storage.js

This JS library will provide an asynchronous storage API that will use IndexedDB if supported ond localStorage otherwise. It makes using IndexedDB easy and transparent for the developers.

API

The API aims to be very simple and close to localStorage that is known by most web developers. That means that whatever the backend is the data store is going to be represented as a key/value store.

The API is accessible from window.storage on which the following methods can be accessed:

get(key, function callback(value) {});

set(key, value, function callback() {});

remove(key, function callback() {});

clear(function callback() {});

length(function callback(length) {});

The behaviour of the methods should be self-explanatory.

Backends

There are two backends supported natively: IndexedDB and localStorage. IndexedDB is supported by all latest major desktop browsers except Safari. Unfortunately, on mobile, the support of IndexedDB is barely existent.

LocalStorage is widely supported (~90% at time of writing) but is a synchronous API using it will slow done down the entire browser UI. It is used as a fallback backend.

WebSQL is not yet supported by default but WebSQL to IndexedDB shims can be used and should provide most if not full support. The recommended shims is https://github.com/axemclion/IndexedDBShim which provides full support except for null and undefined in structured clones. An alternative is https://github.com/facebook/IndexedDB-polyfill which has the same bugs and some more.

Examples

Storing a value:

  window.storage.set('key', 'value');

Incrementing a stored value:

  window.storage.get('key', function(value) {
    window.storage.set('key', value + 1);
  });

Clearing the database:

  window.storage.clear(function() {
    window.storage.length(function(length) {
      alert('length is equal to ' + length + ', expecting 0.');
    });
  });

Dependencies

Kamino.js is a mandatory dependency: https://github.com/tildeio/kamino.js

Kamino.js implements the structured cloned algorithm which is used by IndexedDB. Using Kamino.js implementation allows to store the same data in localStorage and IndexedDB.

Ideally, this dependency should only be needed if you want to use the localStorage backend but it happens that Chrome has a few bugs with IndexedDB or its structured clone algorithm. Using Kamino.js fixes this.

Tests

Tests are available in test.html.

They currently pass in:

• IE8+
• Firefox 3.5+
• Chrome 5+
• Opera 10.0+
• Safari 4.0+
• Safari iOS 3.2+
• Android Browser 2.2+
• Opera Mobile 11.0+

Not tested but should be working on:

• Firefox Android
• Chrome Android
• Blackberry Mobile

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Bent Turner, David Flanagan, Jonas Sicking and Yehuda Katz for their help.