Dr. Richard Hipp, the architect and primary author of SQLite, explains how it all began in his interview with The Guardian published in June 2007:
"I started on May 29 2000. It's just over seven years old," he says. He was working on a project which used a database server, but from time to time the database went offline. "Then my program would give an error message saying that the database isn't working, and I got the blame for this. So I said, this is not a demanding application for the database, why don't I just talk directly to the disk, and build an SQL database engine that way? That was how it started."
Before we begin our journey exploring SQLite in the context of Android, we would like to inform you of some prerequisites. The following are very basic requirements and will require little effort from you:
You need to ensure that the environment for building Android applications is in place. When we say "environment," we refer to the combination of JDK and Eclipse, our IDE choice, ADT plugins, and Android SDK tools. In case these are not in place, the ADT bundle, which consists of IDE, ADT plugins, Android SDK tools, and platform tools, can be downloaded from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. The steps mentioned in the link are pretty self-explanatory. For JDK, you can visit Oracle's website to download the latest version and set it up at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.
You need to have a basic knowledge of Android components and have run more than "Hello World" programs on an Android emulator. If not, a very apt guide is present on the Android developer site to set up an emulator. We would suggest you become familiar with basic Android components: Intent, Service, Content Providers, and Broadcast Receiver. The Android developer site has good repositories of samples along with documentation. Some of these are as follows:
With these things in place, we can now start our foray into SQLite.
In this chapter, we will cover the following:
Why SQLite?
The SQLite architecture
A quick review of database fundamentals
SQLite in Android