ZDatabase - Unity Database

Tired of those hard to use, long learning curve database packages for Unity? Need something quick and easy, that can store almost anything you can think of?

ZDatabase supports:
* Saving strings, int, float, Guid, Vector2, Vector3, Vector4, and more
* Read / Write functions that are easy to use. No pre-setup required
* Works on all platforms (including Consoles!). PC, Android, iOS, Wii, XBox 360, and PS3
* Encryption functions available as well. Every functions has an encrypted alternative as well. Encryption uses Rijndael 128 bit encryption

Demo scene included.

If you need any additional data types added, feel free to send a PM or post in the forum, and I will include in the next release.

http://u3d.as/content/rocket-games/zdatabase-unity-database/3G7

 

Quite interested in this. I have a project which is going to have to do some data visualisation of integer data recorded every day for an Android and iOS app. I was wondering what sort of performance limitations i'm going to have when it comes to long term use...

e.g. how many records can it store and 'SELECT * from recordedInts WHERE data > start and date < finish' and whats sort of response times will say 1000 records take to pull out?

Sorry for the crappy SQL pseudo but its easier to convey my need.

 

Hello TechinalSam,

That is a very good question. I put together a quick test to demonstrate write / read speed. I had it insert 100,000 records, then read the first, middle, and last records.

Insert speed does decrease as the number of record increases. I noticed the insert speed decrease around 60K records. At this time, it was inserting 150 records in about 800ms.

I ran this test on an Android Samsung Galaxy S2 phone. Speed should be comparable on a iPhone 4S.

Total time to insert 100,000 records: 402,085ms (40.2 seconds)
Read time for first record: 0ms
Read time for 50,000th record: 15ms
Read time for 100,000th record: 33ms

The issue with the inserts is that the database has to be expanded to handle new records. All databases have to handle this, and I've done my best to optimize this for mobile devices.

I'm available if you have any further questions.

 

Works on web?

 

+1

Texture?

 

Yes, it works for web.

It does not currently support Texture, but I can add that if requested.

 

I've just uploaded a new version which supports Texture2D. It should be approved and in the asset store later today or tomorrow.

 

Does it support SQL syntax?
If it supports web player, where and how is the actual data stored?

I'm looking at this specifically for a web player solution.

 

ZDatabase uses functions for each data type. I'm attaching the current documentation, so you can see how it works.

 

Ok I went through the documentation.
Aside from offering encryption, which is fairly trivial to implement, what does this package offer over simply using playerprefs to read and write data values?

 

The advantages are being able to quickly save / retrieve objects of different data types, without having to write your own custom serializers (since PlayerPrefs only gives you Int, Float, and String). The same advantages you will have with almost every PlayerPref alternative on the asset store.

If you need to use SQL statements, there are a few good embedded SQL databases on the asset store. I'm providing ZDatabase as an alternative to PlayerPrefs, and to make it easier for people to save/retrieve objects.

As I've already previously stated (and demonstrated above), if you need additional object types to be included, I'm happy to add them into new releases.

 

is this used for local database/remote database?

 

The database is stored on the same device as the game.

 

I just bought this thinking it was a full database but it looks like you can only store one field per record. Is that correct? Is there any way that I can store a bunch of fields in each record? (other that faking it by encoding it myself).

 

Can you give me an example of what you're trying to do? Are you wanting to store an array / List to a field, or something else?

I'm happy to add additional functionality and/or data types to ZDatabase.

 

Seems quite cool for single player games - and its cheap. Might buy it to save some time of doing it all myself!

 

dumb question i iknow but work with javascript variables?

 

Yes, it works with JavaScript as well.

 

Looks really good. Does this also work with Flash .

 

Yes, ZDatabase does work with Flash as well

 

Great, do you know how it performs on Flash.

 

I assume you mean performance-wise?

I had previously answered a question about performance on mobile devices (see page one of this thread). I re-ran the test on a laptop (quad core 2.6 GHz, Windows 7, 8 GB RAM).

I had it insert 100,000 records, then read the first, middle, and last records.

As I explained in the previous post, insert speed does decrease as the number of records increase. The issue with the inserts is that the database has to be expanded to handle new records. All databases have to handle this, and I've done my best to optimize this for mobile devices.

Total time to insert 100,000 records: 154,042ms (15.4 seconds)
Read time for first record: 0ms
Read time for 50,000th record: 4ms
Read time for 100,000th record: 9ms


I'm available if you have any further questions.

 

Thanks.

1. Are you including code to access the Database, some sort of SQL-like language to access the data ?

2. What is the recommended best practice to store/retrieve a list of hierarchical data of different types ?

 

it will be helpful if it works on web player builds to use textures and texts

 

1. It is not SQL-like language, but a function for each object type. I linked the PDF documentation in the original post, and on the Asset Store page. For example, to write a Vector3, you would do:
ZDatabase.Write("Name of Vector3 Object", Vector3);


2. For lists, there are three choices:
a. Serialize the data to a byte array, then save using the byte[] overload of Write. ZDatabase.Write("Data Name", byte[]);
b. Save each item in the list individually. First, you save the length of the list, then loop through each item.
ZDatabase.Write("List Length", List.Length);
for (i=0; i<List.Length; i++)
ZDatabase.Write(string.Format("List Item {0}", i), List);

c. Let me know what type of list you have, and I can add a Write function to handle it.

 

The last update of ZDatabase included support for Texture2D.

 

So I purchased this database and now I'm wondering what the best way to input records is. Is there a way to use a web browser to do it, or do we have to do this all by hand? I guess I should have looked this up before I purchased, but I was under the impression there was something available for easy record input to build the database.

If not, then what would be the best way to build the database, especially if I'm looking at a thousand records for items (weapons, armor, trinkets, etc.) as well as NPCs and the like? I read the documentation which is good at describing how to use the commands, but it doesn't really get into creating the database in the first place.

 

The general method is to create a script that runs when the game loads (or perhaps delay running it until the player is at the start screen). The script will first check if the database is created, and if not, will create the default records.

You could use something like:

if (! ZDatabase.ReadBool("DefaultRecordsCreated", false))
{
// the default records have not been created, so begin creating them here

// the final line should set the created flag, so this block will not run more than once
ZDatabase.Write("DefaultRecordsCreated", true);
}


You can simply use the ZDatabase Write functions to create the records.

 

So there's no way to interact with the database outside of the game? Entering that many items in Unity is going to be difficult and I wonder if I made a mistake in buying this.

Can records be a combination of things?

For instance:

Item #: 1 (int)
Name: Sword (string)
Quality: rare (int)
Damage Low End: 1 (int)
Damage High End: 10 (int)
Graphic: sprite (gui object)
Model: sword prefab (prefab)

I would know how to set this up in a normal database, but I'm at a loss as to how to do it here, and even finding records I'm not sure about.

Sorry for the trouble, I should have done more research in the beginning.

 

Yes, records can be combinations. Below is an excerpt from an private message between myself and a user of ZDatabase. You can use this same principle for creating complex records in ZDatabase.


We'll create a class that only holds properties for each data item:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public class PlayerStats
3. {
4.    public Guid UniqueID {get; set;}
5.    public string Firstname {get; set; }
6.    public string Lastname {get; set;}
7.  
8.    // etc....
9. }
10.  

Then, we would add two functions to the class - serialize and deserialize, which will convert the class into a string (or binary array), and convert it back to the original class. Unity Pro supports true .NET serialization, but in general you want to avoid that since it takes much longer and includes more data than you need. Using the methods below works with both the Free and Pro versions of Unity...

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public string Serialize()
3. {
4.    return string.Format("{0}|{1}|{2}", UniqueID.ToString(), Firstname, Lastname);
5. }
6.  
7. public static PlayerStats Deserialize(string serializedData)
8. {
9.    // split the string
10.    string[] tempStr = serializedData.Split('|');
11.  
12.    // create the return object
13.    PlayerStats retVal = new PlayerStats
14.    {
15.       UniqueID = new Guid(tempStr[0]),
16.       Firstname = tempStr[1],
17.       Lastname = tempStr[2]
18.    };
19.  
20.    return PlayerStats;
21. }
22.  

Once you have these, you can call Serialize to save one record to the database. When you need to read the data, just call Deserialize:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. List<PlayerStats> ListOfStatsToSave = new List<PlayerStats>();
3.  
4. // ListOfStatsToSave is populated first by the app / user
5.  
6. // hold the number of records in ListOfStatsToSave
7. int StatCount = ListOfStatsToSave.Count;
8.  
9. // save the count to the database
10. ZDatabase.Write("StatCount", StatCount);
11.  
12. // save the data to the database
13. for (int i=0; i < StatCount; i++)
14. {
15.    ZDatabase.Write(string.Format("PlayerStat_{0}", i.ToString().Trim()), ListOfStatsToSave[i].Serialize());
16. }
17.  

When you want to read the data later:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. // get the stat count
3. int StatCount = ZDatabase.ReadInt("StatCount", 0);
4.  
5. // holds the list of stats
6. List<PlayerStats> ListOfStats = new List<PlayerStats>();
7.  
8. // read data from the database
9. for (int i=0; i < StatCount; i++)
10. {
11.    ListOfStats.Add(
12.       PlayerStats.Deserialize(
13.          ZDatabase.ReadString("string.Format("PlayerStat_{0 }", i.ToString().Trim())));
14. }
15.  

Hope this helps

 

Is Zdatabase able to delete key? Such as PlayerPrefs.DeleteAll or PlayerPrefs.DeleteKey

 

Good question. Previous versions did support removing any keys. However, I just submitted a new version which has two new functions - RemoveField and RemoveAllFields. These will remove a single record, and remove all records.

The new build is in Asset Store review, and should be available later today or tomorrow.

 

Thanks！

 

Has this been removed from the Unity Store?

 

It's not in Asset Store anymore.

 

Strange. He just posted a week ago that a new build was coming. I wonder what happened....

 

My apologies, there is a problem with my store account, but the Unity rep is working on it. Everything should be back up on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thank you for your patience.

 

Ok, the problem has been resolved and all assets are back online. The update for ZDatabase has also been published and should be available for download now.

Thanks

 

Does this work with the OUYA?

 

Yes, it does work on the OUYA.

 

Hi merlin,
also work with windows phone?

 

Yes, it works on Windows Phone and Windows 8 as well

 

I've tried but during the windows phone build this error is returned:

Error building Player: Exception: Error: type `System.Security.Cryptography.RijndaelManaged` doesn't exist in target framework.

At the moment for me is not strictly necessary to use encryption. You can exclude the reference to the namespace of encryption and functions for platforms that do not support it? ( ex. with #if )

 

Quick fix for this issue:

• Create a folder called Plugins
• Find System.Security.dll in the .NET Framework folder. (NOTE: Make sure you get the 2.0 version. It's usually found at: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.Security.dll)
• Copy System.Security.dll to the Plugins folder

This should resolve the issue for you. Please let me know if it does not.

 

Replacing the dll error change:

Error building Player: Exception: Error: type `System.Security.SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurityAttribute` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurityAttribute` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.Permissions.KeyContainerPermission` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.Permissions.KeyContainerPermissionAccessEntry` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.Permissions.KeyContainerPermission` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.Permissions.KeyContainerPermissionFlags` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.Permissions.KeyContainerPermissionAccessEntry` doesn't exist in target framework.
Error: type `System.Security.Permissions.KeyContainerPermissionFlags` doesn't exist in target framework.

System.Security.SuppressUnmanagedCodeSecurityAttribute is contained in mscorlib.dll that can not be overwritten because it is a dll name reserved.
Any other suggestions?

Thanks

 

Do you have .NET Framework 2.0 installed? Also, try changing your Unity project to .NET 2.0 (not .NET 2.0 subset, which is default).

My first guess is that you don't have all of the .NET Framework 2.0 installed. ZDatabase doesn't use anything extra, only what comes with .NET Framework 2.0 and what is allowed by Unity.

 

Hi Merlin,
the problem is not in the framework installed, but the wp8 target framework (everything works in the editor, is the build on phone that fails).

.NET API for Windows Phone does not support all namespaces of the "standard" .net 2.0 fwk:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj207211(v=vs.105).aspx

The only solution that I see is to exclude unsupported functionalities for this platform or find an alternative way to do them.

 

I see. Ok. I'll get a new build out later today (tomorrow at the latest), with a solution

 

Fantastic!
Thanks.

 

I've published an updated package for ZDatabase. I added a bundled package which you can extract, for using ZDatabase without encryption.

Please note, after you extract the No Encryption package, you'll need to delete the original ZDatabase folder (otherwise, you'll have duplicate name conflicts).

The package should be approved by Unity in the next few days.