Data Persistence with SQLite | Flutter

Whenever you need to store the data on the local then you need to use SQLite to persist the user data.

 

Why Data Persistence?

Persisting data is important for users since it would be inconvenient for them to type their information every time or wait for the network to load the same data again. In situations like this, it would be better to save their data locally.

Why we use SQLite?

SQLite is a popular choice as embedded database software for local/client storage in application software such as web browsers.

How to use SQLite in a flutter?

Before using SQLite, you should know that

SQLite is not available in a flutter SDK as Android but we have a plugin sqflite that exactly performs all the operation on the database just like in Android and iOS.

Flutter plugin is the wrapper of the native code written in Kotlin or java for Android and swift or objective-c for iOS.
P.S : Plugin can also be created only with dart code

If you are new to SQLite, go through SQLite Tutorial site here.

Implementation

Step 1: Add the dependencies

To work with SQLite databases, import the sqflite and path packages

1. The sqflite package provides classes and functions that allow you to interact with a SQLite database.
2. The path_provider package provides functions that allow you to correctly define the location to store the database on disk such as TemporaryDirectory and ApplicationDocumentsDirectory.

Step 2: Create a Model class

SQLite creates a table for the model class, the fields in the class correspond to columns in the table. Therefore, the classes tend to be small model classes that don’t contain any logic. Our Person class represents the model for the data in the database.

If we want to insert into the database then we need to convert the Person into a Map

And if we want to retrieve from the database then we need to convert the Map into the Person

This is how our PODO class will look like

To prevent from opening a connection to the database again and again we can use this:

Step 6: Managing the data

Now we are going to show you how you can perform an operation on the SQLite database.

Query:

getAllPersons() will return all the person from the SQLite database if available.

Insert:

Delete:

If you see we have two methods, one deletes the row with particular id and other deletes all data present in the table, you can change all the query according to your need.

Update:

If these small code snippets still confuse you we have the complete code of the database class:

Step 7: Using the data

In order to use the database we need to create the instance of the database and use the method present in the database class

DatabaseProvider.db

This will help us to perform an operation on the database.

like if we want to get  the person in the database we will use the method that we have defined in our DatabaseProvider class

DatabaseProvider.db.getAllPersons()

And if I want to display it in the list then I’ll use FututeBuilder :

That it for SQLite in flutter.

Thanks for reading this article

If we got something wrong? Let me in the comments. we would love to improve.

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