There are no special requirements for this recipe, but you may need to set the correct permission if you have your phone set to save applications, or data, to the SDCard. You can find this by going into Project -> CreateDatabaseWithAdoNet Options -> Android Application. In the required permissions box, select WriteExternalStorage, as illustrated below:

Xamarin.Android has an ADO.NET implementation of SQLite inside the assembly Mono.Data.SQLite

1. Add a reference to System.Data and to Mono.Data.SQLite:

2. To create your database, use the SqliteConnection class and call the static CreateFile method. You will need to provide a path to the database, as well as the name of the database as a parameter.

The following snippet contains a call to the Path.Combine method. If you are using the Android.Graphics namespace within the source file that you set up the database in, you will need to explicitly state the use of System.IO, as Android.Graphics also contains a Path class. Android.Environment has a class called Environment, so again, the System namespace will need to be explicitly used if you are using the Android.Environment namespace.

The following snippet demonstrates both set ups:

// with Android.Graphics & Android.Environment
var docsFolder = System.Environment.GetFolderPath(System.Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
var pathToDatabase = System.IO.Path.Combine(docsFolder, "db_adonet.db");
SqliteConnection.CreateFile(pathToDatabase);

// without Android.Graphics & Android.Environment
using System.IO;

var docsFolder = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
var pathToDatabase = Path.Combine(docsFolder, "db_adonet.db");
SqliteConnection.CreateFile(pathToDatabase);

3. It is important to test to ensure the file has been created. This can be achieved using either a try/catch or to simply use if (!File.Exists) and test the return value. The following snippet demonstrates both:

// using File.Exists if (!File.Exists(pathToDatabase)) { var reason = string.Format("The database failed to create - reason {0}", ex.Message); Toast.MakeText(myContext, reason, ToastLength.Long).Show(); }

<ol start="4">
  <li> To create a table within the database, a command has to be created and executed. As with the creation, the insertion should be enclosed within a <code>try</code>/<code>catch</code>. The following snippet demonstrates how to create a table and enclose it within a <code>try</code>/<code>catch</code>. The example here uses the async methods (but they can be equally replaced with the non-async methods) to create a table called “People.”</li>
</ol>

// create a connection string for the database var connectionString = string.Format("Data Source={0};Version=3;", pathToDatabase); try { using (var conn = new SqliteConnection((connectionString))) { await conn.OpenAsync(); using (var command = conn.CreateCommand()) { command.CommandText = "CREATE TABLE People (PersonID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, FirstName ntext, LastName ntext)"; command.CommandType = CommandType.Text; await command.ExecuteNonQueryAsync(); } } } catch (Exception ex) { var reason = string.Format("Failed to insert into the database - reason = {0}", ex.Message); Toast.MakeText(myContext, reason, ToastLength.Long).Show(); }

The sample code for this recipe creates a database with the result displayed, when the button is pressed. This is
illustrated below:

[![](Images/completed.png)]