...to Becoming a Mobile Developer!

Month: January 2011

SQLite – Database Intro

Since I finished my exams last week, I’ve began working on a little small personal project. In my research for that, I’ve come across SQLite.

For those of you not familiar with it, SQLite is basically a really light database, built in C, that doesnt require its own server, thus requires no installation of any kind. You can literally just include the database file and not have to worry about anything else.

Using Visual Studio 2010, you can do one of two things:

  1. Get the installer from sqlite.phxsoftware.com that automatically integrates with Visual Studio, or
  2. Download the SQLite DLL and add it as a reference in your Project Solution.

The first option is probably easiest, as you can use Visual Studio to create and edit the database through Server Explorer, eg right-click on Data Connections, select New Connection and select SQLite.

The second way, you will need to get 3rd party software to create and edit the database. Of course, you’ll probably be writing software that does edit your database, so you just really need the DB created initially. I’m not sure if it can be edited within Visual Studio, but I could be wrong, as I was using the first method in my testing.

SQLite is really handy for small projects, and portable projects, and in fact, is probably the most widely used database in the world!! Firefox uses SQLite, iPhones use SQLite, and probably a lot of other mobile platforms like Android might use it too! This isnt even taking into account all the private projects developers use it for, and a lot of other personal projects, like mine! With Firefox and iPhone alone though, it still covers a wide user base!

Anyway, to tie in with my college project, I’ve decided that SQLite will be the official database technology of the iPhone app. I’ve used mySQL before so have experience with using SQL statements and SQLite uses most of them, with the exception of GRANT and a few others that I won’t be using anyway!

Is there a better database solution than SQLite for lightweight, portable, speedy applications? Let me know…

Eoin

I’m taking a break due to exams

You may have noticed I havent made a post on here in a week or so.
this is because I’ve been hard at work studying for my end of semester exams, which started 2 days ago! I have a web design exam in less than an hour, and as part of my “procrastination plan” I am writing this blog post!

Anyway, just a heads up! I’ll post up another update when I get back into learning Objective-C next week after my exams! 😀

Eoin