About local SQL databases

The AIR local SQL database functionality can be used for any purpose for which you might want to store application data on a user’s local computer. Adobe AIR includes several mechanisms for storing data locally, each of which has different advantages. The following are some possible uses for a local SQL database in your AIR application:

• For a data-oriented application (for example an address book), a database can be used to store the main application data.

• For a document-oriented application, where users create documents to save and possibly share, each document could be saved as a database file, in a user-designated location. (Note, however, that unless the database is encrypted any AIR application would be able to open the database file. Encryption is recommended for potentially sensitive documents.)

• For a network-aware application, a database can be used to store a local cache of application data, or to store data temporarily when a network connection isn’t available. You could create a mechanism for synchronizing the local database with the network data store.

• For any application, a database can be used to store individual users’ application settings, such as user options or application information like window size and position.

An individual Adobe AIR local SQL database is stored as a single file in the computer’s file system. The runtime includes the SQL database engine that manages creation and structuring of database files and manipulation and retrieval of data from a database file. The runtime does not specify how or where database data is stored on the file system; rather, each database is stored completely within a single file. You specify the location in the file system where the database file is stored. A single AIR application can access one or many separate databases (that is, separate database files). Because the runtime stores each database as a single file on the file system, you can locate your database as needed by the design of your application and file access constraints of the operating system. Each user can have a separate database file for their specific data, or a database file can be accessed by all application users on a single computer for shared data. Because the data is local to a single computer, data is not automatically shared among users on different computers. The local SQL database engine doesn’t provide any capability to execute SQL statements against a remote or server-based database.

A relational database is a mechanism for storing (and retrieving) data on a computer. Data is organized into tables: rows represent records or items, and columns (sometimes called “fields”) divide each record into individual values. For example, an address book application could contain a “friends” table. Each row in the table would represent a single friend stored in the database. The table’s columns would represent data such as first name, last name, birth date, and so forth. For each friend row in the table, the database stores a separate value for each column.

Relational databases are designed to store complex data, where one item is associated with or related to items of another type. In a relational database, any data that has a one-to-many relationship—where a single record can be related to multiple records of a different type—should be divided among different tables. For example, suppose you want your address book application to store multiple phone numbers for each friend; this is a one-to-many relationship. The “friends” table would contain all the personal information for each friend. A separate “phone numbers” table would contain all the phone numbers for all the friends.

In addition to storing the data about friends and phone numbers, each table would need a piece of data to keep track of the relationship between the two tables—to match individual friend records with their phone numbers. This data is known as a primary key—a unique identifier that distinguishes each row in a table from other rows in that table. The primary key can be a “natural key,” meaning it’s one of the items of data that naturally distinguishes each record in a table. In the “friends” table, if you knew that none of your friends share a birth date, you could use the birth date column as the primary key (a natural key) of the “friends” table. If there isn’t a natural key, you would create a separate primary key column such as a “friend id” —an artificial value that the application uses to distinguish between rows.

Using a primary key, you can set up relationships between multiple tables. For example, suppose the “friends” table has a column “friend id” that contains a unique number for each row (each friend). The related “phone numbers” table can be structured with two columns: one with the “friend id” of the friend to whom the phone number belongs, and one with the actual phone number. That way, no matter how many phone numbers a single friend has, they can all be stored in the “phone numbers” table and can be linked to the related friend using the “friend id” primary key. When a primary key from one table is used in a related table to specify the connection between the records, the value in the related table is known as a foreign key. Unlike many databases, the AIR local database engine does not allow you to create foreign key constraints, which are constraints that automatically check that an inserted or updated foreign key value has a corresponding row in the primary key table. Nevertheless, foreign key relationships are an important part of the structure of a relational database, and foreign keys should be used when creating relationships between tables in your database.

Structured Query Language (SQL) is used with relational databases to manipulate and retrieve data. SQL is a descriptive language rather than a procedural language. Instead of giving the computer instructions on how it should retrieve data, a SQL statement describes the set of data you want. The database engine determines how to retrieve that data.

The SQL language has been standardized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The Adobe AIR local SQL database supports most of the SQL-92 standard.

For specific descriptions of the SQL language supported in Adobe AIR, see SQL support in local databases .

To work with local SQL databases in ActionScript 3.0, you use instances of these classes in the flash.data package:

To obtain schema information describing the structure of a database, you use these classes in the flash.data package:

Other classes in the flash.data package provide constants that are used with the SQLConnection class and the SQLColumnSchema class:

In addition, the following classes in the flash.events package represent the events (and supporting constants) that you use:

Finally, the following classes in the flash.errors package provide information about database operation errors:

When you’re writing code to work with a local SQL database, you specify that database operations execution in one of two execution modes: asynchronous or synchronous execution mode. In general, the code examples show how to perform each operation in both ways, so that you can use the example that’s most appropriate for your needs.

In asynchronous execution mode, you give the runtime an instruction and the runtime dispatches an event when your requested operation completes or fails. First you tell the database engine to perform an operation. The database engine does its work in the background while the application continues running. Finally, when the operation is completed (or when it fails) the database engine dispatches an event. Your code, triggered by the event, carries out subsequent operations. This approach has a significant benefit: the runtime performs the database operations in the background while the main application code continues executing. If the database operation takes a notable amount of time, the application continues to run. Most importantly, the user can continue to interact with it without the screen freezing. Nevertheless, asynchronous operation code can be more complex to write than other code. This complexity is usually in cases where multiple dependent operations must be divided up among various event listener methods.

Conceptually, it is simpler to code operations as a single sequence of steps—a set of synchronous operations—rather than a set of operations split into several event listener methods. In addition to asynchronous database operations, Adobe AIR also allows you to execute database operations synchronously. In synchronous execution mode, operations don’t run in the background. Instead they run in the same execution sequence as all other application code. You tell the database engine to perform an operation. The code then pauses at that point while the database engine does its work. When the operation completes, execution continues with the next line of your code.

Whether operations execute asynchronously or synchronously is set at the SQLConnection level. Using a single database connection, you can’t execute some operations or statements synchronously and others asynchronously. You specify whether a SQLConnection operates in synchronous or asynchronous execution mode by calling a SQLConnection method to open the database. If you call SQLConnection.open() the connection operates in synchronous execution mode, and if you call SQLConnection.openAsync() the connection operates in asynchronous execution mode. Once a SQLConnection instance is connected to a database using open() or openAsync() , it is fixed to synchronous or asynchronous execution mode unless you close and reopen the connection to the database.

Each execution mode has benefits. While most aspects of each mode are similar, there are some differences you’ll want to keep in mind when working in each mode. For more information on these topics, and suggestions for working in each mode, see Using synchronous and asynchronous database operations .