There are times when you want to have the same database in both a device and a simulator. For my case, I have a photo application which takes photo using the camera. That cannot be nicely tested using a simulator, hence I always test with a real iPhone.

Then comes a time when I want to move the database to simulator, which is faster to run.

This post explain the steps of copying over.

1. Copy using iExplorer

I use the demo version of iExplorer to explore the file system of my iPhone.

Navigate to your app (eg MyApp), and the database is in:

/Library/Application Support/MyApp/

Copy the 3 database files (MyApp.sqlite, MyApp.sqlite-shm, MyApp.sqlite-wal), and if you use external storage, copy the folder (.MyApp_SUPPORT) too. Note that this folder is prefix with a ., hence it will be hidden in your file system.

Make sure these database files are in your computer, as you need to copy them to your simulator.

2. Find out the path to your simulator

To know the path to your simulator, you can print a path directory in your app.

For example, the code below I used print the full Document path (using StandardPaths library):

NSLog(@"Doc Path: %@", [[NSFileManager defaultManager] publicDataPath]);

This is where my simulator is at:

/Users/junda/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.1/Applications/9B6E8432-1B84-4BB1-B9FF-838DB9DAB915/

3. Copy the files over

Copy the database files from (1) to the simulator. Preserve the path, hence the files should be copied to the following:

/Users/junda/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/7.1/Applications/9B6E8432-1B84-4BB1-B9FF-838DB9DAB915/Library/Application Support/MyApp/

If you use Finder, you can copy the visible files easily. If you have external storage and the folder is hidden, you have to use the command line and mv .MyApp_Support /to/the/simulator/path/above/.

That’s it!

You can now run on simulator, and it should have the same dataset.