Best practices for in-app database migration for Sqlite

Question

I am using sqlite for my iphone and I anticipate the database schema might change over time. What are the gotchas, naming conventions and things to watch out for to do a su

Answer 1

Let me share some migration code with FMDB and MBProgressHUD.

Here's how you read and write the schema version number (this is presumably part of a model class, in my case it's a singleton class called Database):

- (int)databaseSchemaVersion {
    FMResultSet *resultSet = [[self database] executeQuery:@"PRAGMA user_version"];
    int version = 0;
    if ([resultSet next]) {
        version = [resultSet intForColumnIndex:0];
    }
    return version;
}

- (void)setDatabaseSchemaVersion:(int)version {
    // FMDB cannot execute this query because FMDB tries to use prepared statements
    sqlite3_exec([self database].sqliteHandle, [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"PRAGMA user_version = %d", DatabaseSchemaVersionLatest] UTF8String], NULL, NULL, NULL);
}

Here's [self database] method that lazily opens the database:

- (FMDatabase *)database {
    if (!_databaseOpen) {
        _databaseOpen = YES;

        NSString *documentsDir = [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) objectAtIndex:0];
        NSString *databaseName = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"userdata.sqlite"];

        _database = [[FMDatabase alloc] initWithPath:[documentsDir stringByAppendingPathComponent:databaseName]];
        _database.logsErrors = YES;

        if (![_database openWithFlags:SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE | SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE | SQLITE_OPEN_FILEPROTECTION_COMPLETE]) {
            _database = nil;
        } else {
            NSLog(@"Database schema version is %d", [self databaseSchemaVersion]);
        }
    }
    return _database;
}

And here are migration methods called from the view controller:

- (BOOL)databaseNeedsMigration {
    return [self databaseSchemaVersion] < databaseSchemaVersionLatest;
}

- (void)migrateDatabase {
    int version = [self databaseSchemaVersion];
    if (version >= databaseSchemaVersionLatest)
        return;

    NSLog(@"Migrating database schema from version %d to version %d", version, databaseSchemaVersionLatest);

    // ...the actual migration code...
    if (version < 1) {
        [[self database] executeUpdate:@"CREATE TABLE foo (...)"];
    }

    [self setDatabaseSchemaVersion:DatabaseSchemaVersionLatest];
    NSLog(@"Database schema version after migration is %d", [self databaseSchemaVersion]);
}

And here's the root view controller code that invokes the migration, using MBProgressHUD to display a progress bezel:

- (void)viewDidAppear {
    [super viewDidAppear];
    if ([[Database sharedDatabase] userDatabaseNeedsMigration]) {
        MBProgressHUD *hud = [[MBProgressHUD alloc] initWithView:self.view.window];
        [self.view.window addSubview:hud];
        hud.removeFromSuperViewOnHide = YES;
        hud.graceTime = 0.2;
        hud.minShowTime = 0.5;
        hud.labelText = @"Upgrading data";
        hud.taskInProgress = YES;
        [[UIApplication sharedApplication] beginIgnoringInteractionEvents];

        [hud showAnimated:YES whileExecutingBlock:^{
            [[Database sharedDatabase] migrateUserDatabase];
        } onQueue:dispatch_get_global_queue(DISPATCH_QUEUE_PRIORITY_BACKGROUND, 0) completionBlock:^{
            [[UIApplication sharedApplication] endIgnoringInteractionEvents];
        }];
    }
}