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feat: @powersync/dev added to support SQL.js #647

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@stevensJourney stevensJourney commented Jun 30, 2025

Overview

Certain environments have trouble loading PowerSync due to it requiring a SQLite implementation which supports loading our Rust core extension. One of these environments is Expo Go which is a prebuilt app container for Expo apps.

The new dev package uses a pure JS implementation of SQLite via SQL.js which has been forked. SQLite and our Rust core extension are compiled to JavaScript via Emscripen there. This pure JS payload can be used in environments such as Expo Go.

Outstanding work

  • There were some weird issues with using SQL.js update hooks. I've(Steven) added our own implementation as a workaround.
  • SQL.js operates in memory. We can persist the entire DB to disk on commit though. This has not yet been implemented for RN. Added Expo persister in the dev adapter's README.md
  • This currently builds SQL.js in the monorepo. This requires toolchains which we should not expect all users of the monorepo to have present. We could fallback to prebuilt assets in such cases. This build was moved out to the SQL.js fork.
  • Topology: The sql js fork is in a standalone repo, and we wrap it in our dev package. The dev package is also re-exported by react-native as it's currently the biggest use case for this dev package.
  • Document how and when to use this package. Likely that we want developers to use this for development and promote themselves to prod adapters for their respective platform.

Demo

ExpoGo2.mp4

Benchmarks

Tested 1000 separate list insertions, PowerSync not connected. Haven't been able to understand why the Expo file persister version is faster than the in-memory persister.
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changeset-bot bot commented Jun 30, 2025

🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 0e0ef52

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 8 packages
Name Type
@powersync/react-native Minor
@powersync/dev Patch
@powersync/common Minor
@powersync/node Patch
@powersync/op-sqlite Patch
@powersync/tanstack-react-query Patch
@powersync/web Patch
@powersync/diagnostics-app Patch

Not sure what this means? Click here to learn what changesets are.

Click here if you're a maintainer who wants to add another changeset to this PR

commonjs({}),
alias({
entries: [
{ find: 'fs', replacement: path.resolve(__dirname, 'vendored/empty.js') },
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The default Emscripten output contains code like require("fs"). This seems to be unreachable, but Metro complains when it detects it. This replaces the requires to return empty modules.

}
}

(globalThis as any).onSqliteUpdate = (
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The standard update hook function did not trigger for me. I've implemented this as a workaround.

+ /** TODO
+ @return {number} the last insert id
+ */
+ Database.prototype["lastInsertId"] = function lastInsertId() {
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This was not exposed by SQL.js, but we need it in order to validate the response from checkpoint validations.

@Chriztiaan Chriztiaan changed the title [POC] SQL.js feat: @powersync/dev-adapter added to support SQL.js Jul 14, 2025
@Chriztiaan Chriztiaan changed the title feat: @powersync/dev-adapter added to support SQL.js feat: @powersync/dev added to support SQL.js Jul 15, 2025
@Chriztiaan Chriztiaan marked this pull request as ready for review July 24, 2025 12:15
@Chriztiaan Chriztiaan requested review from rkistner and simolus3 July 24, 2025 12:18
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