Error in Firefox when making SQLite calls via Javascript

Question

Hello,

I have a site that is fully functioning in Chrome/Safari and heavily relied on SQLite to store/access data. However, when testing in Firefox, it errors on the first call, openDatabase(). This is my fairly standard openDB function:

function openDB(){
try {
    if (!window.openDatabase) {
        alert('not supported');
    } else {
        var shortName = 'tales';
        var version = '1.0';
        var displayName = 'Tall Tales Database';
        var maxSize = 65536; // in bytes
        db = openDatabase(shortName, version, displayName, maxSize); 
        // You should have a database instance in db.
    }
} catch(e) {
    // Error handling code goes here.
    if (e == 2) {
        // Version number mismatch.
        alert("Invalid database version.");
    } else {
        alert("Unknown error "+e+".");
    }
    return;
}

}

Like I said - openDatabase is undefined when I alert it, and the Unknown error that prints is "unsupported". I assume SQLite is actually supported in Firefox, am I doing something wrong or does it require browser-specific code?

Thank you! Claudia

Answer 1

Firefox doesn't have that feature. Mozilla doesn't think SQLite is appropriate for the web, so in Firefox 4 they will be instead opting for and implementing the IndexedDB spec. draft by the W3C (incl. proposals by Mozilla). Here's a nice blog post detailing the differences: http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/comparing-indexeddb-and-webdatabase/

So yes, you will have to use client specific code in order to support FF4 - at least until IndexedDB is implemented in the other major browsers. For anything before FF4, there is no support for any client database (not counting localStorage, etc.).