Using LIMIT with android ContentProvider

So you're using a content provider in your android app, and you want to supply a LIMIT parameter. The problem is, ContentProvider's query method doesn't have a limit parameter. Well, fortunately there's an easy solution; put the limit into a query parameter:

1. First, in your content provider, create a constant for the query parameter key:
   

   public class MyProvider extends ContentProvider {
       public static final String QUERY_PARAMETER_LIMIT = "limit";



2. In the query method of your content provider, get the limit from the Uri:
   

   public Cursor query(...
       String limit = uri.getQueryParameter(QUERY_PARAMETER_LIMIT);



3. Still in the query method of your content provider, you can pass the limit on when creating the cursor:
   

   SQLiteQueryBuilder qb = new SQLiteQueryBuilder();
   Cursor c = qb.query(db, projection, selection, selectionArgs, null, null, sortOrder, limit);



4. Lastly, when calling your content provider (via getContentResolver.query(), a CursorLoader, etc), you can append the limit to the content uri like so:
   

   String someLimit = "15";
   cursor = getContentResolver().query(
       // add the limit to the content uri
       MyProvider.CONTENT_URI.buildUpon().appendQueryParameter(
           MyProvider.QUERY_PARAMETER_LIMIT,
           someLimit).build(),
           ...

The cool thing is you can use this same technique to pass other parameters to your query, like DISTINCT, for instance.