Inside Symbian SQL: A Mobile Developer's Guide to SQLite

Appendix B. SDB Database Creation Tool

Symbian SQL uses SQLite as a database engine and therefore database files created on the emulator or device can be read and manipulated in a desktop environment using the usual SQLite tools. However, Symbian SQL server offers some additional functionality, particularly related to Symbian platform security and the symbian_settings table, which is not directly supported by SQLite tools.

In order to simplify the task of creating databases, Symbian offers the Symbian database (SDB) tool. This appendix provides an overview, configuration reference and some examples on how to use SDB.

Note that, at the time of writing, only SDB version 1 is publicly released. SDB version 2 will add support for creating Symbian DBMS and contacts databases as well as central repository CommDB files. Functionality supported by SDBv1 is carefully preserved in SDBv2 so examples in this guide can be used with both versions.

Obtaining and Installing SDB

SDB is part of the Symbian Product Development Toolkit (PDT). The toolkit contains a set of tools for Symbian device creators and developers, and can be downloaded from developer.symbian.org.

Using SDB

SDB has a simple command-line interface:

sdb <command> [<command-specific options>]

SDBv1 requires a command, primarily for future proofing, which was clearly beneficial for SDBv2. SDBv1 supports only two commands: createdb and help. The createdb command is used as follows:

sdb createdb -x <XML file> -s <SQL file> -d <Existing DB file> ...