8

I'm developing an app using ionic framework, and it will fetch some data from an API which was built using laravel, save it in a database so when the user is offline he can continue use the app, I did a little research on the internet and found a plugin called pouchDB, is it recommended for what I need? what is the best way to do it?

Stack two
  • 531
  • 2
  • 12
  • 27

2 Answers2

13

Depending on the amount of data you wish to cache, you can save it in local storage.

The logic would be like this:

  1. Make an $http request to your API
  2. In the .success stringify the response and store in local storage
  3. In the .error parse the stored local storage response
  4. Populate the same $scope variable from both the .success and .error

This way if your requests succeed (the device has internet and the API is functional) the data is stored. Otherwise, the requests fail (no internet or other reason), use the stored data.

An example of this can be seen here:

https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2014/06/saving-data-with-ionicframework/

However, like mentioned in a previous answer, PouchDB is a great option if you have a CouchDB database setup. Here are a few Ionic tutorials for syncing solutions:

https://www.thepolyglotdeveloper.com/2014/12/syncing-data-firebase-using-ionic-framework/ http://devgirl.org/2014/12/30/sync-data-using-pouchdb-in-your-ionic-framework-app/

Regards,

Nic Raboy
  • 3,143
  • 24
  • 26
5

PouchDb is sure a good solution to provide data synchronization to your app. But depending from what you need to do you could choose between several PaaS that provide natively data synchronization and offline capabilities(along with many other features like oAuth2 authentication and push notification).

I have worked with a few i can suggest:

  1. Parse
  2. Firebase
  3. Microsoft Azure mobile services

All these platforms provide clients to work with for all native mobile environments and javascript.

Riccardo
  • 1,490
  • 2
  • 12
  • 22
  • Thank you for your help Riccardo, one question, can PouchDb sync the data from any API or it only works with CouchDb? Because my API was built using laravel, I'm pretty new to ionic, I appreciate your patience – Stack two Feb 19 '15 at 16:10
  • Hi @Stacktwo, your backend must support the couchDB replication protocol. This issue is not related to your API or ionic but to your dbms(maybe you use MySQL?) – Riccardo Feb 19 '15 at 16:13
  • 1
    @Stacktwo i suggest you to sync your data to a couchDB instance periodically and work with it. – Riccardo Feb 19 '15 at 16:15
  • 1
    I've had good success with a proof-of-concept using pouchDB and IBM Cloudant (I work for IBM). – Chris Snow Feb 19 '15 at 16:45
  • @SHC Can I use pouchDB in ionic app & mysql at server & sync them? – Anjana Oct 05 '16 at 07:27
  • PouchDB syncs with couchdb or equivalent environments. It will not sync to mysql. – Chris Snow Oct 05 '16 at 08:00
  • @SHC are you sure? Can you provide me some link for the same? – Anjana Oct 05 '16 at 08:50
  • Actually My Admin panel is ready using MySQL. Now i need to create the ionic app. I need to sync data between app & server online offline both. I was thinking of using pouchDB but as you said I can't sync pouchDB & MySQL then what can be the alternative? How I can sync data? – Anjana Oct 05 '16 at 09:14
  • @SHC please let me know if we can chat? – Anjana Oct 05 '16 at 09:27
  • @nGy sure - visit http://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/124974/pouchdb-sync – Chris Snow Oct 05 '16 at 10:17
  • The problem with Parse is that the JS SDK doesn't support offline capabilities yet... :-/ – PAD Sep 09 '17 at 22:25