When should you use Content providers in Android development?

Content providers in Android are an essential component for managing access to structured data in a secure and efficient manner. You should use content providers in the following scenarios:

• Sharing Data: When you need to share data between different applications. Content providers enable you to expose your application's data to other apps securely.
• Data Abstraction: When you want to provide a uniform interface to access different data sources. Content providers abstract the underlying data sources, allowing applications to interact with data through a standard API.
• Managing Complex Data: When dealing with complex data variants (like SQLite databases), content providers can simplify how you perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations.
• Handling Permissions: When you want to enforce permissions on the data access. Content providers can be configured to restrict access to only those applications that have the necessary permissions.

By using content providers, you ensure that your application can handle data efficiently and securely while maintaining a clean separation between data management and application logic.