What is SQLite in Android?

SQLite is an Open Source Database which is embedded into Android. SQLite supports standard relational database features like SQL syntax, transactions and prepared statements. In addition it requires only little memory at runtime (approx. 250 KByte).

SQLite supports the data types TEXT (similar to String in Java), INTEGER (similar to long in Java) and REAL(similar to double in Java). All other types must be converted into one of these fields before saving them in the database. SQLite itself does not validate if the types written to the columns are actually of the defined type, e.g. you can write an integer into a string column and vice versa.

Access to an SQLite database involves accessing the filesystem. This can be slow. Therefore it is recommended to perform database operations asynchronously, for example via the AsyncTask class.

If your application creates a database, this database is saved in the directoryDATA/data/APP_NAME/databases/FILENAME.

The parts of the above directory are constructed based on the following rules. DATA is the path which theEnvironment.getDataDirectory() method returns. APP_NAME is your application name. FILENAME is the name you specify in your application code for the database.