How to publish a program that use SQLITE3? (C#)

Question

Basically i wrote a program that use SQLITE3. The path used in my program is correct because uses the relative path and file is in the correct folder. So, i finished the program and i need to send to another person. This person doesn't need to install other programs so the executable file need to be self-contained. When i publish this program i have configured with these requisite. But, unfortunately, the executable file doesn't work well, he catch an error when he needs to access the data base file. That's strange because i have tested the program before to many times and he worked well. When the error occurs, the follow message appears:

Unhandled exception. System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'path1')    at System.ArgumentNullException.Throw(String paramName)    at System.IO.Path.Combine(String path1, String path2)    at System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteConnection..ctor(String connectionString, Boolean parseViaFramework)    at CargasGollog.CargaDao.listarCargas()    at Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\alexa\Documents\Gollog\localizaCargas\Program.cs:line 62

The can't be null because i checked the program and i put the path in the function correctly.

Answer 1

Hi @Alexandre Dantas , Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

Use absolute paths: Make sure that the database file paths used in the program are absolute paths and not relative paths. You can use methods such as Path.Combine to build absolute paths.

using System.IO;

// Get the directory where the executable file is located
string baseDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);

// Build absolute path
string dbPath = Path.Combine(baseDirectory, "YourDatabase.db");

Database connection string: Make sure your database connection string is correct and contains the correct database path. You can use absolute paths directly in the connection string.

string connectionString = "Data Source=C:\\path\\to\\your\\database.db;Version=3;";

SQLite3 driver: Make sure the SQLite3 driver is installed on the target computer. You can include SQLite3's DLL file in your project, or make sure SQLite3 is already installed on the target computer.

To put it simply, you can also refer to these two old questions: Saving and Publishing SQLite Database

How To Publish/Create Installer For A C# Application With An SQLite Database?

Best Regards,

Jiale

---

If the answer is the right solution, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.