Updating the SQLCipher package in Node.js

Why use SQLCipher?

SQLCipher is a fork of SQLite that adds encryption to the database file. SQLite is used extensively as a database for desktop and mobile applications. We might be interested in stoppng our customers from snooping around the database and taking a peek at our proprietary data model.

Why update SQLCipher node package?

The @journeyapps/sqlcipher NPM package was last updated 4 years ago and comes bundled with SQLCipher 4.4.2 is which is based on SQLite 3.33.0.

Several features have been added after this version.

For Example, the RETURNING clause is not available in 3.33.0, it was first introduced in 3.35.0

Steps

1. fork node-sqlcipher
2. fork sqlcipher
3. follow the steps in SQLCipher.md in the node-sqlcipher repository
4. copy the lib folder into your project folder. I renamed it to sqlcipher-lib.
5. create a js script to replace the lib folder

const exec = require('child_process').exec;
const os = require('os');

if (os.type() === 'Windows_NT') {
	exec(
		'xcopy /i /e /y "..\\sqlcipher-lib" ".\\node_modules\\@journeyapps\\sqlcipher\\lib"',
		(error, stdout, stderr) => {
			if (error) {
				console.error(`exec error: ${error}`);
				return;
			}
			console.log(`stdout: ${stdout}`);
		}
	);
}

6. add a postinstall script to package.json

"postinstall": "node ./copy-own-sqlcipher.cjs"