Using a CursorAdapter

Sometimes our data comes from a source that returns an ICursor element; thus, we can make use of the SimpleCursorAdapter type without having to create a collection of data objects.

How to do it...

Using the SimpleCursorAdapter type with an ICursor instance is almost the same as using the SimpleAdapter type with an object collection:

1. When using a CursorAdapter type, all we need is an ICursor instance from either the ContentResolver or CursorLoader types:

   var uri = ContactsContract.Contacts.ContentUri;
   string[] projection = {
     ContactsContract.Contacts.InterfaceConsts.Id,
     ContactsContract.Contacts.InterfaceConsts.DisplayName,
     ContactsContract.Contacts.InterfaceConsts
       .ContactStatusLabel,
   };
   ICursor cursor = ContentResolver.Query(
     uri, projection, null, null, null);

2. Once we have the cursor, we can hand it over to the SimpleCursorAdapter type, which is very similar to the SimpleAdapter type:

   SimpleCursorAdapter adapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(
     this, Android.Resource...