db = mHelper.getReadableDatabase();      
Cursor cur =  db.rawQuery( "select rowid _id,* from your_table", null);

Answer 2

If you read the docs on sqlite, creating any column of type INTEGER PRIMARY KEY will internally alias the ROWID, so it isn't worth the trouble of adding an alias in every SELECT, deviating from any common utilities that might take advantage of something like an enum of columns defining the table.

http://www.sqlite.org/autoinc.html

It is also more straightforward to use this as the ROWID instead of the AUTOINCREMENT option which can cause _ID can deviate from the ROWID. By tying _ID to ROWID it means that the primary key is returned from insert/insertOrThrow; if you are writing a ContentProvider you can use this key in the returned Uri.

Answer 3

Yes , I also change the SELECT string query to fix this issue.

String query = "SELECT t.*,t.id as _id FROM table t "; 

Answer 4

What solved my issue with this error was that I had not included the _id column in my DB query. Adding that solved my problem.

Answer 5

I see, the documentation for CursorAdapter states:

The Cursor must include a column named _id or this class will not work.

The SimpleCursorAdapter is a derived class, so it appears this statement applies. However, the statement is technically wrong and somewhat misleading to a newbie. The result set for the cursor must contain _id, not the cursor itself.
I'm sure this is clear to a DBA because that sort of shorthand documentation is clear to them, but for those newbies, being incomplete in the statement causes confusion. Cursors are like iterators or pointers, they contain nothing but a mechanism for transversing the data, they contain no columns themselves.

The Loaders documentation contains an example where it can be seen that the _id is included in the projection parameter.

static final String[] CONTACTS_SUMMARY_PROJECTION = new String[] {
    Contacts._ID,
    Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME,
    Contacts.CONTACT_STATUS,
    Contacts.CONTACT_PRESENCE,
    Contacts.PHOTO_ID,
    Contacts.LOOKUP_KEY,
};
public Loader<Cursor> onCreateLoader(int id, Bundle args) {
    // ...
    return new CursorLoader(getActivity(), baseUri,
            CONTACTS_SUMMARY_PROJECTION, select, null,
            Contacts.DISPLAY_NAME + " COLLATE LOCALIZED ASC");
}

Answer 6

This probably isn't relevant anymore, but I just hit the same problem today. Turns out column names are case sensitive. I had an _ID column, but Android expects an _id column.