Work with Local SQL Database Using AIR

One good feature in Adobe's AIR, the platform for developing rich Internet

apps is a database engine that runs within AIR's runtime environment. Since all

the database files are stored locally, there is no need of an external database

connection. This also implies that persistent application data can be stored

conveniently on the local drive. The local database is stored as a single file

in the computer's file system. The runtime is responsible for creation,

retrieval and manipulation of data in this database file. In the following

implementation, we will be using synchronous mode of execution to create RIAs

with AIR.

Implementation



Let's start with installation of AIR SDK. This can be downloaded from
'www.adobe.com or you can also get it from this issue's DVD. Once extracted to a

folder, set the PATH environment variable. This can be done by adding reference

of extracted folder to it. In our case, we added the following path in the end

of PATH environment variable 'C:\AdobeAIRSDK\bin'. The bin folder present in SDK

contains ADL and ADT tools.AIR debug launcher or ADL is used to run applications

without packaging them, whereas AIR developer tool is for packaging your

application as an AIR file for distribution. One more important file that we

would be using in this implementation is 'AIRaliases.js' present in 'C:\AdobeAIRSDK

\frameworks\libs\air' folder. This file provides alias definition that allows

one to run 'ActionScript' runtime class i.e. air.FileStream, air.SQLDatabase

etc. To use this file, one needs to add following script reference in HTML page:

Start with creating a folder that contains three files: XML file (pcquest.xml),

HTML file (pcquest.html) and AIRaliases.js file as explained above. We will

start with the applications descriptor file (pcquest.xml). Here is the content

of this file along with explanation:

Add the attribute that defines the namespace for AIR as shown. Last part

shows the version of AIR used:

Next line shows attribute to uniquely identify application:

sandeep.com

One can also define version of the application as :

version 1.0



sample


AIR Example

To define properties of the application window:

pcquest.html

Now we have created the required descriptive file. Let's create a HTML page

that contains code to create database and then display that database. Here is
the code snippet showing the content of 'pcquest.html':

Before packaging, one can test the result of application using ADL. Simply move to application folder and type 'adl pcquest.xml' in command prompt.

To check the results of the created application, open command prompt and move

to the application folder and type in the window:

Adl pcquest.xml

Finally one can easily package AIR application in just two steps, start with

creating certificate and key pair for application as shown here:

adt -certificate -cn SelfSigned 1024-RSA testCert.pfx

password

To create .air installer file, simply run following command, it will prompt

for password :

adt -package -storetype pkcs12 -keystore testCert.pfx

PCQUest.air pcquest.xml pcquest.html

Now one can distribute this application using PCQUest.air file. This shows

how web developers having SQL knowledge can use their SQL skills in easily

developing applications in AIR.