Hello everyone,
I’m working on an iOS app that uses the new DeviceActivity framework to monitor and report user screen‐time in an extension (DeviceActivityReportExtension). I need to persist my processed screen‐time data into a standalone SQLite database inside the extension, but I’m running into issues opening and writing to the database file.
Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
import UIKit
import DeviceActivity
import SQLite3
class DeviceActivityReportExtension: DeviceActivityReportExtension {
private var db: OpaquePointer?
override func didReceive(_ report: DeviceActivityReport) async {
// 1. Construct path in app container:
let containerURL = FileManager.default.containerURL(forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier: "group.com.mycompany.myapp")
let dbURL = containerURL?.appendingPathComponent("ScreenTimeReports.db")
// 2. Open database:
if sqlite3_open(dbURL?.path, &db) != SQLITE_OK {
print("❌ Unable to open database at \(dbURL?.path ?? "unknown path")")
return
}
defer { sqlite3_close(db) }
// 3. Create table if needed:
let createSQL = """
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS reports (
id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
date TEXT,
totalScreenTime DOUBLE
);
"""
if sqlite3_exec(db, createSQL, nil, nil, nil) != SQLITE_OK {
print("❌ Could not create table: \(String(cString: sqlite3_errmsg(db)))")
return
}
// 4. Insert data:
let insertSQL = "INSERT INTO reports (date, totalScreenTime) VALUES (?, ?);"
var stmt: OpaquePointer?
if sqlite3_prepare_v2(db, insertSQL, -1, &stmt, nil) == SQLITE_OK {
sqlite3_bind_text(stmt, 1, report.date.description, -1, nil)
sqlite3_bind_double(stmt, 2, report.totalActivityDuration)
if sqlite3_step(stmt) != SQLITE_DONE {
print("❌ Insert failed: \(String(cString: sqlite3_errmsg(db)))")
}
}
sqlite3_finalize(stmt)
}
}
However:
Path issues: The extension’s sandbox is separate from the app’s. I’m not sure if I can use the same App Group container, or if there’s a better location for an on‐extension database.
Entitlements: I’ve added the App Group (group.com.mycompany.myapp) to both the main app and the extension, but the file never appears, and I still get “unable to open database” errors.
My questions are:
How do I correctly construct a file URL for an SQLite file in a DeviceActivityReportExtension?
Is SQLite the recommended approach here, or is there a more “Apple-approved” pattern for writing data from a DeviceActivity extension?
Any sample code snippets, pointers to relevant Apple documentation, or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated!
