How to use Room Persistence Library with pre-populated database?

This is how I solved it, and how you can ship your application with a pre-populated database (up to Room v. alpha5)

• put your SQLite DB database_name.db into the assets/databases folder

• take the files from this repo and put them in a package called i.e. sqlAsset

• in your AppDatabase class, modify your Room’s DB creation code accordingly:

  Room.databaseBuilder(context.getApplicationContext(), 
                       AppDatabase.class, 
                       "database_name.db")
  .openHelperFactory(new AssetSQLiteOpenHelperFactory())
  .allowMainThreadQueries()
  .build();
  

Note that you have to use "database_name.db" and not getDatabasePath() or other methods: it just needs the name of the file.