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Using ADO.NET with Xamarin.iOS

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Xamarin has built-in support for the SQLite database that is available on iOS, exposed using familiar ADO.NET-like syntax. Using these APIs requires you to write SQL statements that are processed by SQLite, such as CREATE TABLE, INSERT and SELECT statements.

Assembly References

To use access SQLite via ADO.NET you must add System.Data and Mono.Data.Sqlite references to your iOS project, as shown here (for samples in Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio):

Right-click References > Edit References... then click to select the required assemblies.

About Mono.Data.Sqlite

We will use the Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteConnection class to create a blank database file and then to instantiate SqliteCommand objects that we can use to execute SQL instructions against the database.

  1. Creating a Blank Database - Call the CreateFile method with a valid (ie. writeable) file path. You should check whether the file already exists before calling this method, otherwise a new (blank) database will be created over the top of the old one, and the data in the old file will be lost:

    Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteConnection.CreateFile (dbPath);

    Note

    The dbPath variable should be determined according the rules discussed earlier in this document.

  2. Creating a Database Connection - After the SQLite database file has been created you can create a connection object to access the data. The connection is constructed with a connection string which takes the form of Data Source=file_path, as shown here:

    var connection = new SqliteConnection ("Data Source=" + dbPath);
connection.Open();
// do stuff
connection.Close();

    As mentioned earlier, a connection should never be re-used across different threads. If in doubt, create the connection as required and close it when you’re done; but be mindful of doing this more often than required too.

  3. Creating and Executing a Database Command - Once we have a connection we can execute arbitrary SQL commands against it. The code below shows a CREATE TABLE statement being executed.

    using (var command = connection.CreateCommand ()) {
    command.CommandText = "CREATE TABLE [Items] ([_id] int, [Symbol] ntext, [Name] ntext);";
    var rowcount = command.ExecuteNonQuery ();
}

When executing SQL directly against the database you should take the normal precautions not to make invalid requests, such as attempting to create a table that already exists. Keep track of the structure of your database so that you don’t cause a SqliteException such as “SQLite error table [Items] already exists”.

Basic Data Access

The DataAccess_Basic sample code for this document looks like this when running on iOS:

iOS ADO.NET sample

The code below illustrates how to perform simple SQLite operations and shows the results in as text in the application’s main window.

You’ll need to include these namespaces:

using System;
using System.IO;
using Mono.Data.Sqlite;

The following code sample shows an entire database interaction:

  1. Creating the database file
  2. Inserting some data
  3. Querying the data

These operations would typically appear in multiple places throughout your code, for example you may create the database file and tables when your application first starts and perform data reads and writes in individual screens in your app. In the example below have been grouped into a single method for this example:

public static SqliteConnection connection;
public static string DoSomeDataAccess ()
{
    // determine the path for the database file
    string dbPath = Path.Combine (
        Environment.GetFolderPath (Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal),
        "adodemo.db3");

    bool exists = File.Exists (dbPath);

    if (!exists) {
        Console.WriteLine("Creating database");
        // Need to create the database before seeding it with some data
        Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteConnection.CreateFile (dbPath);
        connection = new SqliteConnection ("Data Source=" + dbPath);

        var commands = new[] {
            "CREATE TABLE [Items] (_id ntext, Symbol ntext);",
            "INSERT INTO [Items] ([_id], [Symbol]) VALUES ('1', 'AAPL')",
            "INSERT INTO [Items] ([_id], [Symbol]) VALUES ('2', 'GOOG')",
            "INSERT INTO [Items] ([_id], [Symbol]) VALUES ('3', 'MSFT')"
        };
        // Open the database connection and create table with data
        connection.Open ();
        foreach (var command in commands) {
            using (var c = connection.CreateCommand ()) {
                c.CommandText = command;
                var rowcount = c.ExecuteNonQuery ();
                Console.WriteLine("\tExecuted " + command);
            }
        }
    } else {
        Console.WriteLine("Database already exists");
        // Open connection to existing database file
        connection = new SqliteConnection ("Data Source=" + dbPath);
        connection.Open ();
    }

    // query the database to prove data was inserted!
    using (var contents = connection.CreateCommand ()) {
        contents.CommandText = "SELECT [_id], [Symbol] from [Items]";
        var r = contents.ExecuteReader ();
        Console.WriteLine("Reading data");
        while (r.Read ())
            Console.WriteLine("\tKey={0}; Value={1}",
                              r ["_id"].ToString (),
                              r ["Symbol"].ToString ());
    }
    connection.Close ();
}

More Complex Queries

Because SQLite allows arbitrary SQL commands to be run against the data, you can perform whatever CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE or SELECT statements you like. You can read about the SQL commands supported by SQLite at the Sqlite website. The SQL statements are run using one of three methods on an SqliteCommand object:

  • ExecuteNonQuery – Typically used for table creation or data insertion. The return value for some operations is the number of rows affected, otherwise it’s -1.
  • ExecuteReader – Used when a collection of rows should be returned as a SqlDataReader .
  • ExecuteScalar – Retrieves a single value (for example an aggregate).

EXECUTENONQUERY

INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements will return the number of rows affected. All other SQL statements will return -1.

using (var c = connection.CreateCommand ()) {
    c.CommandText = "INSERT INTO [Items] ([_id], [Symbol]) VALUES ('1', 'APPL')";
    var rowcount = c.ExecuteNonQuery (); // rowcount will be 1
}

EXECUTEREADER

The following method shows a WHERE clause in the SELECT statement. Because the code is crafting a complete SQL statement it must take care to escape reserved characters such as the quote (') around strings.

public static string MoreComplexQuery ()
{
    var output = "";
    output += "\nComplex query example: ";
    string dbPath = Path.Combine (
        Environment.GetFolderPath (Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal), "ormdemo.db3");

    connection = new SqliteConnection ("Data Source=" + dbPath);
    connection.Open ();
    using (var contents = connection.CreateCommand ()) {
        contents.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM [Items] WHERE Symbol = 'MSFT'";
        var r = contents.ExecuteReader ();
        output += "\nReading data";
        while (r.Read ())
            output += String.Format ("\n\tKey={0}; Value={1}",
                    r ["_id"].ToString (),
                    r ["Symbol"].ToString ());
    }
    connection.Close ();

    return output;
}

The ExecuteReader method returns a SqliteDataReader object. In addition to the Read method shown in the example, other useful properties include:

  • RowsAffected – Count of the rows affected by the query.
  • HasRows – Whether any rows were returned.

EXECUTESCALAR

Use this for SELECT statements that return a single value (such as an aggregate).

using (var contents = connection.CreateCommand ()) {
    contents.CommandText = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM [Items] WHERE Symbol <> 'MSFT'";
    var i = contents.ExecuteScalar ();
}

The ExecuteScalar method’s return type is object – you should cast the result depending on the database query. The result could be an integer from a COUNT query or a string from a single column SELECT query. Note that this is different to other Execute methods that return a reader object or a count of the number of rows affected.

Microsoft.Data.Sqlite

There is another library Microsoft.Data.Sqlite, which can be installed from NuGet, that is functionally equivalent to Mono.Data.Sqlite and allows the same types of queries.

There is a comparison between the two libraries and some Xamarin-specific details. Most important for Xamarin.iOS apps, you must include an initialization call:

// required for Xamarin.iOS
SQLitePCL.Batteries_V2.Init();