sqflite_android

The Android implementation of the sqflite plugin.

SpatiaLite support

Since 3.0.0, this plugin's native SQLite engine is org.spatialite.database.SQLiteDatabase (a SpatiaLite-enabled, API-compatible fork of android.database.sqlite.SQLiteDatabase) instead of the Android framework's built-in SQLite, so that sqflite can support spatial storage, indexing and querying (package:sqflite's openSpatialDatabase and SqfliteDatabaseSpatialiteExt — see its doc/spatial_migration_example.md). The MethodChannel wire protocol is unchanged: existing non-spatial code using sqflite continues to work without modification.

This is a native-engine swap affecting every consumer of this plugin, not just applications using spatial features — see the trade-offs below.

Native binary provenance

The vendored dependency is io.github.ev-map:android-spatialite (version 2.3.0-alpha), published to Maven Central (immutable/signed), a fork of dalgarins/android-spatialite itself derived from sevar83/android-spatialite. It bundles:

• SQLite 3.49.1
• SpatiaLite 4.3.0a
• GEOS 3.4.2
• Proj4 4.8.0
• lwgeom 2.2.0

all under the Apache License 2.0 (the library itself is a direct fork of AOSP's own android.database.sqlite sources, also Apache 2.0 — see its file headers).

Verify this is still the latest/appropriate version before relying on it in production; the project moves quickly (multiple releases in late 2025) and a newer release may be available.

Trade-offs to be aware of

• minSdk raised from 19 to 21 — required by the vendored library. Any app whose users are on Android 19/20 devices will need to stay on sqflite_android 2.x.
• APK/AAB size increase — roughly 6MB per ABI for the bundled native library, applied to every app using this plugin, whether or not it uses spatial features.
• Verified on a real Android 16 (API 36) emulator: all 8 spatial operations work correctly end-to-end (metadata init, WKT insert/round-trip, distance, nearest, contains, intersects, bounding-box, v1->v2 migration), and 12 of 14 pre-existing non-spatial integration tests pass unchanged. Two confirmed regressions were found in that same run (not yet fixed):
  • androidSetLocale / COLLATE LOCALIZED no longer reorders rows by locale — this engine's connection doesn't wire up Android's ICU-based collation the way the framework SQLite does. Apps relying on locale-aware sort order are affected.
  • openReadOnlyDatabase on a non-existent file no longer throws — it now silently opens (and presumably creates) the file instead of failing, unlike the framework SQLite.
  • Open-failure error code: org.spatialite.database's native open path does not throw the Android-specific SQLiteCantOpenDatabaseException subclass, so a failed open now surfaces as a generic SQLITE_ERROR rather than the more specific ERROR_OPEN_FAILED code sqflite_android previously reported for that case.
  • The full sqflite_common_test conformance suite (beyond the two integration test files exercised here) has not been run against a real device; treat that as the remaining gate before shipping to production.