CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnativescript
Hoargarth
Hoargarth

Reputation: 1

Updatable offline storage / database

Currently I'm trying to learn nativescript and for this I thought about doing an App like 'Anki'

But while thinking about the data storage I stumpled upon the problem on how to save my flash cards locally for keeping the app offline (for example with SQLite), save the users time when to reflect each card (e.g. to show again in 10 minutes or 1 day) AND have an update functionality to update the database with new cards without deleting the users data.

What's the best way to solve that problem, especially when I want to provide the updates with an App-Update and without fetching everything from an external database?

I don't have any code yet, therefore a recommendation on how to solve that would be nice.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 273

Answers (1)

Nathanael
Nathanael

Reputation: 5399

There is several methods in NativeScript you can use:

  • NativeScript-Sqlite (disclaimer: I'm the author) This allows full access to Sqlite for saving and loading items; you can have as big of databases as you need and Sqlite is very fast. Sqlite's biggest drawback is speed of writes; if you have a LOT of writing it can be slower than just writing to a file yourself.

  • NativeScript-LocalStorage (disclaimer again: I'm the author) This is more geared to smaller data sizes; as when the app starts and saves it has to load the entire json backed data store into memory. This is really fast over all; but not something you want to use for 10's of thousands of records.

  • NativeScript-Couchbase This uses sqlite for local storage and can use couchbase for the remote storage; very nice for having syncable storage - couchbase can be your own server or a leased or rented server.

  • NativeScript-Firebase This is also very useful for having syncable storage; however Google charges for FireBase at a certain point.

  • Built in AppSettings. This is really designed for a few application settings, not designed for lots of data. But useful for the smaller amounts of data.

  • Role your own to the file system. I have done this in a couple of my projects; basically a hybrid between my localstorage plugin and a mini-sql type system. One project was very much write dependent so it made more sense to generate the 20 or so separate files on the phone for each table because I could save them much quicker than inserting/replacing > 100,000 records each time the app started up into sqlite. Had minimal searching needs.

Your storage really needs to be dependent upon what you are doing; it is a balancing act. Lots of searchable data; sqlite wins in almost all cases. Lots of frequent writing; something you create might be a lot faster.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions