UWP - Check if table exists - c#

There is a lack of documentation for SQLite in C# on the SQLite website related to the "SQLite for Universal Windows Platform" extension available in VS2015.
Has anyone seen any documentation specific to this extension?
I am trying to see whether a table exists in my DB but cannot find a method to do this.
This is what I am doing and why:
SQLite.Net.SQLiteConnection conn;
string path = path.Combine(Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.Path, "entries.sqlite");
if (!System.IO.File.Exists(path))
{
conn = new SQLite.Net.SQLiteConnection(new SQLite.Net.Platform.WinRT.SQLitePlatformWinRT(), path);
conn.CreateTable<Entry>();
}
else
{
conn = new SQLite.Net.SQLiteConnection(new SQLite.Net.Platform.WinRT.SQLitePlatformWinRT(), path);
}
I do this because when this is executed:
conn = new SQLite.Net.SQLiteConnection(new SQLite.Net.Platform.WinRT.SQLitePlatformWinRT(), path);
The file is created if it does not exist. So first I need to test whether it exists. My assumption is that if the file exists, my table exists, because there is no scenario where the table is not created right after the file is created.
Am I missing some more direct way of testing for the table within the scope of the methods provided?
Thanks!
PS. I have checked whether my question has been answered but have not found anything related directly to this API.

You can use a query of the system sqlite_master table to see if a table with a given name exists:
var tableQuery = "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='Entry';"
bool tableExists = conn.ExecuteScalar<int>( tableQuery ) == 1;
If the table is not present, the query will return 0, if it is present, it will return 1.
However, you don't have to worry about calling conn.CreateTable<Entry>(); even when the table already exists. SQLite.net is smart enough to create the table only when it does not exist yet. If the table is already in the database, this call will be ignored.

Generic solution:
public bool TableIsExists<T>(SQLiteConnection conn)
{
var q = "SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name=?";
var cmd = conn.CreateCommand(q, typeof(T).Name);
return cmd.ExecuteScalar<string>() != null;
}

Related

C# claims my SQLite table doesn't exist but it does

I'm trying to read a table I created with DB Browser for SQLite, but there's a runtime error claiming the database doesn't have the table. But it does! I created it and I can see it in DB Browser.
Here's the code:
private void PopulateGridCustomers()
{
String conString = Properties.Resources.database;
var con = new SqliteConnection(conString);
try
{
con.Open();
Console.WriteLine(con.State);
SqliteCommand cmd = con.CreateCommand();
cmd.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM Clientes";
using (SqlCeDataAdapter dataAdapter = new SqlCeDataAdapter(cmd.CommandText, conString))
{
DataTable dt = new DataTable();
dataAdapter.Fill(dt);
gridCustomers.DataSource = dt;
}
}
And a picture showing the table exists indeed:
What could be causing this issue and how to fix it?
Thanks
P.S.: Please cut me some slack, I'm not a professional developer. I code for myself.
Update: Here's the actual error message:
System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeException: 'The specified table does not exist.
[ Clientes ]'
UPDATE 2:
Here's the path of the database:
Data Source=C:\Users\charl\OneDrive\Documentos\SBM\Database\SBMTeste.db;
As you can see, it is the very same that shows in DB Browser window. The error I first described occurs if I omit the ".db". If I put the file extension in the string, the following error is thrown:
System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeException: 'The database file may be corrupted.
Run the repair utility to check the database file.
[ Database name = C:\Users\charl\OneDrive\Documentos\SBM\Database\SBMTeste.db ]'
UPDATE 3:
Here's the CREATE statement of the table:
CREATE TABLE "Clientes" (
"id" INTEGER NOT NULL UNIQUE,
"nome" TEXT NOT NULL,
"telefone1" TEXT,
"telefone2" TEXT,
"email" TEXT,
"endereço" TEXT,
"bairro" TEXT,
"cidade" TEXT,
"data_nascimento" TEXT,
"data_cadastro" TEXT DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
PRIMARY KEY("id" AUTOINCREMENT),
UNIQUE("nome","data_nascimento")
)
The thing is I messed up when trying to install the packages needed for my application to work with the SQlite database. I endend up installing a lot of unnecessary things and missing using System.Data.SQLite. That way my application was not being able to recognize the .db file hence the "corrupted file" message described in my 3rd update.
SQL Server CE is not SQLite.
This is an extract of my code using SQLite:
public Equity SearchEquityByEpic(string epic)
{
string query = string.Format("SELECT * from " + Tables.ASSETS_TABLE + " WHERE epic='{0}'", epic);
Log(query);
var command = _connection.CreateCommand(query);
var equities = command.ExecuteQuery<Equity>();
if (equities.Count == 0)
{
return null;
}
Equity ret = equities.First();
return ret;
}

Backup SQL Server Schema With Data

I've been tasked with creating a backup of the data in our "default schema" database dbo to the same database using a new schema called dbobackup.
I honestly do not understand what this means as far as a database goes. Apparently, it is like having a database backup inside the existing database. I guess there is some advantage to doing that.
Anyway, I can't seem to find anywhere online that will allow me to do this.
I have found a few posts on here about copying the schema without data, but I need the data too.
Backup SQL Schema Only?
How do I check to see if a schema exists, delete it if it does, and then create a schema that accepts data in the current database?
Once I have the new schema created, can I dump data in there with a simple command like this?
SELECT * INTO [dbobackup].Table1 FROM [dbo].Table1;
That line only backs up one table, though. If I need to do this to 245 tables for this particular customer, I'd need a script.
We have several customers, too, and their databases are not structured identically.
Could I do something along these lines?
I was thinking about creating a small console program to walk through the tables.
How would I modify something like the code below to do what I want?
public static void Backup(string sqlConnection)
{
using (var conn = new SqlConnection(sqlConnection))
{
conn.Open();
var tables = new List<String>();
var sqlSelectTables = "SELECT TableName FROM [dbo];";
using (var cmd = new SqlCommand(sqlSelectTables, conn))
{
using (var r = cmd.ExecuteReader())
{
while (r.Read())
{
var item = String.Format("{0}", r["TableName"]).Trim();
tables.Add(item);
}
}
}
var fmtSelectInto = "SELECT * INTO [dbobackup].{0} FROM [dbo].{0}; ";
using (var cmd = new SqlCommand(null, conn))
{
foreach (var item in tables)
{
cmd.CommandText = String.Format(fmtSelectInto, item);
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
}
}
}
SQL Server already has this built in. If you open SQL Server Management Studio and right click on the database you want to back up, then select all tasks then backup, you will get an option to back up your database into an existing database.
This is the important part and why you should use the built in functionality: You must copy the data from one DB to the other DB in the correct order or you'll get foreign key errors all over the place. If you have a lot of data tables with a lot of relationships, this will really be hard to nail down on your own. You could write code to make a complete graph of all of the dependencies and then figure out what order to copy the table data (which is essentially what SQL Server already does).
Additionally, there are third-party programs available to do this type of backup as well (see: Google).
This is sort of a "work in progress" approach I got started with that looks promising:
public static void CopyTable(
string databaseName, // i.e. Northwind
string tableName, // i.e. Employees
string schema1, // i.e. dbo
string schema2, // i.e. dboarchive
SqlConnection sqlConn)
{
var conn = new Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Common.ServerConnection(sqlConn);
var server = new Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server(conn);
var db = new Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Database(server, databaseName);
db.Tables.Refresh();
for (var itemId = 0; itemId < db.Tables.Count; itemId++)
{
var table = db.Tables.ItemById(itemId);
if (table.Name == tableName)
{
table.Schema = String.Format("{0}", DatabaseSchema.dboarchive);
table.Create();
}
}
}
The only issue I am currently running into is that my db variable always comes back with Tables.Count == 0.
If I get a chance to fix this, I will update.
For now, I've been told to remove this piece of code and check my code in.

Check if table exists in c#

I want to read data from a table whose name is supplied by a user. So before actually starting to read data, I want to check if the database exists or not.
I have seen several pieces of code on the NET which claim to do this. However, they all seem to be work only for SQL server, or for mysql, or some other implementation. Is there not a generic way to do this?
(I am already seperately checking if I can connect to the supplied database, so I'm fairly certain that a connection can be opened to the database.)
You cannot do this in a cross-database way. Generally DDL (that is, the code for creating tables, indexes and so on) is completely different from database to database and so the logic for checking whether tables exist is also different.
I would say the simplest answer, though, would simply be something like:
SELECT * FROM <table> WHERE 1 = 0
If that query gives an error, then the table doesn't exist. If it works (though it'll return 0 rows) then the table exists.
Be very careful with what you let the user input, though. What's to stop him from from specifying "sysusers" as the table name (in SQL Server, that'll be the list of all database users)
You can use the DbConnection.GetSchema family of methods to retreive metadata about the database. It will return a DataTable with schema objects. The exact object types and restriction values may vary from vendor to vendor, but I'm sure you can set up your check for a specific table in a way that will work in most databases.
Here's an example of using GetSchema that will print the name and owner of every table that is owned by "schema name" and called "table name". This is tested against oracle.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string providerName = #"System.Data.OracleClient";
string connectionString = #"...";
DbProviderFactory factory = DbProviderFactories.GetFactory(providerName);
using (DbConnection connection = factory.CreateConnection())
{
connection.ConnectionString = connectionString;
connection.Open();
DataTable schemaDataTable = connection.GetSchema("Tables", new string[] { "schema name", "table name" });
foreach (DataColumn column in schemaDataTable.Columns)
{
Console.Write(column.ColumnName + "\t");
}
Console.WriteLine();
foreach (DataRow row in schemaDataTable.Rows)
{
foreach (object value in row.ItemArray)
{
Console.Write(value.ToString() + "\t");
}
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
}
That's like asking "is there a generic way to get related data" in databases. The answer is of course no - the only "generic way" is to have a data layer that hides the implementation details of your particular data source and queries it appropriately.
If you are really supporting and accessing many different types of databases without a Stategy design pattern or similar approach I would be quite surprised.
That being said, the best approach is something like this bit of code:
bool exists;
try
{
// ANSI SQL way. Works in PostgreSQL, MSSQL, MySQL.
var cmd = new OdbcCommand(
"select case when exists((select * from information_schema.tables where table_name = '" + tableName + "')) then 1 else 0 end");
exists = (int)cmd.ExecuteScalar() == 1;
}
catch
{
try
{
// Other RDBMS. Graceful degradation
exists = true;
var cmdOthers = new OdbcCommand("select 1 from " + tableName + " where 1 = 0");
cmdOthers.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
catch
{
exists = false;
}
}
Source: Check if a SQL table exists
You can do something like this:
string strCheck = "SHOW TABLES LIKE \'tableName\'";
cmd = new MySqlCommand(strCheck, connection);
if (connection.State == ConnectionState.Closed)
{
connection.Open();
}
cmd.Prepare();
var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader();
if (reader.HasRows)
{
Console.WriteLine("Table Exist!");
}
else (reader.HasRows)
{
Console.WriteLine("Table Exist!");
}

how to compare elements in a string with the database table values

In my project i have to give a string input through a text field, and i have to fill a database table with these values. I should first check the values of a specific table column, and add the input string only if it is not there in the table already.
I tried to convert the table values to a string array, but it wasn,t possible.
If anyone have an idea about this, your reply will be really valuable.
Thankx in advance.
Since you say your strings in the database table must be unique, just put a unique index on that field and let the database handle the problem.
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX UIX_YourTableName_YourFieldName
ON dbo.YourTableName(YourFieldName)
Whenever you will try to insert another row with the same string, SQL Server (or any other decent RDBMS) will throw an exception and not insert the value. Problem solved.
If you need to handle the error on the front-end GUI already, you'll need to load the existing entries from your database, using whatever technology you're familiar with, e.g. in ADO.NET (C#, SQL Server) you could do something like:
public List<string> FindExistingValues()
{
List<string> results = new List<string>();
string getStringsCmd = "SELECT (YourFieldName) FROM dbo.YourTableName";
using(SqlConnection _con = new SqlConnection("your connection string here"))
using(SqlCommand _cmd = new SqlCommand(getStringsCmd, _con)
{
_con.Open();
using(SqlDataReader rdr = _con.ExecuteReader())
{
while(rdr.Read())
{
results.Add(rdr.GetString(0));
}
rdr.Close();
}
_con.Close();
}
return results;
}
You would get back a List<string> from that method and then you could check in your UI whether a given string already exists in the list:
List<string> existing = FindExistingValues();
if(!existing.Contains(yournewstring))
{
// store the new value to the database
}
Or third option: you could write a stored procedure that will handle the storing of your new string. Inside it, first check to see whether the string already exists in the database
IF NOT EXISTS(SELECT * FROM dbo.YourTableName WHERE YourFieldName = '(your new string)')
INSERT INTO dbo.YourTableName(YourFieldName) VALUES(your-new-string-here)
and if not, insert it - you'll just need to find a strategy how to deal with the cases where the new string being passed in did indeed already exist (ignore it, or report back an error of some sorts).
Lots of options - up to you which one works best in your scenario!

Check if a SQL table exists

What's the best way to check if a table exists in a Sql database in a database independant way?
I came up with:
bool exists;
const string sqlStatement = #"SELECT COUNT(*) FROM my_table";
try
{
using (OdbcCommand cmd = new OdbcCommand(sqlStatement, myOdbcConnection))
{
cmd.ExecuteScalar();
exists = true;
}
}
catch
{
exists = false;
}
Is there a better way to do this? This method will not work when the connection to the database fails. I've found ways for Sybase, SQL server, Oracle but nothing that works for all databases.
bool exists;
try
{
// ANSI SQL way. Works in PostgreSQL, MSSQL, MySQL.
var cmd = new OdbcCommand(
"select case when exists((select * from information_schema.tables where table_name = '" + tableName + "')) then 1 else 0 end");
exists = (int)cmd.ExecuteScalar() == 1;
}
catch
{
try
{
// Other RDBMS. Graceful degradation
exists = true;
var cmdOthers = new OdbcCommand("select 1 from " + tableName + " where 1 = 0");
cmdOthers.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
catch
{
exists = false;
}
}
If you're trying for database independence you will have to assume a minimum standard. IIRC The ANSI INFORMATION_SCHEMA views are required for ODBC conformance, so you could query against them like:
select count (*)
from information_schema.tables
where table_name = 'foobar'
Given that you are using ODBC, you can also use various ODBC API calls to retrieve this metadata as well.
Bear in mind that portability equates to write-once test anywhere so you are still going to have to test the application on every platform you intend to support. This means that you are inherently limited to a finite number of possible database platforms as you only have so much resource for testing.
The upshot is that you need to find a lowest common denominator for your application (which is quite a lot harder than it looks for SQL) or build a platform-dependent section where the non-portable functions can be plugged in on a per-platform basis.
I don't think that there exists one generic way that works for all Databases, since this is something very specific that depends on how the DB is built.
But, why do you want to do this using a specific query ?
Can't you abstract the implementation away from what you want to do ?
I mean: why not create a generic interface, which has among others, a method called 'TableExists( string tablename )' for instance.
Then, for each DBMS that you want to support , you create a class which implements this interface, and in the TableExists method, you write specific logic for this DBMS.
The SQLServer implementation will then contain a query which queries sysobjects.
In your application, you can have a factory class which creates the correct implementation for a given context, and then you just call the TableExists method.
For instance:
IMyInterface foo = MyFactory.CreateMyInterface (SupportedDbms.SqlServer);
if( foo.TableExists ("mytable") )
...
I think this is how I should do it.
I fully support Frederik Gheysels answer. If you have to support multiple database systems, you should implement your code against an abstract interface with specific implementations per database system. There are many more examples of incompatible syntax than just checking for an existing table (e.g.: limiting the query to a certain number of rows).
But if you really have to perform the check using the exception handling from your example, you should use the following query that is more efficient than a COUNT(*) because the database has no actual selection work to do:
SELECT 1 FROM my_table WHERE 1=2
I would avoid executing the select count(x) from xxxxxx as the DBMS will actually go ahead and do it which may take some time for a large table.
Instead just prepare a select * from mysterytable query. The prepare will fail if mysterytable does not exist. There is no need to actually execute the prepared statement.
The following works well for me...
private bool TableExists(SqlConnection conn, string database, string name)
{
string strCmd = null;
SqlCommand sqlCmd = null;
try
{
strCmd = "select case when exists((select '['+SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id)+'].['+name+']' As name FROM [" + database + "].sys.tables WHERE name = '" + name + "')) then 1 else 0 end";
sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(strCmd, conn);
return (int)sqlCmd.ExecuteScalar() == 1;
}
catch { return false; }
}
In current project on my job I need to write 'data agent' which would support a lot of database types.
So I decided to do next: write a base class with the base (database independent) functionality using virtual methods and override in subclasses all database-specific moments
Very Simple
use YOUR_DATABASE --OPTIONAL
SELECT count(*) as Exist from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES where table_name = 'YOUR_TABLE_NAME'
If the answer is 1, There is a table.
If the answer is 0, There is no table.
If you want to avoid try-catch solutions, I'm suggesting this method, using sys.tables
private bool IsTableExisting(string table)
{
string command = $"select * from sys.tables";
using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(Constr))
using (SqlCommand com = new SqlCommand(command, con))
{
SqlDataReader reader = com.ExecuteReader();
while (reader.Read())
{
if (reader.GetString(0).ToLower() == table.ToLower())
return true;
}
reader.Close();
}
return false;
}

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