What is the best way to connect and use a sqlite database from C#

Question

I've done this before in C++ by including sqlite.h but is there a similarly easy way in C#?

Answer 1

ADO.NET 2.0 Provider for SQLite has over 200 downloads every day, so I think you are safe using that one.

Answer 2

I'm with, Bruce. I AM using http://system.data.sqlite.org/ with great success as well. Here's a simple class example that I created:

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SQLite;

namespace MySqlLite
{
      class DataClass
      {
        private SQLiteConnection sqlite;

        public DataClass()
        {
              //This part killed me in the beginning.  I was specifying "DataSource"
              //instead of "Data Source"
              sqlite = new SQLiteConnection("Data Source=/path/to/file.db");

        }

        public DataTable selectQuery(string query)
        {
              SQLiteDataAdapter ad;
              DataTable dt = new DataTable();

              try
              {
                    SQLiteCommand cmd;
                    sqlite.Open();  //Initiate connection to the db
                    cmd = sqlite.CreateCommand();
                    cmd.CommandText = query;  //set the passed query
                    ad = new SQLiteDataAdapter(cmd);
                    ad.Fill(dt); //fill the datasource
              }
              catch(SQLiteException ex)
              {
                    //Add your exception code here.
              }
              sqlite.Close();
              return dt;
  }
}

There is also an NuGet package: System.Data.SQLite available.

Answer 3

I've used this with great success:

http://system.data.sqlite.org/

Free with no restrictions.

(Note from review: Original site no longer exists. The above link has a link pointing the the 404 site and has all the info of the original)

--Bruce

Answer 4

There is a list of Sqlite wrappers for .Net at http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=SqliteWrappers. From what I've heard http://sqlite.phxsoftware.com/ is quite good. This particular one lets you access Sqlite through ADO.Net just like any other database.

Answer 5

There's also now this option: http://code.google.com/p/csharp-sqlite/ - a complete port of SQLite to C#.

Answer 6

https://github.com/praeclarum/sqlite-net is now probably the best option.

Answer 7

Another way of using SQLite database in NET Framework is to use Fluent-NHibernate.
[It is NET module which wraps around NHibernate (ORM module - Object Relational Mapping) and allows to configure NHibernate programmatically (without XML files) with the fluent pattern.]

Here is the brief 'Getting started' description how to do this in C# step by step:

https://github.com/jagregory/fluent-nhibernate/wiki/Getting-started

It includes a source code as an Visual Studio project.

Answer 8

Mono comes with a wrapper, use theirs!

https://github.com/mono/mono/tree/master/mcs/class/Mono.Data.Sqlite/Mono.Data.Sqlite_2.0 gives code to wrap the actual SQLite dll ( http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite-shell-win32-x86-3071300.zip found on the download page http://www.sqlite.org/download.html/ ) in a .net friendly way. It works on Linux or Windows.

This seems the thinnest of all worlds, minimizing your dependence on third party libraries. If I had to do this project from scratch, this is the way I would do it.