Question

Firefox 3 now stores bookmarks in a Sqlite file called profiles.sqlite.

This file is locked while Firefox 3 is running.

I know that there are backup files, but they are old (only written when FF exits).

I do not want the user to have to install a plug-in.

Is there a way to grab the bookmarks while FF 3 is running?

I am developing in C# 3.5 for Windows.

Answer 1

I too got stuck with the same problem but after searching around on this site and others, came up with this code for my project http://www.codertakeout.com.

using System.Data.SQLite;  // need to install sqlite .net driver

String path_to_db = @"C:\Documents and Settings\Jeff\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\yhwx4xco.default\places.sqlite";
String path_to_temp = System.IO.Path.GetTempFileName();

System.IO.File.Copy(path_to_db, path_to_temp, true);
SQLiteConnection sqlite_connection = new SQLiteConnection("Data Source=" + path_to_temp + ";Version=3;Compress=True;Read Only=True;");

SQLiteCommand sqlite_command = sqlite_connection.CreateCommand();

sqlite_connection.Open();

sqlite_command.CommandText = "SELECT moz_bookmarks.title,moz_places.url FROM moz_bookmarks LEFT JOIN moz_places WHERE moz_bookmarks.fk = moz_places.id AND moz_bookmarks.title != 'null' AND moz_places.url LIKE '%http%';";

SQLiteDataReader sqlite_datareader = sqlite_command.ExecuteReader();

while (sqlite_datareader.Read())
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine(sqlite_datareader[1]);
    }
sqlite_connection.Close();
System.IO.File.Delete(path_to_temp);