Working synchronously with a local SQL database

The sample application discussed in this article is intentionally simple. It creates a database in the computer's memory, creates a table in that database, and adds some data to the database. Clicking the Load data button then retrieves the data and displays it on the screen (see Figure 1). Other than loading data when the button is clicked and displaying it on the screen, there is no additional user interaction available. This is intentional, to focus the application entirely on the database operations. This sample application demonstrates the following Adobe AIR features:

• Connecting to a local SQL database using synchronous execution mode
• Creating and executing SQL statements synchronously:
  • Creating a table in the database
  • Inserting data into the database table
  • Retrieving data from the database table and displaying that data in a Flash DataGrid component

Note: This is a sample application provided, as is, for instructional purposes.

Understanding the code

Note: This article does not describe all of the Flex components used in the FLA file. For more information, see the ActionScript 3 Reference for the Flash Platform.

Connecting to a local SQL database

The init() method is called when the application finishes loading. Within this method, a SQLConnection instance name conn is created. (The variable conn is declared outside the method so that it is available to all the code in the application.) This SQLConnection object establishes the connection to a database, and is used by other objects to perform operations on that specific database. Once the SQLConnection instance is created, the open() method is called to open the connection to the database in synchronous execution mode.

In this case null is passed as an argument to the open() method, indicating that the runtime will create a database in the computer's memory rather than in a disk location. Alternatively, you could specify a file location (using a File instance). The runtime would then open the database file at that location (creating it first if it doesn't exist). The code to do that would look like this:

File.applicationStorageDirectory points to the AIR application store directory, which is uniquely defined for each AIR application.

Because the open() call is surrounded in a try..catch block, if the call fails the init() method returns and execution ends. Assuming the open() operation succeeds and the database connection opens, the createTable() method is called to do the work of creating a table in the database.

Creating a table in the database

The createTable() method uses a SQLStatement instance to execute a SQL command against the database that was opened in the init() method. The specific SQL command creates a table in the database named employees, with four columns. Here is a breakdown of the code and what it does:

• Creates a SQLStatement instance named createStmt:

• Specifies that the statement executes on the database that's connected through the SQLConnection instance conn:

• Defines the SQL statement text to create a database table. The table is named employees. It has four columns: empId, firstName, lastName, and salary.

• Executes the statement (surrounded in a try..catch block to determine if an error occurs):

Assuming that the statement runs successfully, the employees table is created and the addData() method is called to perform the next step in the process, adding data into the newly created table.

Inserting data into the database table

Like the createTable() method, the addData() method creates a SQLStatement, in this case to insert a row of data into the employees table in the database. The application inserts two rows of data, using two different SQLStatement instances (insertStmt and insertStmt2):

If both statements finish executing without errors, the status bar text (status.text) is updated to read "Ready to load data" and the application is ready to retrieve the data from the database and display it on the screen.

Retrieving data from the database table

Like creating a table and inserting data into the table, retrieving data from a table is carried out by creating a SQLStatement instance with a SQL SELECT statement as the SQLStatement instance's text property. The following code, from the getData() method, creates and executes the SELECT statement that retrieves all the rows from the employees table:

When the SELECT statement finishes executing the runtime continues executing the following code from the getData() method. The result data that is retrieved by the SELECT statement is accessed by calling the SQLStatement instance's getResult() method. Calling getResult() returns a SQLResult instance that is stored in the variable result; the actual result rows are contained in an array in its data property. The results are displayed in the Flash DataGrid control named resultsGrid in two steps. First, the code creates a fl.data.DataProvider instance pre-populated with the data from the result.data property. Next, that DataProvider object is set as the resultsGrid data grid's dataProvider property: