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Couchbase Lite with .NET for Xamarin Forms Developers

Couchbase Mobile brings the power of NoSQL to the edge. It is comprised of three components:

  • Couchbase Lite, an embedded, NoSQL JSON Document Style database for your mobile apps
  • Sync Gateway, an internet-facing synchronization mechanism that securely syncs data between mobile clients and server, and
  • Couchbase Server, a highly scalable, distributed NoSQL database platform

Couchbase Mobile supports flexible deployment models. You can deploy:

  • Couchbase Lite as a standalone embedded database within your mobile apps or,
  • Couchbase Lite enabled mobile clients with a Sync Gateway to synchronize data between your mobile clients or,
  • Couchbase Lite enabled clients with a Sync Gateway to sync data between mobile clients and the Couchbase Server, which can persist data in the cloud (public or private)

In this learning path you will get started with the Couchbase Lite .NET SDK using a Xamarin Forms mobile app. You will learn how to get and insert documents using the key-value engine, query the database using the QueryBuilder engine, and learn how to sync information between your mobile app and a Couchbase Server using Sync Gateway.

Prerequisites

Before you get started you should take the following prerequisites into consideration:

  • This learning path assumes familiarity with building apps with Xamarin, more specifically Xamarin.Forms using C# and XAML.

  • For iOS/Mac development, you will need a Mac running MacOS 11 or 12

  • iOS/Mac (Xcode 12/13) - Download latest version from the Mac App Store or via Xcodes

Note: If you are using an older version of Xcode, which you need to retain for other development needs, make a copy of your existing version of Xcode and install the latest Xcode version. That way you can have multiple versions of Xcode on your Mac. More information can be found in Apple's Developer Documentation. The open source Xcodes project simplifies this process.

  • For Android development SDK version 22 or higher. You can manage your Android SDK version in Visual Studio.
  • For Universal Windows Platform (UWP) development, a Windows computer running Windows 10 1903 or higher.

Note: You can not edit or debug UWP projects with Visual Studio for Mac and you can't edit or debug Mac projects with Visual Studio for PC.

  • Visual Studio for Mac or PC.

  • curl HTTP client

    • You could use any HTTP client of your choice, but we will use curl in our learning path. Download latest version from curl website. MacOS Package manager users can use homebrew. Windows Package Manager users can use winget.
  • Docker
    • We will be using Docker to run images of both Couchbase Server and the Sync Gateway — to download Docker, or for more information, see: Get Docker.

Agenda

  • Quickstart in Couchbase Lite with C#, .NET, and Xamarin Forms
  • Quickstart in Couchbase Lite Query with C#, .NET, and Xamarin Forms
  • Quickstart in Couchbase Lite Data Sync with C#, .NET, and Xamarin Forms
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