iOS SDK : Adding a SQLite Database

If you don’t already have Firefox, download and install it.

Select Add-ons from the Tools menu (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Adding SQLite Manager to Firefox

Select Get Add-ons, type SQLite in the search box, and install SQLite Manager.

Once installed and you have restarted Firefox, select Tools | SQLite Manager.

Select the New icon (the blank paper graphic), and create a new database named myDatabase. Save the database file some place where you can easily find it later. Note SQLite Manager automatically adds the .sqlite extension.

Click Create Table and create a new table named photos.

Add three columns: id, name, and photo. Make id an INTEGER and check Primary Key and Autoinc check boxes.

Make name a VARCHAR and check only Allow Null.

Make photo a BLOB and check only Allow Null.

Your screen should resemble Figure 2.

Figure 2. Creating a database using SQLite Manager

Click OK and the SQLite Manager generates the database table.

Click the Browse & Search tab, and then click the Add Record button.

In the action sheet, leave id blank. Type Icon One for the name. Notice the small paper clip beside photo. Move your mouse over the paper clip, and the tooltip should say “Add File as a Blob” (Figure 3). Click the paper clip and add any photo from your computer. If the photo column doesn’t say something like BLOB (Size: 65984), the file was not correctly added as a blob.

Figure 3. Adding a record using SQLite Manager

Click OK, and the record will be added. Add another record, selecting any other image from your computer.

From the menu, select Database | Close Database from the main menus to close the database. You can now exit SQLite Manager and quit Firefox.

Open Xcode and create a new View-based Application. Name the application MyDBProject.

Expand Frameworks in the Navigator and right-click on any one of the frameworks (e.g., UIKit) and select Show in Finder from the pop-up menu. This will get you to the folder with all of your frameworks on your computer. Move up two folder levels from there to the SDK folder and then open user/lib.

Drag and drop the libsqlite3.0.dylib framework from that folder to Frameworks in the Navigator in Xcode. In the dialog that pops up, be sure to uncheck “Copy items into destination group’s folder” and click Finish.

Add the database file that you created earlier to the Resources folder. Be sure to check the Copy Items check box so that the database file gets copied into MyDBProject.

This task is now complete with the SQLite library added to the project and the database file copied into the project’s resources. Do not delete the project or database.