Debugging sqlite database on the device

android sqlite adb
Primal Pappachan picture Primal Pappachan · Aug 3, 2011 · Viewed 79.6k times · Source

I am presently working on an WiFi application for Android. I am having trouble trying to access the database on the device. Debugging in the emulator doesn't work for me, because there is no WiFi support in the emulator. I tried pulling the database file out of the device by using 

adb pull data/data/package-name/databases/database-name

But I get the error "Permission denied.". In this answer Android: Where are database files stored?, Commonsware has suggested to pull database file by running in debug mode. But it doesn't work too. Any help on how to debug the database without rooting the device would be much appreciated.

Answer

Idolon picture Idolon · Dec 8, 2011

I'll repeat myself from another answer:

Starting from API level 8 (Android 2.2), if you build the application as debuggable, you can use the shell run-as command to run a command or executable as a specific user/application or just switch to the UID of your application so you can access its data directory.

So if you wish to pull your application database from the device you should run the debug build of the application, connect with adb shell and run the following command:

run-as com.yourpackage sh -c "cat ~/databases/db-file" > /sdcard/db-file.sqlite

This will copy your db-file to the root of your SD card / external storage. Now you can easily get it from there by using file manager, adb pull or whatever else you like. Note that with this approach, there is NO need for your app to have WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission, as the copying is done by the shell user who can always write to the external storage.

On Linux/Mac systems there is a possibility to copy a database directly to your computer with the following command one can use without entering the adb shell:

adb shell 'run-as com.yourpackage sh -c "cat ~/databases/db-file"' > db-file.sqlite

This however will not work correctly on Windows because of CR/LF symbols conversion. Use the former method there.

Related questions

How do I view the SQLite database on an Android device?

I have a set of data in an SQLite database. I need to view the database on a device. How do I do that? I have checked in ddms mode. The data in file explorer is empty.

Read More
How to check database on not rooted android device

I am developing an app where i am using sqllite3 database to store values. I have Nexus S and Nexus 7 both are unrooted devices. How can i get the database for my app for debugging purpose. I have tried (1) I …

Read More
SQLite in Android How to update a specific row

I've been trying to update a specific row for a while now, and it seems that there are two ways to do this. From what I've read and tried, you can just use the: execSQL(String sql) method or the: …

Read More