11

How to keep data in a NativeScript application persistent. Can anyone tell about localStorage in NativeScript?

Edit: Was looking for localStorage at the time.

Naren
  • 4,152
  • 3
  • 17
  • 28

5 Answers5

26

Your question can be read in a variety of ways, making it a bit hard to give you a good answer but I'll try:

If you want to pass data from one page to another on navigation

Create a Navigation Entry with a context

var navigationEntry = {
    moduleName: "details-page",
    context: {info: "something you want to pass to your page"},
    animated: false
};
topmost.navigate(navigationEntry);

... and on the page you're navigating to, pick up that context:

function onLoaded(args) {
    console.log(args.object.navigationContext);
}

See documentation about Navigation

If you want to create data available throughout the app

Just create a singleton and request that, just as you would in any other Javascript app.

E.g.

file: myData.js

var data = {
    something: 'a value here',
    somethingElse: 1
    somethingMany: ['a', 'b', 'c']
};

exports.data = data;

In any file where you want to read that data:

var data = require("./myData.js").data;
console.log(data);

Read more about modules in Javascript

If you want to persist data on the local device

If you want to write and read data, so that you can save it between sessions:

For non-complex data, use application-settings. E.g.

var appSettings = require("application-settings");

appSettings.setString("stringKey", "String value");  // Writing
var value = appSettings.getString("stringKey", "No string value"); // Reading
// will return "No string value" if there is no value for "stringKey"

console.log(value)

Read the docs about application-settings

You can also write a file to the device, with the file-system module, e.g.

var documents = fs.knownFolders.documents();
var path = fs.path.join(documents.path, "FileFromPath.txt");
var file = fs.File.fromPath(path);

// Writing text to the file.
file.writeText("Something")
    .then(function () {
        // Succeeded writing to the file.
    }, function (error) {
        // Failed to write to the file.
    });

Read the docs about file-system

For databases there are modules you can use, such as the nativescript-sqlite and nativescript-couchbase

Emil Oberg
  • 4,006
  • 18
  • 30
  • 1
    "If you want to persist data on the local device" Is it a good practice to store sensitive data with this approach? – jdrake May 28 '18 at 13:23
  • @JDrake this data can be read by other applications and should NOT be used to store sensitive data – itaintme Aug 22 '18 at 11:45
  • @itaintme could you elaborate? how can the data be read by other applications? on which platforms? – jdrake Sep 02 '18 at 05:57
  • 1
    @JDrake this uses unencrypted `shared preferences` on android. Any app with root level access can access this data. I haven't done much research about iOS. A lot of your users might use rooted phones and saving sensitive data like this is definitely a no brainer. Check out nativescript-securestorage though. That can be used to store sensitive data. – itaintme Sep 02 '18 at 07:15
  • But what app has root access? Isn't it already bad that an app has root access? Wouldn't this allow the said app to do worse things? (I would really like to know, no sarcasm involved) – Romain Vincent Oct 09 '19 at 16:42
9

You can use either with global.foo, it will available for whole app or you can use application-settings module

var applicationSettings = require("application-settings");
//set somewhere like this
applicationSettings.set<Number|String|Boolean>("sharedVar",1);

//get sharedVar somewhere
applicationSettings.get<Number|String|Boolean>("sharedVar");//if empty it will be null

//or if u want default value if sharedVar wasn't defined
//and if sharedVar was defined then u will get content of sharedVar
applicationSettings.get<Number|String|Boolean>("sharedVar","Default Value");

DOCS:

https://docs.nativescript.org/cookbook/application-settings

https://docs.nativescript.org/api-reference/modules/_application_settings_.html

EDIT: had typo not globals but global :D

EDIT2: change names of function from applicationSettings and link for docs

Community
  • 1
  • 1
Marek Maszay
  • 1,537
  • 1
  • 9
  • 11
6

If you install the "nativescript-localstorage" plugin,

tns plugin install nativescript-localstorage

You will then have access to both SessionStorage and LocalStorage just as if you were using a browser.


From the docs:

To set a value:

require( "nativescript-localstorage" );
localStorage.setItem('Another Plugin', 'By Master Technology');
localStorage.getItem('Another Plugin'); // Returns: "By Master Technology"

or

const LS = require( "nativescript-localstorage" );
LS.setItem('Another Plugin', 'By Master Technology');
LS.getItem('Another Plugin');  // Returns: "By Master Technology"

Disclaimer I'm the author of said plugin.

jknotek
  • 1,778
  • 2
  • 15
  • 23
Nathanael
  • 5,369
  • 18
  • 23
1

A NativeScript plugin to add LocalStorage and SessionStorage If you are trying to use any libraries that use the localStorage/sessionStorage API; or you want a fairly simple storage engine; here it is.

check nativescript-localstorage module

Usage

To use the module you just require() it:

require( "nativescript-localstorage" );

or you can also import localstorage module on your app.module or your file.

import 'nativescript-localstorage';

and then use localStorage variable on your code like below.

localStorage.setItem('Another Plugin', 'By Master Technology');

This will enable the localStorage api. So then you can use it just like a browser.

You can also optionally do:

let LS = require( "nativescript-localstorage" );
LS.getItem('Another Plugin'); // Returns: "By Master Technology"
Vinit Solanki
  • 1,863
  • 2
  • 15
  • 29
1

If you are using NS8, use "application-settings" from @nativescript/core

For example:

import * as appSettings from "@nativescript/core/application-settings";
...
appSettings.setString("token", response.token);
appSettings.setString("userId", response.user.id.toString());
appSettings.setString("email", email);
Jose Chavez
  • 115
  • 9