I am developing an application completely written in C. I have to save data permanently somewhere. I tried file storage but I feel its really a primitive manner to do the job and I don't want to save my sensitive data in a simple text file. How can i save my data and access it back in an easy manner? I come from JavaScript background and would prefer something like jsons. I will be happy with something like postgreSQL also. Give me some suggestions. I am using gcc (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) 4.4.3.
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4SQLiteDarius Kucinskas– Darius Kucinskas2011-08-16 19:53:10 +00:00Commented Aug 16, 2011 at 19:53
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6 Answers
sqlite seems to meet your requirements.
SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, SQLite does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file. The database file format is cross-platform - you can freely copy a database between 32-bit and 64-bit systems or between big-endian and little-endian architectures. These features make SQLite a popular choice as an Application File Format. Think of SQLite not as a replacement for Oracle but as a replacement for fopen()
Check out the quickstart
1 Comment
Jaseem
Thanks for the quickstart link
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/static/libpq.html
libpq is the C application programmer's interface to PostgreSQL. libpq is a set of library functions that allow client programs to pass queries to the PostgreSQL backend server and to receive the results of these queries.
1 Comment
Jaseem
Thanks for the info.. My application requires to save only a small amount of data and it needs something really light. I think i will go for sqlite this time.
I would recommend SQLite. I think it is a great way of storing local data.
There are C library bindings, and its API is quite simple.
Its main advantage is that all you need is the library. You don't need a complex database server setup (as you would with PostgreSQL). Also, its footprint is quite small (it's also used a lot in mobile development world {iOS, android, others}).
Its drawback is that it doesn't handle concurrency that well. But if it is a local, simple, single-threaded application, then I guess it won't be a problem.
MySQL embedded or BerkeleyDB are other options you might want to take a look at.
answered Aug 16, 2011 at 19:52
Pablo Santa Cruz
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3 Comments
Pablo Santa Cruz
Best resources are on the link I already provided. Take a look at it. SQLite documentation is pretty decent.
Jaseem
App will have to handle multi threaded situations :( I am making a small chat server in c.
Pablo Santa Cruz
Then I would recommend serializing access to database file with only one thread handling all of it, or using a more robust product (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, BerkeleyDB).
SQLite is a lightweight database. This page describes the C language interface:
SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. SQLite is the most widely deployed SQL database engine in the world. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain.
1 Comment
Jaseem
Okey, seems like this is the right option.. Digging on it already
SQLite is a popular choice because it's light-weight and speedy. It also offers a C/C++ interface (including a bunch of other languages).
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Everyone else has already mentioned SQLite, so I'll counter with dbm:
http://linux.die.net/man/3/dbm_open
It's not quite as fancy as SQLite (e.g, it's not a full SQL database), but it's often easier to work with from C, as it requires less setup.
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Jaseem
I need the simplest option available.. Dont really care about the performance since application size is small.