Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Creating the Database

published on: 9/15/2011 | Views: N/A | Tags: LocalDB Mango

by WindowsPhoneGeek

This is the 10th post from the "Windows Phone Mango Local Database" series of short posts that will cover all you need to know in order  to get started using a Local Database in Windows Phone 7.1 Mango.  This time I am going to talk about creating a Windows Phone 7.1 Mango local database.

Here is what else is included in this series:

• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Introduction
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Linq to SQL
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): [Table] attribute
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): [Column] attribute
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): [Association] attribute
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): [Index] attribute
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Database mapping
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): DataContext
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Connection Strings
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Creating the Database
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Database Queries with LINQ
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): How to Insert data
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): How to Update data
• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): How to Delete data

Creating the Database

After you create the DataContext object, you can create the local database and perform a number of additional database operations.

NOTE: When the database is created, it is automatically assigned a version of 0. To determine the database version, use the DatabaseSchemaUpdater class.

For reference you can also take a look at the full MSDN documentation.

Example:

Note that before we can use a local database, it has to exist. This is why, in the code sample below, we check if the database exists and if it doesn't we use the CreateDatabase() method of the DataContext to create it. (NOTE: Make sure that the ConnectionString is right!)

private const string ConnectionString = @"isostore:/CountryDB.sdf";
 
public MainPage()
{
    InitializeComponent();
 
    using (CountryDataContext context = new CountryDataContext(ConnectionString))
    {
 
        if (!context.DatabaseExists())
        {
            // create database if it does not exist
            context.CreateDatabase();
        }
    }
}

Where CountryDataContext  is implemented in the following way:

public class CountryDataContext : DataContext
{
    public CountryDataContext(string connectionString)
        : base(connectionString)
    {
    }
 
    public Table<Country> Countries
    {
        get
        {
            return this.GetTable<Country>();
        }
    }
 
    public Table<City> Cities
    {
        get
        {
            return this.GetTable<City>();
        }
    }
}

Important Note: In the example above, when calling CreateDatabase(), the database is created in the IsolatedStorage (note the isostore keyword in the connection string). In Windows Phone 7 all applications are "isolated" from each other, which means that one application can access only its own IsolatedStorage. I.e one database can be used only from one application and can not be shared between several applications.

In this article I talked about creating a local database in Windows Phone Mango. Stay tuned for the rest of the posts.

You may also find interesting the following articles:

• Windows Phone Mango Local Database(SQL CE): Introduction
• Using SqlMetal to generate Windows Phone Mango Local Database classes
• A Simple ToDo List: Persisting Data with the Sterling NoSQL Database
• All about WP7 Isolated Storage series

You can also follow us on Twitter @winphonegeek

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