SQLite – Overview

This chapter helps you understand what is SQLite, how it differs from SQL, why it is needed and the way in which it handles the applications Database.

SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. SQLite is one of the fastest-growing database engines around, but that”s growth in terms of popularity, not anything to do with its size. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain.

What is SQLite?

SQLite is an in-process library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. It is a database, which is zero-configured, which means like other databases you do not need to configure it in your system.

SQLite engine is not a standalone process like other databases, you can link it statically or dynamically as per your requirement with your application. SQLite accesses its storage files directly.

Why SQLite?

• SQLite does not require a separate server process or system to operate (serverless).

• SQLite comes with zero-configuration, which means no setup or administration needed.

• A complete SQLite database is stored in a single cross-platform disk file.

• SQLite is very small and light weight, less than 400KiB fully configured or less than 250KiB with optional features omitted.

• SQLite is self-contained, which means no external dependencies.

• SQLite transactions are fully ACID-compliant, allowing safe access from multiple processes or threads.

• SQLite supports most of the query language features found in SQL92 (SQL2) standard.

• SQLite is written in ANSI-C and provides simple and easy-to-use API.

• SQLite is available on UNIX (Linux, Mac OS-X, Android, iOS) and Windows (Win32, WinCE, WinRT).

SQLite A Brief History

• 2000 – D. Richard Hipp designed SQLite for the purpose of no administration required for operating a program.

• 2000 – In August, SQLite 1.0 released with GNU Database Manager.

• 2011 – Hipp announced to add UNQl interface to SQLite DB and to develop UNQLite (Document oriented database).

SQLite Limitations

There are few unsupported features of SQL92 in SQLite which are listed in the following table.

SQLite Commands

The standard SQLite commands to interact with relational databases are similar to SQL. They are CREATE, SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and DROP. These commands can be classified into groups based on their operational nature −

DDL – Data Definition Language

DML – Data Manipulation Language

DQL – Data Query Language

SQLite – Installation

SQLite is famous for its great feature zero-configuration, which means no complex setup or administration is needed. This chapter will take you through the process of setting up SQLite on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Install SQLite on Windows

• Step 1 − Go to , and download precompiled binaries from Windows section.

• Step 2 − Download sqlite-shell-win32-*.zip and sqlite-dll-win32-*.zip zipped files.

• Step 3 − Create a folder C:>sqlite and unzip above two zipped files in this folder, which will give you sqlite3.def, sqlite3.dll and sqlite3.exe files.

• Step 4 − Add C:>sqlite in your PATH environment variable and finally go to the command prompt and issue sqlite3 command, which should display the following result.

C:>sqlite3
SQLite version 3.7.15.2 2013-01-09 11:53:05
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite>

Install SQLite on Linux

Today, almost all the flavours of Linux OS are being shipped with SQLite. So you just issue the following command to check if you already have SQLite installed on your machine.

$sqlite3
SQLite version 3.7.15.2 2013-01-09 11:53:05
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite>

If you do not see the above result, then it means you do not have SQLite installed on your Linux machine. Following are the following steps to install SQLite −

• Step 1 − Go to and download sqlite-autoconf-*.tar.gz from source code section.

• Step 2 − Run the following command −

$tar xvfz sqlite-autoconf-3071502.tar.gz
$cd sqlite-autoconf-3071502
$./configure --prefix=/usr/local
$make
$make install

The above command will end with SQLite installation on your Linux machine. Which you can verify as explained above.

Install SQLite on Mac OS X

Though the latest version of Mac OS X comes pre-installed with SQLite but if you do not have installation available then just follow these following steps −

• Step 1 − Go to , and download sqlite-autoconf-*.tar.gz from source code section.

• Step 2 − Run the following command −

$tar xvfz sqlite-autoconf-3071502.tar.gz
$cd sqlite-autoconf-3071502
$./configure --prefix=/usr/local
$make
$make install

The above procedure will end with SQLite installation on your Mac OS X machine. Which you can verify by issuing the following command −

$sqlite3
SQLite version 3.7.15.2 2013-01-09 11:53:05
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite>

Finally, you have SQLite command prompt where you can issue SQLite commands for your exercises.

SQLite – Commands

This chapter will take you through simple and useful commands used by SQLite programmers. These commands are called SQLite dot commands and exception with these commands is that they should not be terminated by a semi-colon (;).

Let”s start with typing a simple sqlite3 command at command prompt which will provide you with SQLite command prompt where you will issue various SQLite commands.

$sqlite3
SQLite version 3.3.6
Enter ".help" for instructions
sqlite>

For a listing of the available dot commands, you can enter “.help” any time. For example −

sqlite>.help

The above command will display a list of various important SQLite dot commands, which are listed in the following table.

Let”s try .show command to see default setting for your SQLite command prompt.

sqlite>.show
     echo: off
  explain: off
  headers: off
     mode: column
nullvalue: ""
   output: stdout
separator: "|"
    width:
sqlite>

Make sure there is no space in between sqlite> prompt and dot command, otherwise it will not work.

Formatting Output

You can use the following sequence of dot commands to format your output.

sqlite>.header on
sqlite>.mode column
sqlite>.timer on
sqlite>

The above setting will produce the output in the following format.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
CPU Time: user 0.000000 sys 0.000000

The sqlite_master Table

The master table holds the key information about your database tables and it is called sqlite_master. You can see its schema as follows −

sqlite>.schema sqlite_master

This will produce the following result.

CREATE TABLE sqlite_master (
   type text,
   name text,
   tbl_name text,
   rootpage integer,
   sql text
);

SQLite – Syntax

SQLite is followed by unique set of rules and guidelines called Syntax. This chapter lists all the basic SQLite Syntax.

Case Sensitivity

Important point to be noted is that SQLite is case insensitive, but there are some commands, which are case sensitive like GLOB and glob have different meaning in SQLite statements.

Comments

SQLite comments are extra notes, which you can add in your SQLite code to increase its readability and they can appear anywhere; whitespace can occur, including inside expressions and in the middle of other SQL statements but they cannot be nested.

SQL comments begin with two consecutive “-” characters (ASCII 0x2d) and extend up to and including the next newline character (ASCII 0x0a) or until the end of input, whichever comes first.

You can also use C-style comments, which begin with “/*” and extend up to and including the next “*/” character pair or until the end of input, whichever comes first. C-style comments can span multiple lines.

sqlite> .help -- This is a single line comment

SQLite Statements

All the SQLite statements start with any of the keywords like SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, ALTER, DROP, etc., and all the statements end with a semicolon (;).

SQLite ANALYZE Statement

ANALYZE;
or
ANALYZE database_name;
or
ANALYZE database_name.table_name;

SQLite AND/OR Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION-1 {AND|OR} CONDITION-2;

SQLite ALTER TABLE Statement

ALTER TABLE table_name ADD COLUMN column_def...;

SQLite ALTER TABLE Statement (Rename)

ALTER TABLE table_name RENAME TO new_table_name;

SQLite ATTACH DATABASE Statement

ATTACH DATABASE ''DatabaseName'' As ''Alias-Name

SQLite BEGIN TRANSACTION Statement

BEGIN;
or
BEGIN EXCLUSIVE TRANSACTION;

SQLite BETWEEN Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name BETWEEN val-1 AND val-2;

SQLite COMMIT Statement

COMMIT;

SQLite CREATE INDEX Statement

CREATE INDEX index_name
ON table_name ( column_name COLLATE NOCASE );

SQLite CREATE UNIQUE INDEX Statement

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name
ON table_name ( column1, column2,...columnN);

SQLite CREATE TABLE Statement

CREATE TABLE table_name(
   column1 datatype,
   column2 datatype,
   column3 datatype,
   .....
   columnN datatype,
   PRIMARY KEY( one or more columns )
);

SQLite CREATE TRIGGER Statement

CREATE TRIGGER database_name.trigger_name 
BEFORE INSERT ON table_name FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN 
   stmt1; 
   stmt2;
   ....
END;

SQLite CREATE VIEW Statement

CREATE VIEW database_name.view_name AS
SELECT statement....;

SQLite CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE Statement

CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE database_name.table_name USING weblog( access.log );
or
CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE database_name.table_name USING fts3( );

SQLite COMMIT TRANSACTION Statement

COMMIT;

SQLite COUNT Clause

SELECT COUNT(column_name)
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION;

SQLite DELETE Statement

DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE {CONDITION};

SQLite DETACH DATABASE Statement

DETACH DATABASE ''Alias-Name

SQLite DISTINCT Clause

SELECT DISTINCT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name;

SQLite DROP INDEX Statement

DROP INDEX database_name.index_name;

SQLite DROP TABLE Statement

DROP TABLE database_name.table_name;

SQLite DROP VIEW Statement

DROP INDEX database_name.view_name;

SQLite DROP TRIGGER Statement

DROP INDEX database_name.trigger_name;

SQLite EXISTS Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name EXISTS (SELECT * FROM   table_name );

SQLite EXPLAIN Statement

EXPLAIN INSERT statement...;
or 
EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN SELECT statement...;

SQLite GLOB Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name GLOB { PATTERN };

SQLite GROUP BY Clause

SELECT SUM(column_name)
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION
GROUP BY column_name;

SQLite HAVING Clause

SELECT SUM(column_name)
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION
GROUP BY column_name
HAVING (arithematic function condition);

SQLite INSERT INTO Statement

INSERT INTO table_name( column1, column2....columnN)
VALUES ( value1, value2....valueN);

SQLite IN Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name IN (val-1, val-2,...val-N);

SQLite Like Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name LIKE { PATTERN };

SQLite NOT IN Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE column_name NOT IN (val-1, val-2,...val-N);

SQLite ORDER BY Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION
ORDER BY column_name {ASC|DESC};

SQLite PRAGMA Statement

PRAGMA pragma_name;

For example:

PRAGMA page_size;
PRAGMA cache_size = 1024;
PRAGMA table_info(table_name);

SQLite RELEASE SAVEPOINT Statement

RELEASE savepoint_name;

SQLite REINDEX Statement

REINDEX collation_name;
REINDEX database_name.index_name;
REINDEX database_name.table_name;

SQLite ROLLBACK Statement

ROLLBACK;
or
ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT savepoint_name;

SQLite SAVEPOINT Statement

SAVEPOINT savepoint_name;

SQLite SELECT Statement

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name;

SQLite UPDATE Statement

UPDATE table_name
SET column1 = value1, column2 = value2....columnN=valueN
[ WHERE  CONDITION ];

SQLite VACUUM Statement

VACUUM;

SQLite WHERE Clause

SELECT column1, column2....columnN
FROM table_name
WHERE CONDITION;

SQLite – Data Type

SQLite data type is an attribute that specifies the type of data of any object. Each column, variable and expression has related data type in SQLite.

You would use these data types while creating your tables. SQLite uses a more general dynamic type system. In SQLite, the datatype of a value is associated with the value itself, not with its container.

SQLite Storage Classes

Each value stored in an SQLite database has one of the following storage classes −

SQLite storage class is slightly more general than a datatype. The INTEGER storage class, for example, includes 6 different integer datatypes of different lengths.

SQLite Affinity Type

SQLite supports the concept of type affinity on columns. Any column can still store any type of data but the preferred storage class for a column is called its affinity. Each table column in an SQLite3 database is assigned one of the following type affinities −

SQLite Affinity and Type Names

Following table lists down various data type names which can be used while creating SQLite3 tables with the corresponding applied affinity.

Boolean Datatype

SQLite does not have a separate Boolean storage class. Instead, Boolean values are stored as integers 0 (false) and 1 (true).

Date and Time Datatype

SQLite does not have a separate storage class for storing dates and/or times, but SQLite is capable of storing dates and times as TEXT, REAL or INTEGER values.

You can choose to store dates and times in any of these formats and freely convert between formats using the built-in date and time functions.

SQLite – CREATE Database

In SQLite, sqlite3 command is used to create a new SQLite database. You do not need to have any special privilege to create a database.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of sqlite3 command to create a database: −

$sqlite3 DatabaseName.db

Always, database name should be unique within the RDBMS.

Example

If you want to create a new database <testDB.db>, then SQLITE3 statement would be as follows −

$sqlite3 testDB.db
SQLite version 3.7.15.2 2013-01-09 11:53:05
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite>

The above command will create a file testDB.db in the current directory. This file will be used as database by SQLite engine. If you have noticed while creating database, sqlite3 command will provide a sqlite> prompt after creating a database file successfully.

Once a database is created, you can verify it in the list of databases using the following SQLite .databases command.

sqlite>.databases
seq  name             file
---  ---------------  ----------------------
0    main             /home/sqlite/testDB.db

You will use SQLite .quit command to come out of the sqlite prompt as follows −

sqlite>.quit
$

The .dump Command

You can use .dump dot command to export complete database in a text file using the following SQLite command at the command prompt.

$sqlite3 testDB.db .dump > testDB.sql

The above command will convert the entire contents of testDB.db database into SQLite statements and dump it into ASCII text file testDB.sql. You can perform restoration from the generated testDB.sql in a simple way as follows −

$sqlite3 testDB.db < testDB.sql

At this moment your database is empty, so you can try above two procedures once you have few tables and data in your database. For now, let”s proceed to the next chapter.

SQLite – ATTACH Database

Consider a case when you have multiple databases available and you want to use any one of them at a time. SQLite ATTACH DATABASE statement is used to select a particular database, and after this command, all SQLite statements will be executed under the attached database.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of SQLite ATTACH DATABASE statement.

ATTACH DATABASE ''DatabaseName'' As ''Alias-Name

The above command will also create a database in case the database is already not created, otherwise it will just attach database file name with logical database ”Alias-Name”.

Example

If you want to attach an existing database testDB.db, then ATTACH DATABASE statement would be as follows −

sqlite> ATTACH DATABASE ''testDB.db'' as ''TEST

Use SQLite .database command to display attached database.

sqlite> .database
seq  name             file
---  ---------------  ----------------------
0    main             /home/sqlite/testDB.db
2    test             /home/sqlite/testDB.db

The database names main and temp are reserved for the primary database and database to hold temporary tables and other temporary data objects. Both of these database names exist for every database connection and should not be used for attachment, otherwise you will get the following warning message.

sqlite> ATTACH DATABASE ''testDB.db'' as ''TEMP
Error: database TEMP is already in use
sqlite> ATTACH DATABASE ''testDB.db'' as ''main
Error: database TEMP is already in use

SQLite – DETACH Database

SQLite DETACH DATABASE statement is used to detach and dissociate a named database from a database connection which was previously attached using ATTACH statement. If the same database file has been attached with multiple aliases, then DETACH command will disconnect only the given name and rest of the attachment will still continue. You cannot detach the main or temp databases.

If the database is an in-memory or temporary database, the database will be destroyed and the contents will be lost.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of SQLite DETACH DATABASE ”Alias-Name” statement.

DETACH DATABASE ''Alias-Name

Here, ”Alias-Name” is the same alias, which you had used while attaching the database using ATTACH statement.

Example

Consider you have a database, which you created in the previous chapter and attached it with ”test” and ”currentDB” as we can see using .database command.

sqlite>.databases
seq  name             file
---  ---------------  ----------------------
0    main             /home/sqlite/testDB.db
2    test             /home/sqlite/testDB.db
3    currentDB        /home/sqlite/testDB.db

Let”s try to detach ”currentDB” from testDB.db using the following command.

sqlite> DETACH DATABASE ''currentDB

Now, if you will check the current attachment, you will find that testDB.db is still connected with ”test” and ”main”.

sqlite>.databases
seq  name             file
---  ---------------  ----------------------
0    main             /home/sqlite/testDB.db
2    test             /home/sqlite/testDB.db

SQLite – CREATE Table

SQLite CREATE TABLE statement is used to create a new table in any of the given database. Creating a basic table involves naming the table and defining its columns and each column”s data type.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of CREATE TABLE statement.

CREATE TABLE database_name.table_name(
   column1 datatype PRIMARY KEY(one or more columns),
   column2 datatype,
   column3 datatype,
   .....
   columnN datatype
);

CREATE TABLE is the keyword telling the database system to create a new table. The unique name or identifier for the table follows the CREATE TABLE statement. Optionally, you can specify database_name along with table_name.

Example

Following is an example which creates a COMPANY table with ID as the primary key and NOT NULL are the constraints showing that these fields cannot be NULL while creating records in this table.

sqlite> CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

Let us create one more table, which we will use in our exercises in subsequent chapters.

sqlite> CREATE TABLE DEPARTMENT(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY      NOT NULL,
   DEPT           CHAR(50) NOT NULL,
   EMP_ID         INT      NOT NULL
);

You can verify if your table has been created successfully using SQLite command .tables command, which will be used to list down all the tables in an attached database.

sqlite>.tables
COMPANY     DEPARTMENT

Here, you can see the COMPANY table twice because its showing COMPANY table for main database and test.COMPANY table for ”test” alias created for your testDB.db. You can get complete information about a table using the following SQLite .schema command.

sqlite>.schema COMPANY
CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

SQLite – DROP Table

SQLite DROP TABLE statement is used to remove a table definition and all associated data, indexes, triggers, constraints, and permission specifications for that table.

You have to be careful while using this command because once a table is deleted then all the information available in the table would also be lost forever.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of DROP TABLE statement. You can optionally specify the database name along with table name as follows −

DROP TABLE database_name.table_name;

Example

Let us first verify COMPANY table and then we will delete it from the database.

sqlite>.tables
COMPANY       test.COMPANY

This means COMPANY table is available in the database, so let us drop it as follows −

sqlite>DROP TABLE COMPANY;
sqlite>

Now, if you try .TABLES command, then you will not find COMPANY table anymore.

sqlite>.tables
sqlite>

It shows nothing which means the table from your database has been dropped successfully.

SQLite – INSERT Query

SQLite INSERT INTO Statement is used to add new rows of data into a table in the database.

Syntax

Following are the two basic syntaxes of INSERT INTO statement.

INSERT INTO TABLE_NAME [(column1, column2, column3,...columnN)]  
VALUES (value1, value2, value3,...valueN);

Here, column1, column2,…columnN are the names of the columns in the table into which you want to insert data.

You may not need to specify the column(s) name in the SQLite query if you are adding values for all the columns of the table. However, make sure the order of the values is in the same order as the columns in the table. The SQLite INSERT INTO syntax would be as follows −

INSERT INTO TABLE_NAME VALUES (value1,value2,value3,...valueN);

Example

Consider you already have created COMPANY table in your testDB.db as follows −

sqlite> CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

Now, the following statements would create six records in COMPANY table.

INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (2, ''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (3, ''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (4, ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (5, ''David'', 27, ''Texas'', 85000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (6, ''Kim'', 22, ''South-Hall'', 45000.00 );

You can create a record in COMPANY table using the second syntax as follows −

INSERT INTO COMPANY VALUES (7, ''James'', 24, ''Houston'', 10000.00 );

All the above statements would create the following records in COMPANY table. In the next chapter, you will learn how to display all these records from a table.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Populate One Table Using Another Table

You can populate data into a table through select statement over another table provided another table has a set of fields, which are required to populate the first table. Here is the syntax −

INSERT INTO first_table_name [(column1, column2, ... columnN)] 
   SELECT column1, column2, ...columnN 
   FROM second_table_name
   [WHERE condition];

For now, you can skip the above statement. First, let”s learn SELECT and WHERE clauses which will be covered in subsequent chapters.

SQLite – SELECT Query

SQLite SELECT statement is used to fetch the data from a SQLite database table which returns data in the form of a result table. These result tables are also called result sets.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of SQLite SELECT statement.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN FROM table_name;

Here, column1, column2 … are the fields of a table, whose values you want to fetch. If you want to fetch all the fields available in the field, then you can use the following syntax −

SELECT * FROM table_name;

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example to fetch and display all these records using SELECT statement. Here, the first three commands have been used to set a properly formatted output.

sqlite>.header on
sqlite>.mode column
sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY;

Finally, you will get the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

If you want to fetch only selected fields of COMPANY table, then use the following query −

sqlite> SELECT ID, NAME, SALARY FROM COMPANY;

The above query will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        20000.0
2           Allen       15000.0
3           Teddy       20000.0
4           Mark        65000.0
5           David       85000.0
6           Kim         45000.0
7           James       10000.0

Setting Output Column Width

Sometimes, you will face a problem related to the truncated output in case of .mode column which happens because of default width of the column to be displayed. What you can do is, you can set column displayable column width using .width num, num…. command as follows −

sqlite>.width 10, 20, 10
sqlite>SELECT * FROM COMPANY;

The above .width command sets the first column width to 10, the second column width to 20 and the third column width to 10. Finally, the above SELECT statement will give the following result.

ID          NAME                  AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  --------------------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul                  32          California  20000.0
2           Allen                 25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy                 23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark                  25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David                 27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim                   22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James                 24          Houston     10000.0

Schema Information

As all the dot commands are available at SQLite prompt, hence while programming with SQLite, you will use the following SELECT statement with sqlite_master table to list down all the tables created in your database.

sqlite> SELECT tbl_name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type = ''table

Assuming you have only COMPANY table in your testDB.db, this will produce the following result.

tbl_name
----------
COMPANY

You can list down complete information about COMPANY table as follows −

sqlite> SELECT sql FROM sqlite_master WHERE type = ''table'' AND tbl_name = ''COMPANY

Assuming you have only COMPANY table in your testDB.db, this will produce the following result.

CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
)

SQLite – Operators

What is an Operator in SQLite?

An operator is a reserved word or a character used primarily in an SQLite statement”s WHERE clause to perform operation(s), such as comparisons and arithmetic operations.

Operators are used to specify conditions in an SQLite statement and to serve as conjunctions for multiple conditions in a statement.

• Arithmetic operators
• Comparison operators
• Logical operators
• Bitwise operators

SQLite Arithmetic Operators

Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then SQLite arithmetic operators will be used as follows −

SQLite Comparison Operators

Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then SQLite comparison operators will be used as follows

SQLite Logical Operators

Here is a list of all the logical operators available in SQLite.

SQLite Bitwise Operators

Bitwise operator works on bits and performs bit-by-bit operation. Following is the truth table for & and |.

Assume if A = 60; and B = 13, then in binary format, they will be as follows −

A = 0011 1100

B = 0000 1101

—————–

A&B = 0000 1100

A|B = 0011 1101

~A  = 1100 0011

The Bitwise operators supported by SQLite language are listed in the following table. Assume variable A holds 60 and variable B holds 13, then −

SQLite – Expressions

An expression is a combination of one or more values, operators, and SQL functions that evaluate to a value.

SQL expressions are like formulas and they are written in query language. You can also use to query the database for a specific set of data.

Syntax

Consider the basic syntax of the SELECT statement as follows −

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name 
WHERE [CONDITION | EXPRESSION];

Following are the different types of SQLite expressions.

SQLite – Boolean Expressions

SQLite Boolean Expressions fetch the data on the basis of matching single value. Following is the syntax −

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name 
WHERE SINGLE VALUE MATCHTING EXPRESSION;

Consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is a simple examples showing the usage of SQLite Boolean Expressions −

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE SALARY = 10000;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
4           James        24          Houston   10000.0

SQLite – Numeric Expression

These expressions are used to perform any mathematical operation in any query. Following is the syntax −

SELECT numerical_expression as OPERATION_NAME
[FROM table_name WHERE CONDITION] ;

Here, numerical_expression is used for mathematical expression or any formula. Following is a simple example showing the usage of SQLite Numeric Expressions.

sqlite> SELECT (15 + 6) AS ADDITION
ADDITION = 21

There are several built-in functions such as avg(), sum(), count(), etc., to perform what is known as aggregate data calculations against a table or a specific table column.

sqlite> SELECT COUNT(*) AS "RECORDS" FROM COMPANY; 
RECORDS = 7

SQLite – Date Expressions

Date Expressions returns the current system date and time values. These expressions are used in various data manipulations.

sqlite> SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP = 2013-03-17 10:43:35

SQLite – WHERE Clause

SQLite WHERE clause is used to specify a condition while fetching the data from one table or multiple tables.

If the given condition is satisfied, means true, then it returns the specific value from the table. You will have to use WHERE clause to filter the records and fetching only necessary records.

The WHERE clause not only is used in SELECT statement, but it is also used in UPDATE, DELETE statement, etc., which will be covered in subsequent chapters.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of SQLite SELECT statement with WHERE clause.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition]

Example

You can specify a condition using such as >, <, =, LIKE, NOT, etc. Consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is a simple examples showing the usage of SQLite Logical Operators. Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE is greater than or equal to 25 AND salary is greater than or equal to 65000.00.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE >= 25 AND SALARY >= 65000;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE is greater than or equal to 25 OR salary is greater than or equal to 65000.00.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE >= 25 OR SALARY >= 65000;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE is not NULL, which means all the records because none of the record has AGE equal to NULL.

sqlite>  SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE IS NOT NULL;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where NAME starts with ”Ki”, does not matter what comes after ”Ki”.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE NAME LIKE ''Ki%

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where NAME starts with ”Ki”, does not matter what comes after ”Ki”.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE NAME GLOB ''Ki*

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE value is either 25 or 27.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE IN ( 25, 27 );

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE value is neither 25 nor 27.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE NOT IN ( 25, 27 );

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE value is in BETWEEN 25 AND 27.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE BETWEEN 25 AND 27;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Following SELECT statement makes use of SQL sub-query, where sub-query finds all the records with AGE field having SALARY > 65000 and later WHERE clause is being used along with EXISTS operator to list down all the records where AGE from the outside query exists in the result returned by the sub-query −

sqlite> SELECT AGE FROM COMPANY 
   WHERE EXISTS (SELECT AGE FROM COMPANY WHERE SALARY > 65000);

AGE
----------
32
25
23
25
27
22
24

Following SELECT statement makes use of SQL sub-query where sub-query finds all the records with AGE field having SALARY > 65000 and later WHERE clause is being used along with > operator to list down all the records where AGE from the outside query is greater than the age in the result returned by the sub-query.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY 
   WHERE AGE > (SELECT AGE FROM COMPANY WHERE SALARY > 65000);

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0

SQLite – AND & OR Operators

SQLite AND & OR operators are used to compile multiple conditions to narrow down the selected data in an SQLite statement. These two operators are called conjunctive operators.

These operators provide a means to make multiple comparisons with different operators in the same SQLite statement.

The AND Operator

The AND operator allows the existence of multiple conditions in a SQLite statement”s WHERE clause. While using AND operator, complete condition will be assumed true when all the conditions are true. For example, [condition1] AND [condition2] will be true only when both condition1 and condition2 are true.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of AND operator with WHERE clause.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition1] AND [condition2]...AND [conditionN];

You can combine N number of conditions using AND operator. For an action to be taken by the SQLite statement, whether it be a transaction or query, all conditions separated by the AND must be TRUE.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE is greater than or equal to 25 AND salary is greater than or equal to 65000.00.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE >= 25 AND SALARY >= 65000;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

The OR Operator

The OR operator is also used to combine multiple conditions in a SQLite statement”s WHERE clause. While using OR operator, complete condition will be assumed true when at least any of the conditions is true. For example, [condition1] OR [condition2] will be true if either condition1 or condition2 is true.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of OR operator with WHERE clause.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition1] OR [condition2]...OR [conditionN]

You can combine N number of conditions using OR operator. For an action to be taken by the SQLite statement, whether it be a transaction or query, only any ONE of the conditions separated by the OR must be TRUE.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following SELECT statement lists down all the records where AGE is greater than or equal to 25 OR salary is greater than or equal to 65000.00.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE >= 25 OR SALARY >= 65000;

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

SQLite – UPDATE Query

SQLite UPDATE Query is used to modify the existing records in a table. You can use WHERE clause with UPDATE query to update selected rows, otherwise all the rows would be updated.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of UPDATE query with WHERE clause.

UPDATE table_name
SET column1 = value1, column2 = value2...., columnN = valueN
WHERE [condition];

You can combine N number of conditions using AND or OR operators.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will update ADDRESS for a customer whose ID is 6.

sqlite> UPDATE COMPANY SET ADDRESS = ''Texas'' WHERE ID = 6;

Now, COMPANY table will have the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          Texas       45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

If you want to modify all ADDRESS and SALARY column values in COMPANY table, you do not need to use WHERE clause and UPDATE query will be as follows −

sqlite> UPDATE COMPANY SET ADDRESS = ''Texas'', SALARY = 20000.00;

Now, COMPANY table will have the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          Texas       20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       20000.0
3           Teddy       23          Texas       20000.0
4           Mark        25          Texas       20000.0
5           David       27          Texas       20000.0
6           Kim         22          Texas       20000.0
7           James       24          Texas       20000.0

SQLite – DELETE Query

SQLite DELETE Query is used to delete the existing records from a table. You can use WHERE clause with DELETE query to delete the selected rows, otherwise all the records would be deleted.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of DELETE query with WHERE clause.

DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE [condition];

You can combine N number of conditions using AND or OR operators.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will DELETE a customer whose ID is 7.

sqlite> DELETE FROM COMPANY WHERE ID = 7;

Now COMPANY table will have the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0

If you want to DELETE all the records from COMPANY table, you do not need to use WHERE clause with DELETE query, which will be as follows −

sqlite> DELETE FROM COMPANY;

Now, COMPANY table does not have any record as all the records have been deleted by DELETE statement.

SQLite – LIKE Clause

SQLite LIKE operator is used to match text values against a pattern using wildcards. If the search expression can be matched to the pattern expression, the LIKE operator will return true, which is 1. There are two wildcards used in conjunction with the LIKE operator −

• The percent sign (%)
• The underscore (_)

The percent sign represents zero, one, or multiple numbers or characters. The underscore represents a single number or character. These symbols can be used in combinations.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of % and _.

SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE ''XXXX%''
or 
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE ''%XXXX%''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE ''XXXX_''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE ''_XXXX''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column LIKE ''_XXXX_''

You can combine N number of conditions using AND or OR operators. Here, XXXX could be any numeric or string value.

Example

Following table lists a number of examples showing WHERE part having different LIKE clause with ”%” and ”_” operators.

Let us take a real example, consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will display all the records from COMPANY table where AGE starts with 2.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE LIKE ''2%

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will display all the records from COMPANY table where ADDRESS will have a hyphen (-) inside the text.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE ADDRESS  LIKE ''%-%

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0

SQLite – GLOB Clause

SQLite GLOB operator is used to match only text values against a pattern using wildcards. If the search expression can be matched to the pattern expression, the GLOB operator will return true, which is 1. Unlike LIKE operator, GLOB is case sensitive and it follows syntax of UNIX for specifying THE following wildcards.

• The asterisk sign (*)
• The question mark (?)

The asterisk sign (*) represents zero or multiple numbers or characters. The question mark (?) represents a single number or character.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of * and ?.

SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column GLOB ''XXXX*''
or 
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column GLOB ''*XXXX*''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column GLOB ''XXXX?''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column GLOB ''?XXXX''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column GLOB ''?XXXX?''
or
SELECT FROM table_name
WHERE column GLOB ''????''

You can combine N number of conditions using AND or OR operators. Here, XXXX could be any numeric or string value.

Example

Following table lists a number of examples showing WHERE part having different LIKE clause with ”*” and ”?” operators.

Let us take a real example, consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will display all the records from COMPANY table, where AGE starts with 2.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE  GLOB ''2*

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will display all the records from COMPANY table where ADDRESS will have a hyphen (-) inside the text −

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE ADDRESS  GLOB ''*-*

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0

SQLite – LIMIT Clause

SQLite LIMIT clause is used to limit the data amount returned by the SELECT statement.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of SELECT statement with LIMIT clause.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
LIMIT [no of rows]

Following is the syntax of LIMIT clause when it is used along with OFFSET clause.

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name
LIMIT [no of rows] OFFSET 

SQLite engine will return rows starting from the next row to the given OFFSET as shown below in the last example.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which limits the row in the table according to the number of rows you want to fetch from table.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY LIMIT 6;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0

However in certain situations, you may need to pick up a set of records from a particular offset. Here is an example, which picks up 3 records starting from the 3^rd position.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

SQLite – ORDER BY Clause

SQLite ORDER BY clause is used to sort the data in an ascending or descending order, based on one or more columns.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of ORDER BY clause.

SELECT column-list 
FROM table_name 
[WHERE condition] 
[ORDER BY column1, column2, .. columnN] [ASC | DESC];

You can use more than one column in the ORDER BY clause. Make sure whatever column you are using to sort, that column should be available in the column-list.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example, which will sort the result in descending order by SALARY.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY ORDER BY SALARY ASC;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Following is an example, which will sort the result in descending order by NAME and SALARY.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY ORDER BY NAME, SALARY ASC;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0

Following is an example, which will sort the result in descending order by NAME.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY ORDER BY NAME DESC;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0

SQLite – GROUP BY Clause

SQLite GROUP BY clause is used in collaboration with the SELECT statement to arrange identical data into groups.

GROUP BY clause follows the WHERE clause in a SELECT statement and precedes the ORDER BY clause.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of GROUP BY clause. GROUP BY clause must follow the conditions in the WHERE clause and must precede ORDER BY clause if one is used.

SELECT column-list
FROM table_name
WHERE [ conditions ]
GROUP BY column1, column2....columnN
ORDER BY column1, column2....columnN

You can use more than one column in the GROUP BY clause. Make sure whatever column you are using to group, that column should be available in the column-list.

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

If you want to know the total amount of salary on each customer, then GROUP BY query will be as follows −

sqlite> SELECT NAME, SUM(SALARY) FROM COMPANY GROUP BY NAME;

This will produce the following result −

NAME        SUM(SALARY)
----------  -----------
Allen       15000.0
David       85000.0
James       10000.0
Kim         45000.0
Mark        65000.0
Paul        20000.0
Teddy       20000.0

Now, let us create three more records in COMPANY table using the following INSERT statements.

INSERT INTO COMPANY VALUES (8, ''Paul'', 24, ''Houston'', 20000.00 );
INSERT INTO COMPANY VALUES (9, ''James'', 44, ''Norway'', 5000.00 );
INSERT INTO COMPANY VALUES (10, ''James'', 45, ''Texas'', 5000.00 );

Now, our table has the following records with duplicate names.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
8           Paul        24          Houston     20000.0
9           James       44          Norway      5000.0
10          James       45          Texas       5000.0

Again, let us use the same statement to group-by all the records using NAME column as follows −

sqlite> SELECT NAME, SUM(SALARY) FROM COMPANY GROUP BY NAME ORDER BY NAME;

This will produce the following result.

NAME        SUM(SALARY)
----------  -----------
Allen       15000
David       85000
James       20000
Kim         45000
Mark        65000
Paul        40000
Teddy       20000

Let us use ORDER BY clause along with GROUP BY clause as follows −

sqlite>  SELECT NAME, SUM(SALARY) 
   FROM COMPANY GROUP BY NAME ORDER BY NAME DESC;

This will produce the following result.

NAME        SUM(SALARY)
----------  -----------
Teddy       20000
Paul        40000
Mark        65000
Kim         45000
James       20000
David       85000
Allen       15000

SQLite – HAVING Clause

HAVING clause enables you to specify conditions that filter which group results appear in the final results.

The WHERE clause places conditions on the selected columns, whereas the HAVING clause places conditions on groups created by GROUP BY clause.

Syntax

Following is the position of HAVING clause in a SELECT query.

SELECT
FROM
WHERE
GROUP BY
HAVING
ORDER BY

HAVING clause must follow GROUP BY clause in a query and must also precede ORDER BY clause if used. Following is the syntax of the SELECT statement, including HAVING clause.

SELECT column1, column2
FROM table1, table2
WHERE [ conditions ]
GROUP BY column1, column2
HAVING [ conditions ]
ORDER BY column1, column2

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
8           Paul        24          Houston     20000.0
9           James       44          Norway      5000.0
10          James       45          Texas       5000.0

Following is the example, which will display the record for which the name count is less than 2.

sqlite > SELECT * FROM COMPANY GROUP BY name HAVING count(name) < 2;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000
5           David       27          Texas       85000
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000

Following is the example, which will display the record for which the name count is greater than 2.

sqlite > SELECT * FROM COMPANY GROUP BY name HAVING count(name) > 2;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
10          James       45          Texas       5000

SQLite – DISTINCT Keyword

SQLite DISTINCT keyword is used in conjunction with SELECT statement to eliminate all the duplicate records and fetching only the unique records.

There may be a situation when you have multiple duplicate records in a table. While fetching such records, it makes more sense to fetch only unique records instead of fetching duplicate records.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of DISTINCT keyword to eliminate duplicate records.

SELECT DISTINCT column1, column2,.....columnN 
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition]

Example

Consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
8           Paul        24          Houston     20000.0
9           James       44          Norway      5000.0
10          James       45          Texas       5000.0

First, let us see how the following SELECT query returns duplicate salary records.

sqlite> SELECT name FROM COMPANY;

This will produce the following result.

NAME
----------
Paul
Allen
Teddy
Mark
David
Kim
James
Paul
James
James

Now, let us use DISTINCT keyword with the above SELECT query and see the result.

sqlite> SELECT DISTINCT name FROM COMPANY;

This will produce the following result, where there is no duplicate entry.

NAME
----------
Paul
Allen
Teddy
Mark
David
Kim
James

SQLite – PRAGMA

SQLite PRAGMA command is a special command to be used to control various environmental variables and state flags within the SQLite environment. A PRAGMA value can be read and it can also be set based on the requirements.

Syntax

To query the current PRAGMA value, just provide the name of the pragma.

PRAGMA pragma_name;

To set a new value for PRAGMA, use the following syntax.

PRAGMA pragma_name = value;

The set mode can be either the name or the integer equivalent but the returned value will always be an integer.

auto_vacuum Pragma

The auto_vacuum pragma gets or sets the auto-vacuum mode. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]auto_vacuum;
PRAGMA [database.]auto_vacuum = mode;

Where mode can be any of the following −

cache_size Pragma

The cache_size pragma can get or temporarily set the maximum size of the in-memory page cache. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]cache_size;
PRAGMA [database.]cache_size = pages;

The pages value represents the number of pages in the cache. The built-in page cache has a default size of 2,000 pages and a minimum size of 10 pages.

case_sensitive_like Pragma

The case_sensitive_like pragma controls the case-sensitivity of the built-in LIKE expression. By default, this pragma is false which means that the built-in LIKE operator ignores the letter case. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA case_sensitive_like = [true|false];

There is no way to query for the current state of this pragma.

count_changes Pragma

count_changes pragma gets or sets the return value of data manipulation statements such as INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA count_changes;
PRAGMA count_changes = [true|false];

By default, this pragma is false and these statements do not return anything. If set to true, each of the mentioned statement will return a one-column, one-row table consisting of a single integer value indicating impacted rows by the operation.

database_list Pragma

The database_list pragma will be used to list down all the databases attached. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA database_list;

This pragma will return a three-column table with one row per open or attached database giving database sequence number, its name and the file associated.

encoding Pragma

The encoding pragma controls how strings are encoded and stored in a database file. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA encoding;
PRAGMA encoding = format;

The format value can be one of UTF-8, UTF-16le, or UTF-16be.

freelist_count Pragma

The freelist_count pragma returns a single integer indicating how many database pages are currently marked as free and available. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]freelist_count;

The format value can be one of UTF-8, UTF-16le, or UTF-16be.

index_info Pragma

The index_info pragma returns information about a database index. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]index_info( index_name );

The result set will contain one row for each column contained in the index giving column sequence, column index with-in table and column name.

index_list Pragma

index_list pragma lists all of the indexes associated with a table. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]index_list( table_name );

The result set will contain one row for each index giving index sequence, index name and flag indicating whether the index is unique or not.

journal_mode Pragma

The journal_mode pragma gets or sets the journal mode which controls how the journal file is stored and processed. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA journal_mode;
PRAGMA journal_mode = mode;
PRAGMA database.journal_mode;
PRAGMA database.journal_mode = mode;

There are five supported journal modes as listed in the following table.

max_page_count Pragma

The max_page_count pragma gets or sets the maximum allowed page count for a database. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]max_page_count;
PRAGMA [database.]max_page_count = max_page;

The default value is 1,073,741,823 which is one giga-page, which means if the default 1 KB page size, this allows databases to grow up to one terabyte.

page_count Pragma

The page_count pragma returns in the current number of pages in the database. Following is the simple syntax −

PRAGMA [database.]page_count;

The size of the database file should be page_count * page_size.

page_size Pragma

The page_size pragma gets or sets the size of the database pages. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]page_size;
PRAGMA [database.]page_size = bytes;

By default, the allowed sizes are 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, and 32768 bytes. The only way to alter the page size on an existing database is to set the page size and then immediately VACUUM the database.

parser_trace Pragma

The parser_trace pragma controls printing the debugging state as it parses SQL commands. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA parser_trace = [true|false];

By default, it is set to false but when enabled by setting it to true, the SQL parser will print its state as it parses SQL commands.

recursive_triggers Pragma

The recursive_triggers pragma gets or sets the recursive trigger functionality. If recursive triggers are not enabled, a trigger action will not fire another trigger. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA recursive_triggers;
PRAGMA recursive_triggers = [true|false];

schema_version Pragma

The schema_version pragma gets or sets the schema version value that is stored in the database header. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]schema_version;
PRAGMA [database.]schema_version = number;

This is a 32-bit signed integer value that keeps track of schema changes. Whenever a schema-altering command is executed (like, CREATE… or DROP…), this value is incremented.

secure_delete Pragma

The secure_delete pragma is used to control how the content is deleted from the database. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA secure_delete;
PRAGMA secure_delete = [true|false];
PRAGMA database.secure_delete;
PRAGMA database.secure_delete = [true|false];

The default value for the secure delete flag is normally off, but this can be changed with the SQLITE_SECURE_DELETE build option.

sql_trace Pragma

The sql_trace pragma is used to dump SQL trace results to the screen. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA sql_trace;
PRAGMA sql_trace = [true|false];

SQLite must be compiled with the SQLITE_DEBUG directive for this pragma to be included.

synchronous Pragma

The synchronous pragma gets or sets the current disk synchronization mode, which controls how aggressively SQLite will write data all the way out to physical storage. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]synchronous;
PRAGMA [database.]synchronous = mode;

SQLite supports the following synchronization modes as listed in the table.

temp_store Pragma

The temp_store pragma gets or sets the storage mode used by temporary database files. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA temp_store;
PRAGMA temp_store = mode;

SQLite supports the following storage modes.

temp_store_directory Pragma

The temp_store_directory pragma gets or sets the location used for temporary database files. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA temp_store_directory;
PRAGMA temp_store_directory = ''directory_path

user_version Pragma

The user_version pragma gets or sets the user-defined version value that is stored in the database header. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA [database.]user_version;
PRAGMA [database.]user_version = number;

This is a 32-bit signed integer value, which can be set by the developer for version tracking purpose.

writable_schema Pragma

The writable_schema pragma gets or sets the ability to modify system tables. Following is the simple syntax.

PRAGMA writable_schema;
PRAGMA writable_schema = [true|false];

If this pragma is set, tables that start with sqlite_ can be created and modified, including the sqlite_master table. Be careful while using pragma because it can lead to complete database corruption.

SQLite – Constraints

Constraints are the rules enforced on a data columns on table. These are used to limit the type of data that can go into a table. This ensures the accuracy and reliability of the data in the database.

Constraints could be column level or table level. Column level constraints are applied only to one column, whereas table level constraints are applied to the whole table.

Following are commonly used constraints available in SQLite.

• NOT NULL Constraint − Ensures that a column cannot have NULL value.

• DEFAULT Constraint − Provides a default value for a column when none is specified.

• UNIQUE Constraint − Ensures that all values in a column are different.

• PRIMARY Key − Uniquely identifies each row/record in a database table.

• CHECK Constraint − Ensures that all values in a column satisfies certain conditions.

NOT NULL Constraint

By default, a column can hold NULL values. If you do not want a column to have a NULL value, then you need to define such constraint on this column specifying that NULL is now not allowed for that column.

A NULL is not the same as no data, rather, it represents unknown data.

Example

For example, the following SQLite statement creates a new table called COMPANY and adds five columns, three of which, ID and NAME and AGE, specifies not to accept NULLs.

CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

DEFAULT Constraint

The DEFAULT constraint provides a default value to a column when the INSERT INTO statement does not provide a specific value.

Example

For example, the following SQLite statement creates a new table called COMPANY and adds five columns. Here, SALARY column is set to 5000.00 by default, thus in case INSERT INTO statement does not provide a value for this column, then by default, this column would be set to 5000.00.

CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL    DEFAULT 50000.00
);

UNIQUE Constraint

The UNIQUE Constraint prevents two records from having identical values in a particular column. In the COMPANY table, for example, you might want to prevent two or more people from having an identical age.

Example

For example, the following SQLite statement creates a new table called COMPANY and adds five columns. Here, AGE column is set to UNIQUE, so that you cannot have two records with the same age −

CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL UNIQUE,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL    DEFAULT 50000.00
);

PRIMARY KEY Constraint

The PRIMARY KEY constraint uniquely identifies each record in a database table. There can be more UNIQUE columns, but only one primary key in a table. Primary keys are important when designing the database tables. Primary keys are unique IDs.

We use them to refer to table rows. Primary keys become foreign keys in other tables, when creating relations among tables. Due to a ”longstanding coding oversight”, primary keys can be NULL in SQLite. This is not the case with other databases.

A primary key is a field in a table which uniquely identifies each rows/records in a database table. Primary keys must contain unique values. A primary key column cannot have NULL values.

A table can have only one primary key, which may consist of single or multiple fields. When multiple fields are used as a primary key, they are called a composite key.

If a table has a primary key defined on any field(s), then you cannot have two records having the same value of that field(s).

Example

You already have seen various examples above where we have created COMPANY table with ID as a primary key.

CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

CHECK Constraint

CHECK Constraint enables a condition to check the value being entered into a record. If the condition evaluates to false, the record violates the constraint and isn”t entered into the table.

Example

For example, the following SQLite creates a new table called COMPANY and adds five columns. Here, we add a CHECK with SALARY column, so that you cannot have any SALARY Zero.

CREATE TABLE COMPANY3(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL    CHECK(SALARY > 0)
);

Dropping Constraint

SQLite supports a limited subset of ALTER TABLE. The ALTER TABLE command in SQLite allows the user to rename a table or add a new column to an existing table. It is not possible to rename a column, remove a column, or add or remove constraints from a table.

SQLite – JOINS

SQLite Joins clause is used to combine records from two or more tables in a database. A JOIN is a means for combining fields from two tables by using values common to each.

SQL defines three major types of joins −

• The CROSS JOIN
• The INNER JOIN
• The OUTER JOIN

Before we proceed, let”s consider two tables COMPANY and DEPARTMENT. We already have seen INSERT statements to populate COMPANY table. So just let”s assume the list of records available in COMPANY table −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Another table is DEPARTMENT with the following definition −

CREATE TABLE DEPARTMENT(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY      NOT NULL,
   DEPT           CHAR(50) NOT NULL,
   EMP_ID         INT      NOT NULL
);

Here is the list of INSERT statements to populate DEPARTMENT table −

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENT (ID, DEPT, EMP_ID)
VALUES (1, ''IT Billing'', 1 );

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENT (ID, DEPT, EMP_ID)
VALUES (2, ''Engineering'', 2 );

INSERT INTO DEPARTMENT (ID, DEPT, EMP_ID)
VALUES (3, ''Finance'', 7 );

Finally, we have the following list of records available in DEPARTMENT table −

ID          DEPT        EMP_ID
----------  ----------  ----------
1           IT Billing  1
2           Engineering 2
3           Finance     7

The CROSS JOIN

CROSS JOIN matches every row of the first table with every row of the second table. If the input tables have x and y row, respectively, the resulting table will have x*y row. Because CROSS JOINs have the potential to generate extremely large tables, care must be taken to only use them when appropriate.

Following is the syntax of CROSS JOIN −

SELECT ... FROM table1 CROSS JOIN table2 ...

Based on the above tables, you can write a CROSS JOIN as follows −

sqlite> SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY CROSS JOIN DEPARTMENT;

The above query will produce the following result −

EMP_ID      NAME        DEPT
----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        IT Billing
2           Paul        Engineering
7           Paul        Finance
1           Allen       IT Billing
2           Allen       Engineering
7           Allen       Finance
1           Teddy       IT Billing
2           Teddy       Engineering
7           Teddy       Finance
1           Mark        IT Billing
2           Mark        Engineering
7           Mark        Finance
1           David       IT Billing
2           David       Engineering
7           David       Finance
1           Kim         IT Billing
2           Kim         Engineering
7           Kim         Finance
1           James       IT Billing
2           James       Engineering
7           James       Finance

The INNER JOIN

INNER JOIN creates a new result table by combining column values of two tables (table1 and table2) based upon the join-predicate. The query compares each row of table1 with each row of table2 to find all pairs of rows which satisfy the join-predicate. When the join-predicate is satisfied, the column values for each matched pair of rows of A and B are combined into a result row.

An INNER JOIN is the most common and default type of join. You can use INNER keyword optionally.

Following is the syntax of INNER JOIN −

SELECT ... FROM table1 [INNER] JOIN table2 ON conditional_expression ...

To avoid redundancy and keep the phrasing shorter, INNER JOIN conditions can be declared with a USING expression. This expression specifies a list of one or more columns.

SELECT ... FROM table1 JOIN table2 USING ( column1 ,... ) ...

A NATURAL JOIN is similar to a JOIN…USING, only it automatically tests for equality between the values of every column that exists in both tables −

SELECT ... FROM table1 NATURAL JOIN table2...

Based on the above tables, you can write an INNER JOIN as follows −

sqlite> SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY INNER JOIN DEPARTMENT
   ON COMPANY.ID = DEPARTMENT.EMP_ID;

The above query will produce the following result −

EMP_ID      NAME        DEPT
----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        IT Billing
2           Allen       Engineering
7           James       Finance

The OUTER JOIN

OUTER JOIN is an extension of INNER JOIN. Though SQL standard defines three types of OUTER JOINs: LEFT, RIGHT, and FULL, SQLite only supports the LEFT OUTER JOIN.

OUTER JOINs have a condition that is identical to INNER JOINs, expressed using an ON, USING, or NATURAL keyword. The initial results table is calculated the same way. Once the primary JOIN is calculated, an OUTER JOIN will take any unjoined rows from one or both tables, pad them out with NULLs, and append them to the resulting table.

Following is the syntax of LEFT OUTER JOIN −

SELECT ... FROM table1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table2 ON conditional_expression ...

To avoid redundancy and keep the phrasing shorter, OUTER JOIN conditions can be declared with a USING expression. This expression specifies a list of one or more columns.

SELECT ... FROM table1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table2 USING ( column1 ,... ) ...

Based on the above tables, you can write an outer join as follows −

sqlite> SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY LEFT OUTER JOIN DEPARTMENT
   ON COMPANY.ID = DEPARTMENT.EMP_ID;

The above query will produce the following result −

EMP_ID      NAME        DEPT
----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        IT Billing
2           Allen       Engineering
            Teddy
            Mark
            David
            Kim
7           James       Finance

SQLite – UNION Clause

SQLite UNION clause/operator is used to combine the results of two or more SELECT statements without returning any duplicate rows.

To use UNION, each SELECT must have the same number of columns selected, the same number of column expressions, the same data type, and have them in the same order, but they do not have to be of the same length.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of UNION.

SELECT column1 [, column2 ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE condition]

UNION

SELECT column1 [, column2 ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE condition]

Here the given condition could be any given expression based on your requirement.

Example

Consider the following two tables, (a) table as follows −

sqlite> select * from COMPANY;
ID          NAME                  AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  --------------------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul                  32          California  20000.0
2           Allen                 25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy                 23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark                  25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David                 27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim                   22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James                 24          Houston     10000.0

(b) Another table is as follows −

ID          DEPT                  EMP_ID
----------  --------------------  ----------
1           IT Billing            1
2           Engineering           2
3           Finance               7
4           Engineering           3
5           Finance               4
6           Engineering           5
7           Finance               6

Now let us join these two tables using SELECT statement along with UNION clause as follows −

sqlite>  SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY INNER JOIN DEPARTMENT
         ON COMPANY.ID = DEPARTMENT.EMP_ID
         
         UNION
         
         SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY LEFT OUTER JOIN DEPARTMENT
         ON COMPANY.ID = DEPARTMENT.EMP_ID;

This will produce the following result.

EMP_ID      NAME                  DEPT
----------  --------------------  ----------
1           Paul                  IT Billing
2           Allen                 Engineering
3           Teddy                 Engineering
4           Mark                  Finance
5           David                 Engineering
6           Kim                   Finance
7           James                 Finance

The UNION ALL Clause

The UNION ALL operator is used to combine the results of two SELECT statements including duplicate rows.

The same rules that apply to UNION apply to the UNION ALL operator as well.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of UNION ALL.

SELECT column1 [, column2 ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE condition]

UNION ALL

SELECT column1 [, column2 ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
[WHERE condition]

Here the given condition could be any given expression based on your requirement.

Example

Now, let us join the above-mentioned two tables in our SELECT statement as follows −

sqlite>  SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY INNER JOIN DEPARTMENT
         ON COMPANY.ID = DEPARTMENT.EMP_ID
         
         UNION ALL

         SELECT EMP_ID, NAME, DEPT FROM COMPANY LEFT OUTER JOIN DEPARTMENT
         ON COMPANY.ID = DEPARTMENT.EMP_ID;

This will produce the following result.

EMP_ID      NAME                  DEPT
----------  --------------------  ----------
1           Paul                  IT Billing
2           Allen                 Engineering
3           Teddy                 Engineering
4           Mark                  Finance
5           David                 Engineering
6           Kim                   Finance
7           James                 Finance
1           Paul                  IT Billing
2           Allen                 Engineering
3           Teddy                 Engineering
4           Mark                  Finance
5           David                 Engineering
6           Kim                   Finance
7           James                 Finance

SQLite – NULL Values

SQLite NULL is the term used to represent a missing value. A NULL value in a table is a value in a field that appears to be blank.

A field with a NULL value is a field with no value. It is very important to understand that a NULL value is different than a zero value or a field that contains spaces.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of using NULL while creating a table.

SQLite> CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

Here, NOT NULL signifies that the column should always accept an explicit value of the given data type. There are two columns where we did not use NOT NULL which means these columns could be NULL.

A field with a NULL value is one that has been left blank during record creation.

Example

The NULL value can cause problems when selecting data, because when comparing an unknown value to any other value, the result is always unknown and not included in the final results. Consider the following table, with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Let us use UPDATE statement to set a few nullable values as NULL as follows −

sqlite> UPDATE COMPANY SET ADDRESS = NULL, SALARY = NULL where ID IN(6,7);

Now, COMPANY table will have the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22
7           James       24

Next, let us see the usage of IS NOT NULL operator to list down all the records where SALARY is not NULL.

sqlite> SELECT  ID, NAME, AGE, ADDRESS, SALARY
        FROM COMPANY
        WHERE SALARY IS NOT NULL;

The above SQLite statement will produce the following result −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Following is the usage of IS NULL operator, which will list down all the records where SALARY is NULL.

sqlite> SELECT  ID, NAME, AGE, ADDRESS, SALARY
        FROM COMPANY
        WHERE SALARY IS NULL;

The above SQLite statement will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
6           Kim         22
7           James       24

SQLite – ALIAS Syntax

You can rename a table or a column temporarily by giving another name, which is known as ALIAS. The use of table aliases means to rename a table in a particular SQLite statement. Renaming is a temporary change and the actual table name does not change in the database.

The column aliases are used to rename a table”s columns for the purpose of a particular SQLite query.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of table alias.

SELECT column1, column2....
FROM table_name AS alias_name
WHERE [condition];

Following is the basic syntax of column alias.

SELECT column_name AS alias_name
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition];

Example

Consider the following two tables, (a) table is as follows −

sqlite> select * from COMPANY;
ID          NAME                  AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  --------------------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul                  32          California  20000.0
2           Allen                 25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy                 23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark                  25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David                 27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim                   22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James                 24          Houston     10000.0

(b) Another table is as follows −

ID          DEPT                  EMP_ID
----------  --------------------  ----------
1           IT Billing            1
2           Engineering           2
3           Finance               7
4           Engineering           3
5           Finance               4
6           Engineering           5
7           Finance               6

Now, following is the usage of TABLE ALIAS where we use C and D as aliases for COMPANY and DEPARTMENT tables respectively −

sqlite> SELECT C.ID, C.NAME, C.AGE, D.DEPT
        FROM COMPANY AS C, DEPARTMENT AS D
        WHERE  C.ID = D.EMP_ID;

The above SQLite statement will produce the following result −

ID          NAME        AGE         DEPT
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          IT Billing
2           Allen       25          Engineering
3           Teddy       23          Engineering
4           Mark        25          Finance
5           David       27          Engineering
6           Kim         22          Finance
7           James       24          Finance

Consider an example for the usage of COLUMN ALIAS where COMPANY_ID is an alias of ID column and COMPANY_NAME is an alias of name column.

sqlite> SELECT C.ID AS COMPANY_ID, C.NAME AS COMPANY_NAME, C.AGE, D.DEPT
        FROM COMPANY AS C, DEPARTMENT AS D
        WHERE  C.ID = D.EMP_ID;

The above SQLite statement will produce the following result −

COMPANY_ID  COMPANY_NAME  AGE         DEPT
----------  ------------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul          32          IT Billing
2           Allen         25          Engineering
3           Teddy         23          Engineering
4           Mark          25          Finance
5           David         27          Engineering
6           Kim           22          Finance
7           James         24          Finance

SQLite – Triggers

SQLite Triggers are database callback functions, which are automatically performed/invoked when a specified database event occurs. Following are the important points about SQLite triggers −

• SQLite trigger may be specified to fire whenever a DELETE, INSERT or UPDATE of a particular database table occurs or whenever an UPDATE occurs on one or more specified columns of a table.

• At this time, SQLite supports only FOR EACH ROW triggers, not FOR EACH STATEMENT triggers. Hence, explicitly specifying FOR EACH ROW is optional.

• Both the WHEN clause and the trigger actions may access elements of the row being inserted, deleted, or updated using references of the form NEW.column-name and OLD.column-name, where column-name is the name of a column from the table that the trigger is associated with.

• If a WHEN clause is supplied, the SQL statements specified are only executed for rows for which the WHEN clause is true. If no WHEN clause is supplied, the SQL statements are executed for all rows.

• The BEFORE or AFTER keyword determines when the trigger actions will be executed relative to the insertion, modification, or removal of the associated row.

• Triggers are automatically dropped when the table that they are associated with is dropped.

• The table to be modified must exist in the same database as the table or view to which the trigger is attached and one must use just tablename not database.tablename.

• A special SQL function RAISE() may be used within a trigger-program to raise an exception.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of creating a trigger.

CREATE TRIGGER trigger_name [BEFORE|AFTER] event_name 
ON table_name
BEGIN
 -- Trigger logic goes here....
END;

Here, event_name could be INSERT, DELETE, and UPDATE database operation on the mentioned table table_name. You can optionally specify FOR EACH ROW after table name.

Following is the syntax for creating a trigger on an UPDATE operation on one or more specified columns of a table.

CREATE TRIGGER trigger_name [BEFORE|AFTER] UPDATE OF column_name 
ON table_name
BEGIN
   -- Trigger logic goes here....
END;

Example

Let us consider a case where we want to keep audit trial for every record being inserted in COMPANY table, which we create newly as follows (Drop COMPANY table if you already have it).

sqlite> CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
   NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

To keep audit trial, we will create a new table called AUDIT where the log messages will be inserted, whenever there is an entry in COMPANY table for a new record.

sqlite> CREATE TABLE AUDIT(
   EMP_ID INT NOT NULL,
   ENTRY_DATE TEXT NOT NULL
);

Here, ID is the AUDIT record ID, and EMP_ID is the ID which will come from COMPANY table and DATE will keep timestamp when the record will be created in COMPANY table. Now let”s create a trigger on COMPANY table as follows −

sqlite> CREATE TRIGGER audit_log AFTER INSERT 
ON COMPANY
BEGIN
   INSERT INTO AUDIT(EMP_ID, ENTRY_DATE) VALUES (new.ID, datetime(''now''));
END;

Now, we will start actual work, Let”s start inserting record in COMPANY table which should result in creating an audit log record in AUDIT table. Create one record in COMPANY table as follows −

sqlite> INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 );

This will create one record in COMPANY table, which is as follows −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0

Same time, one record will be created in AUDIT table. This record is the result of a trigger, which we have created on INSERT operation in COMPANY table. Similarly, you can create your triggers on UPDATE and DELETE operations based on your requirements.

EMP_ID      ENTRY_DATE
----------  -------------------
1           2013-04-05 06:26:00

Listing Triggers

You can list down all the triggers from sqlite_master table as follows −

sqlite> SELECT name FROM sqlite_master
WHERE type = ''trigger

The above SQLite statement will list down only one entry as follows −

name
----------
audit_log

If you want to list down triggers on a particular table, then use AND clause with table name as follows −

sqlite> SELECT name FROM sqlite_master
WHERE type = ''trigger'' AND tbl_name = ''COMPANY

The above SQLite statement will also list down only one entry as follows −

name
----------
audit_log

Dropping Triggers

Following is the DROP command, which can be used to drop an existing trigger.

sqlite> DROP TRIGGER trigger_name;

SQLite – Indexes

Indexes are special lookup tables that the database search engine can use to speed up data retrieval. Simply put, an index is a pointer to data in a table. An index in a database is very similar to an index in the back of a book.

For example, if you want to reference all pages in a book that discuss a certain topic, you first refer to the index, which lists all topics alphabetically and are then referred to one or more specific page numbers.

An index helps speed up SELECT queries and WHERE clauses, but it slows down data input, with UPDATE and INSERT statements. Indexes can be created or dropped with no effect on the data.

Creating an index involves the CREATE INDEX statement, which allows you to name the index, to specify the table and which column or columns to index, and to indicate whether the index is in an ascending or descending order.

Indexes can also be unique, similar to the UNIQUE constraint, in that the index prevents duplicate entries in the column or combination of columns on which there”s an index.

The CREATE INDEX Command

Following is the basic syntax of CREATE INDEX.

CREATE INDEX index_name ON table_name;

Single-Column Indexes

A single-column index is one that is created based on only one table column. The basic syntax is as follows −

CREATE INDEX index_name
ON table_name (column_name);

Unique Indexes

Unique indexes are used not only for performance, but also for data integrity. A unique index does not allow any duplicate values to be inserted into the table. The basic syntax is as follows −

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name
on table_name (column_name);

Composite Indexes

A composite index is an index on two or more columns of a table. The basic syntax is as follows −

CREATE INDEX index_name
on table_name (column1, column2);

Whether to create a single-column index or a composite index, take into consideration the column(s) that you may use very frequently in a query”s WHERE clause as filter conditions.

Should there be only one column used, a single-column index should be the choice. Should there be two or more columns that are frequently used in the WHERE clause as filters, the composite index would be the best choice.

Implicit Indexes

Implicit indexes are indexes that are automatically created by the database server when an object is created. Indexes are automatically created for primary key constraints and unique constraints.

Example

Following is an example where we will create an index in table for salary column −

sqlite> CREATE INDEX salary_index ON COMPANY (salary);

Now, let”s list down all the indices available in COMPANY table using .indices command as follows −

sqlite> .indices COMPANY

This will produce the following result, where sqlite_autoindex_COMPANY_1 is an implicit index which got created when the table itself was created.

salary_index
sqlite_autoindex_COMPANY_1

You can list down all the indexes database wide as follows −

sqlite> SELECT * FROM sqlite_master WHERE type = ''index

The DROP INDEX Command

An index can be dropped using SQLite DROP command. Care should be taken when dropping an index because performance may be slowed or improved.

Following is the basic syntax is as follows −

DROP INDEX index_name;

You can use the following statement to delete previously created index.

sqlite> DROP INDEX salary_index;

When Should Indexes Be Avoided?

Although indexes are intended to enhance the performance of a database, there are times when they should be avoided. The following guidelines indicate when the use of an index should be reconsidered.

Indexes should not be used in −

• Small tables.
• Tables that have frequent, large batch update or insert operations.
• Columns that contain a high number of NULL values.
• Columns that are frequently manipulated.

SQLite – INDEXED BY Clause

The “INDEXED BY index-name” clause specifies that the named index must be used in order to look up values on the preceding table.

If index-name does not exist or cannot be used for the query, then the preparation of the SQLite statement fails.

The “NOT INDEXED” clause specifies that no index shall be used when accessing the preceding table, including implied indices created by UNIQUE and PRIMARY KEY constraints.

However, the INTEGER PRIMARY KEY can still be used to look up entries even when “NOT INDEXED” is specified.

Syntax

Following is the syntax for INDEXED BY clause and it can be used with DELETE, UPDATE or SELECT statement.

SELECT|DELETE|UPDATE column1, column2...
INDEXED BY (index_name)
table_name
WHERE (CONDITION);

Example

Consider table We will create an index and use it for performing INDEXED BY operation.

sqlite> CREATE INDEX salary_index ON COMPANY(salary);
sqlite>

Now selecting the data from table COMPANY you can use INDEXED BY clause as follows −

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY INDEXED BY salary_index WHERE salary > 5000;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

SQLite – ALTER TABLE Command

SQLite ALTER TABLE command modifies an existing table without performing a full dump and reload of the data. You can rename a table using ALTER TABLE statement and additional columns can be added in an existing table using ALTER TABLE statement.

There is no other operation supported by ALTER TABLE command in SQLite except renaming a table and adding a column in an existing table.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of ALTER TABLE to RENAME an existing table.

ALTER TABLE database_name.table_name RENAME TO new_table_name;

Following is the basic syntax of ALTER TABLE to add a new column in an existing table.

ALTER TABLE database_name.table_name ADD COLUMN column_def...;

Example

Consider the table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Now, let”s try to rename this table using ALTER TABLE statement as follows −

sqlite> ALTER TABLE COMPANY RENAME TO OLD_COMPANY;

The above SQLite statement will rename COMPANY table to OLD_COMPANY. Now, let”s try to add a new column in OLD_COMPANY table as follows −

sqlite> ALTER TABLE OLD_COMPANY ADD COLUMN SEX char(1);

COMPANY table is now changed and following will be the output from SELECT statement.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY      SEX
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ---
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

It should be noted that newly added column is filled with NULL values.

SQLite – TRUNCATE TABLE Command

Unfortunately, we do not have TRUNCATE TABLE command in SQLite but you can use SQLite DELETE command to delete complete data from an existing table, though it is recommended to use DROP TABLE command to drop the complete table and re-create it once again.

Syntax

Following is the basic syntax of DELETE command.

sqlite> DELETE FROM table_name;

Following is the basic syntax of DROP TABLE.

sqlite> DROP TABLE table_name;

If you are using DELETE TABLE command to delete all the records, it is recommended to use VACUUM command to clear unused space.

Example

Consider table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is the example to truncate the above table −

SQLite> DELETE FROM COMPANY;
SQLite> VACUUM;

Now, COMPANY table is truncated completely and nothing will be the output from SELECT statement.

SQLite – Views

A view is nothing more than a SQLite statement that is stored in the database with an associated name. It is actually a composition of a table in the form of a predefined SQLite query.

A view can contain all rows of a table or selected rows from one or more tables. A view can be created from one or many tables which depends on the written SQLite query to create a view.

Views which are kind of virtual tables, allow the users to −

• Structure data in a way that users or classes of users find natural or intuitive.

• Restrict access to the data such that a user can only see limited data instead of a complete table.

• Summarize data from various tables, which can be used to generate reports.

SQLite views are read-only and thus you may not be able to execute a DELETE, INSERT or UPDATE statement on a view. However, you can create a trigger on a view that fires on an attempt to DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE a view and do what you need in the body of the trigger.

Creating Views

SQLite views are created using the CREATE VIEW statement. SQLite views can be created from a single table, multiple tables, or another view.

Following is the basic CREATE VIEW syntax.

CREATE [TEMP | TEMPORARY] VIEW view_name AS
SELECT column1, column2.....
FROM table_name
WHERE [condition];

You can include multiple tables in your SELECT statement in a similar way as you use them in a normal SQL SELECT query. If the optional TEMP or TEMPORARY keyword is present, the view will be created in the temp database.

Example

Consider table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Following is an example to create a view from COMPANY table. This view will be used to have only a few columns from COMPANY table.

sqlite> CREATE VIEW COMPANY_VIEW AS
SELECT ID, NAME, AGE
FROM  COMPANY;

You can now query COMPANY_VIEW in a similar way as you query an actual table. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT * FROM COMPANY_VIEW;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE
----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32
2           Allen       25
3           Teddy       23
4           Mark        25
5           David       27
6           Kim         22
7           James       24

Dropping Views

To drop a view, simply use the DROP VIEW statement with the view_name. The basic DROP VIEW syntax is as follows −

sqlite> DROP VIEW view_name;

The following command will delete COMPANY_VIEW view, which we created in the last section.

sqlite> DROP VIEW COMPANY_VIEW;

SQLite – Transactions

A transaction is a unit of work that is performed against a database. Transactions are units or sequences of work accomplished in a logical order, whether in a manual fashion by a user or automatically by some sort of a database program.

A transaction is the propagation of one or more changes to the database. For example, if you are creating, updating, or deleting a record from the table, then you are performing transaction on the table. It is important to control transactions to ensure data integrity and to handle database errors.

Practically, you will club many SQLite queries into a group and you will execute all of them together as part of a transaction.

Properties of Transactions

Transactions have the following four standard properties, usually referred to by the acronym ACID.

• Atomicity − Ensures that all operations within the work unit are completed successfully; otherwise, the transaction is aborted at the point of failure and previous operations are rolled back to their former state.

• Consistency − Ensures that the database properly changes states upon a successfully committed transaction.

• Isolation − Enables transactions to operate independently of and transparent to each other.

• Durability − Ensures that the result or effect of a committed transaction persists in case of a system failure.

Transaction Control

Following are the following commands used to control transactions:

• BEGIN TRANSACTION − To start a transaction.

• COMMIT − To save the changes, alternatively you can use END TRANSACTION command.

• ROLLBACK − To rollback the changes.

Transactional control commands are only used with DML commands INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE. They cannot be used while creating tables or dropping them because these operations are automatically committed in the database.

BEGIN TRANSACTION Command

Transactions can be started using BEGIN TRANSACTION or simply BEGIN command. Such transactions usually persist until the next COMMIT or ROLLBACK command is encountered. However, a transaction will also ROLLBACK if the database is closed or if an error occurs. Following is the simple syntax to start a transaction.

BEGIN;
or 
BEGIN TRANSACTION;

COMMIT Command

COMMIT command is the transactional command used to save changes invoked by a transaction to the database.

COMMIT command saves all transactions to the database since the last COMMIT or ROLLBACK command.

Following is the syntax for COMMIT command.

COMMIT;
or
END TRANSACTION;

ROLLBACK Command

ROLLBACK command is the transactional command used to undo transactions that have not already been saved to the database.

ROLLBACK command can only be used to undo transactions since the last COMMIT or ROLLBACK command was issued.

Following is the syntax for ROLLBACK command.

ROLLBACK;

Example

Consider table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Now, let”s start a transaction and delete records from the table having age = 25. Then, use ROLLBACK command to undo all the changes.

sqlite> BEGIN;
sqlite> DELETE FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE = 25;
sqlite> ROLLBACK;

Now, if you check COMPANY table, it still has the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Let”s start another transaction and delete records from the table having age = 25 and finally we use COMMIT command to commit all the changes.

sqlite> BEGIN;
sqlite> DELETE FROM COMPANY WHERE AGE = 25;
sqlite> COMMIT;

If you now check COMPANY table is still has the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

SQLite – Subqueries

A Subquery or Inner query or Nested query is a query within another SQLite query and embedded within the WHERE clause.

A subquery is used to return data that will be used in the main query as a condition to further restrict the data to be retrieved.

Subqueries can be used with the SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements along with the operators such as =, <, >, >=, <=, IN, BETWEEN, etc.

There are a few rules that subqueries must follow −

• Subqueries must be enclosed within parentheses.

• A subquery can have only one column in the SELECT clause, unless multiple columns are in the main query for the subquery to compare its selected columns.

• An ORDER BY cannot be used in a subquery, although the main query can use an ORDER BY. The GROUP BY can be used to perform the same function as the ORDER BY in a subquery.

• Subqueries that return more than one row can only be used with multiple value operators, such as the IN operator.

• BETWEEN operator cannot be used with a subquery; however, BETWEEN can be used within the subquery.

Subqueries with SELECT Statement

Subqueries are most frequently used with the SELECT statement. The basic syntax is as follows −

SELECT column_name [, column_name ]
FROM table1 [, table2 ]
WHERE column_name OPERATOR
   (SELECT column_name [, column_name ]
      FROM table1 [, table2 ]
      [WHERE])

Example

Consider table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Now, let us check the following sub-query with SELECT statement.

sqlite> SELECT * 
   FROM COMPANY 
   WHERE ID IN (SELECT ID 
      FROM COMPANY 
      WHERE SALARY > 45000) ;

This will produce the following result.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0

Subqueries with INSERT Statement

Subqueries can also be used with INSERT statements. The INSERT statement uses the data returned from the subquery to insert into another table. The selected data in the subquery can be modified with any of the character, date, or number functions.

Following is the basic syntax is as follows −

INSERT INTO table_name [ (column1 [, column2 ]) ]
   SELECT [ *|column1 [, column2 ]
   FROM table1 [, table2 ]
   [ WHERE VALUE OPERATOR ]

Example

Consider a table COMPANY_BKP with similar structure as COMPANY table and can be created using the same CREATE TABLE using COMPANY_BKP as the table name. To copy the complete COMPANY table into COMPANY_BKP, following is the syntax −

sqlite> INSERT INTO COMPANY_BKP
   SELECT * FROM COMPANY 
   WHERE ID IN (SELECT ID 
      FROM COMPANY) ;

Subqueries with UPDATE Statement

The subquery can be used in conjunction with the UPDATE statement. Either single or multiple columns in a table can be updated when using a subquery with the UPDATE statement.

Following is the basic syntax is as follows −

UPDATE table
SET column_name = new_value
[ WHERE OPERATOR [ VALUE ]
   (SELECT COLUMN_NAME
      FROM TABLE_NAME)
   [ WHERE) ]

Example

Assuming, we have COMPANY_BKP table available which is a backup of COMPANY table.

Following example updates SALARY by 0.50 times in COMPANY table for all the customers, whose AGE is greater than or equal to 27.

sqlite> UPDATE COMPANY
   SET SALARY = SALARY * 0.50
   WHERE AGE IN (SELECT AGE FROM COMPANY_BKP
      WHERE AGE >= 27 );

This would impact two rows and finally COMPANY table would have the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  10000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       42500.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Subqueries with DELETE Statement

Subquery can be used in conjunction with the DELETE statement like with any other statements mentioned above.

Following is the basic syntax is as follows −

DELETE FROM TABLE_NAME
[ WHERE OPERATOR [ VALUE ]
   (SELECT COLUMN_NAME
      FROM TABLE_NAME)
   [ WHERE) ]

Example

Assuming, we have COMPANY_BKP table available which is a backup of COMPANY table.

Following example deletes records from COMPANY table for all the customers whose AGE is greater than or equal to 27.

sqlite> DELETE FROM COMPANY
   WHERE AGE IN (SELECT AGE FROM COMPANY_BKP
   WHERE AGE > 27 );

This will impact two rows and finally COMPANY table will have the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       42500.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

SQLite – AUTOINCREMENT

SQLite AUTOINCREMENT is a keyword used for auto incrementing a value of a field in the table. We can auto increment a field value by using AUTOINCREMENT keyword when creating a table with specific column name to auto increment.

The keyword AUTOINCREMENT can be used with INTEGER field only.

Syntax

The basic usage of AUTOINCREMENT keyword is as follows −

CREATE TABLE table_name(
   column1 INTEGER AUTOINCREMENT,
   column2 datatype,
   column3 datatype,
   .....
   columnN datatype,
);

Example

Consider COMPANY table to be created as follows −

sqlite> CREATE TABLE COMPANY(
   ID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
   NAME           TEXT      NOT NULL,
   AGE            INT       NOT NULL,
   ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
   SALARY         REAL
);

Now, insert the following records into table COMPANY −

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES ( ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES (''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES ( ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES ( ''David'', 27, ''Texas'', 85000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES ( ''Kim'', 22, ''South-Hall'', 45000.00 );

INSERT INTO COMPANY (NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
VALUES ( ''James'', 24, ''Houston'', 10000.00 );

This will insert 7 tuples into the table COMPANY and COMPANY will have the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

SQLite – Injection

If you take user input through a webpage and insert it into a SQLite database there”s a chance that you have left yourself wide open for a security issue known as SQL Injection. In this chapter, you will learn how to help prevent this from happening and help you secure your scripts and SQLite statements.

Injection usually occurs when you ask a user for input, like their name, and instead of a name they give you a SQLite statement that you will unknowingly run on your database.

Never trust user provided data, process this data only after validation; as a rule, this is done by pattern matching. In the following example, the username is restricted to alphanumerical chars plus underscore and to a length between 8 and 20 chars – modify these rules as needed.

if (preg_match("/^w{8,20}$/", $_GET[''username''], $matches)){
   $db = new SQLiteDatabase(''filename'');
   $result = @$db->query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = $matches[0]");
} else {
   echo "username not accepted";
}

To demonstrate the problem, consider this excerpt −

$name = "Qadir DELETE FROM users;";
@$db->query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ''{$name}''");

The function call is supposed to retrieve a record from the users table where the name column matches the name specified by the user. Under normal circumstances, $name would only contain alphanumeric characters and perhaps spaces, such as the string ilia. However in this case, by appending an entirely new query to $name, the call to the database turns into a disaster: the injected DELETE query removes all records from users.

There are databases interfaces which do not permit query stacking or executing multiple queries in a single function call. If you try to stack queries, the call fails but SQLite and PostgreSQL, happily perform stacked queries, executing all of the queries provided in one string and creating a serious security problem.

Preventing SQL Injection

You can handle all escape characters smartly in scripting languages like PERL and PHP. Programming language PHP provides the function string sqlite_escape_string() to escape input characters that are special to SQLite.

if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
   $name = sqlite_escape_string($name);
}
$result = @$db->query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ''{$name}''");

Although the encoding makes it safe to insert the data, it will render simple text comparisons and LIKE clauses in your queries unusable for the columns that contain the binary data.

Note − addslashes() should NOT be used to quote your strings for SQLite queries; it will lead to strange results when retrieving your data.

SQLite – EXPLAIN

SQLite statement can be preceded by the keyword “EXPLAIN” or by the phrase “EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN” used for describing the details of a table.

Either modification causes the SQLite statement to behave as a query and to return information about how the SQLite statement would have operated if the EXPLAIN keyword or phrase had been omitted.

• The output from EXPLAIN and EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN is intended for interactive analysis and troubleshooting only.

• The details of the output format are subject to change from one release of SQLite to the next.

• Applications should not use EXPLAIN or EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN since their exact behavior is variable and only partially documented.

Syntax

syntax for EXPLAIN is as follows −

EXPLAIN [SQLite Query]

syntax for EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN is as follows −

EXPLAIN  QUERY PLAN [SQLite Query]

Example

Consider table with the following records −

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

Now, let us check the following sub-query with SELECT statement −

sqlite> EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE Salary &gt= 20000;

This will produce the following result.

addr        opcode      p1          p2          p3
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
0           Goto        0           19
1           Integer     0           0
2           OpenRead    0           8
3           SetNumColu  0           5
4           Rewind      0           17
5           Column      0           4
6           RealAffini  0           0
7           Integer     20000       0
8           Lt          357         16          collseq(BI
9           Rowid       0           0
10          Column      0           1
11          Column      0           2
12          Column      0           3
13          Column      0           4
14          RealAffini  0           0
15          Callback    5           0
16          Next        0           5
17          Close       0           0
18          Halt        0           0
19          Transactio  0           0
20          VerifyCook  0           38
21          Goto        0           1
22          Noop        0           0

Now, let us check the following Explain Query Plan with SELECT statement −

SQLite> EXPLAIN QUERY PLAN SELECT * FROM COMPANY WHERE Salary &gt= 20000;

order       from        detail
----------  ----------  -------------
0           0           TABLE COMPANY

SQLite – VACUUM

VACUUM command cleans the main database by copying its contents to a temporary database file and reloading the original database file from the copy. This eliminates free pages, aligns table data to be contiguous, and otherwise cleans up the database file structure.

VACUUM command may change the ROWID of entries in tables that do not have an explicit INTEGER PRIMARY KEY. The VACUUM command only works on the main database. It is not possible to VACUUM an attached database file.

VACUUM command will fail if there is an active transaction. VACUUM command is a no-op for in-memory databases. As the VACUUM command rebuilds the database file from scratch, VACUUM can also be used to modify many database-specific configuration parameters.

Manual VACUUM

Following is a simple syntax to issue a VACUUM command for the whole database from command prompt −

$sqlite3 database_name "VACUUM;"

You can run VACUUM from SQLite prompt as well as follows −

sqlite> VACUUM;

You can also run VACUUM on a particular table as follows −

sqlite> VACUUM table_name;

Auto-VACCUM

SQLite Auto-VACUUM does not do the same as VACUUM rather it only moves free pages to the end of the database thereby reducing the database size. By doing so it can significantly fragment the database while VACUUM ensures defragmentation. Hence, Auto-VACUUM just keeps the database small.

You can enable/disable SQLite auto-vacuuming by the following pragmas running at SQLite prompt −

sqlite> PRAGMA auto_vacuum = NONE; -- 0 means disable auto vacuum
sqlite> PRAGMA auto_vacuum = FULL; -- 1 means enable full auto vacuum
sqlite> PRAGMA auto_vacuum = INCREMENTAL; -- 2 means enable incremental vacuum

You can run the following command from the command prompt to check the auto-vacuum setting −

$sqlite3 database_name "PRAGMA auto_vacuum;"

SQLite – Date & Time

SQLite supports five date and time functions as follows −

All the above five date and time functions take a time string as an argument. The time string is followed by zero or more modifiers. The strftime() function also takes a format string as its first argument. Following section will give you detail on different types of time strings and modifiers.

Time Strings

A time string can be in any of the following formats −

You can use the “T” as a literal character separating the date and the time.

Modifiers

The time string can be followed by zero or more modifiers that will alter date and/or time returned by any of the above five functions. Modifiers are applied from the left to right.

Following modifers are available in SQLite −

• NNN days
• NNN hours
• NNN minutes
• NNN.NNNN seconds
• NNN months
• NNN years
• start of month
• start of year
• start of day
• weekday N
• unixepoch
• localtime
• utc

Formatters

SQLite provides a very handy function strftime() to format any date and time. You can use the following substitutions to format your date and time.

Examples

Let”s try various examples now using SQLite prompt. Following command computes the current date.

sqlite> SELECT date(''now'');
2013-05-07

Following command computes the last day of the current month.

sqlite> SELECT date(''now'',''start of month'',''+1 month'',''-1 day'');
2013-05-31

Following command computes the date and time for a given UNIX timestamp 1092941466.

sqlite> SELECT datetime(1092941466, ''unixepoch'');
2004-08-19 18:51:06

Following command computes the date and time for a given UNIX timestamp 1092941466 and compensate for your local timezone.

sqlite> SELECT datetime(1092941466, ''unixepoch'', ''localtime'');
2004-08-19 13:51:06

Following command computes the current UNIX timestamp.

sqlite> SELECT strftime(''%s'',''now'');
1393348134

Following command computes the number of days since the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

sqlite> SELECT julianday(''now'') - julianday(''1776-07-04'');
86798.7094695023

Following command computes the number of seconds since a particular moment in 2004.

sqlite> SELECT strftime(''%s'',''now'') - strftime(''%s'',''2004-01-01 02:34:56'');
295001572

Following command computes the date of the first Tuesday in October for the current year.

sqlite> SELECT date(''now'',''start of year'',''+9 months'',''weekday 2'');
2013-10-01

Following command computes the time since the UNIX epoch in seconds (like strftime(”%s”,”now”) except includes fractional part).

sqlite> SELECT (julianday(''now'') - 2440587.5)*86400.0;
1367926077.12598

To convert between UTC and local time values when formatting a date, use the utc or localtime modifiers as follows −

sqlite> SELECT time(''12:00'', ''localtime'');
05:00:00

sqlite> SELECT time(''12:00'', ''utc'');
19:00:00

SQLite – Useful Functions

SQLite has many built-in functions to perform processing on string or numeric data. Following is the list of few useful SQLite built-in functions and all are case in-sensitive which means you can use these functions either in lower-case form or in upper-case or in mixed form. For more details, you can check official documentation for SQLite.

Before we start giving examples on the above-mentioned functions, consider COMPANY table with the following records.

ID          NAME        AGE         ADDRESS     SALARY
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
1           Paul        32          California  20000.0
2           Allen       25          Texas       15000.0
3           Teddy       23          Norway      20000.0
4           Mark        25          Rich-Mond   65000.0
5           David       27          Texas       85000.0
6           Kim         22          South-Hall  45000.0
7           James       24          Houston     10000.0

SQLite COUNT Function

SQLite COUNT aggregate function is used to count the number of rows in a database table. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT count(*) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

count(*)
----------
7

SQLite MAX Function

SQLite MAX aggregate function allows us to select the highest (maximum) value for a certain column. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT max(salary) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

max(salary)
-----------
85000.0

SQLite MIN Function

SQLite MIN aggregate function allows us to select the lowest (minimum) value for a certain column. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT min(salary) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

min(salary)
-----------
10000.0

SQLite AVG Function

SQLite AVG aggregate function selects the average value for a certain table column. Following is an the example −

sqlite> SELECT avg(salary) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

avg(salary)
----------------
37142.8571428572

SQLite SUM Function

SQLite SUM aggregate function allows selecting the total for a numeric column. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT sum(salary) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

sum(salary)
-----------
260000.0

SQLite RANDOM Function

SQLite RANDOM function returns a pseudo-random integer between -9223372036854775808 and +9223372036854775807. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT random() AS Random;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

Random
-------------------
5876796417670984050

SQLite ABS Function

SQLite ABS function returns the absolute value of the numeric argument. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT abs(5), abs(-15), abs(NULL), abs(0), abs("ABC");

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

abs(5)      abs(-15)    abs(NULL)   abs(0)      abs("ABC")
----------  ----------  ----------  ----------  ----------
5           15                      0           0.0

SQLite UPPER Function

SQLite UPPER function converts a string into upper-case letters. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT upper(name) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

upper(name)
-----------
PAUL
ALLEN
TEDDY
MARK
DAVID
KIM
JAMES

SQLite LOWER Function

SQLite LOWER function converts a string into lower-case letters. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT lower(name) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

lower(name)
-----------
paul
allen
teddy
mark
david
kim
james

SQLite LENGTH Function

SQLite LENGTH function returns the length of a string. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT name, length(name) FROM COMPANY;

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

NAME        length(name)
----------  ------------
Paul        4
Allen       5
Teddy       5
Mark        4
David       5
Kim         3
James       5

SQLite sqlite_version Function

SQLite sqlite_version function returns the version of the SQLite library. Following is an example −

sqlite> SELECT sqlite_version() AS ''SQLite Version

The above SQLite SQL statement will produce the following.

SQLite Version
--------------
3.6.20

SQLite – C/C++

In this chapter, you will learn how to use SQLite in C/C++ programs.

Installation

Before you start using SQLite in our C/C++ programs, you need to make sure that you have SQLite library set up on the machine. You can check SQLite Installation chapter to understand the installation process.

C/C++ Interface APIs

Following are important C/C++ SQLite interface routines, which can suffice your requirement to work with SQLite database from your C/C++ program. If you are looking for a more sophisticated application, then you can look into SQLite official documentation.

Connect To Database

Following C code segment shows how to connect to an existing database. If the database does not exist, then it will be created and finally a database object will be returned.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sqlite3.h> 

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   sqlite3 *db;
   char *zErrMsg = 0;
   int rc;

   rc = sqlite3_open("test.db", &db);

   if( rc ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "Can''t open database: %sn", sqlite3_errmsg(db));
      return(0);
   } else {
      fprintf(stderr, "Opened database successfullyn");
   }
   sqlite3_close(db);
}

Now, let”s compile and run the above program to create our database test.db in the current directory. You can change your path as per your requirement.

$gcc test.c -l sqlite3
$./a.out
Opened database successfully

If you are going to use C++ source code, then you can compile your code as follows −

$g++ test.c -l sqlite3

Here, we are linking our program with sqlite3 library to provide required functions to C program. This will create a database file test.db in your directory and you will have the following result.

-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 7383 May 8 02:06 a.out
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  323 May 8 02:05 test.c
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    0 May 8 02:06 test.db

Create a Table

Following C code segment will be used to create a table in the previously created database −

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sqlite3.h> 

static int callback(void *NotUsed, int argc, char **argv, char **azColName) {
   int i;
   for(i = 0; i<argc; i++) {
      printf("%s = %sn", azColName[i], argv[i] ? argv[i] : "NULL");
   }
   printf("n");
   return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   sqlite3 *db;
   char *zErrMsg = 0;
   int rc;
   char *sql;

   /* Open database */
   rc = sqlite3_open("test.db", &db);
   
   if( rc ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "Can''t open database: %sn", sqlite3_errmsg(db));
      return(0);
   } else {
      fprintf(stdout, "Opened database successfullyn");
   }

   /* Create SQL statement */
   sql = "CREATE TABLE COMPANY("  
      "ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL," 
      "NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL," 
      "AGE            INT     NOT NULL," 
      "ADDRESS        CHAR(50)," 
      "SALARY         REAL );";

   /* Execute SQL statement */
   rc = sqlite3_exec(db, sql, callback, 0, &zErrMsg);
   
   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
      fprintf(stderr, "SQL error: %sn", zErrMsg);
      sqlite3_free(zErrMsg);
   } else {
      fprintf(stdout, "Table created successfullyn");
   }
   sqlite3_close(db);
   return 0;
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will create COMPANY table in your test.db and the final listing of the file will be as follows −

-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 9567 May 8 02:31 a.out
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 1207 May 8 02:31 test.c
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3072 May 8 02:31 test.db

INSERT Operation

Following C code segment shows how you can create records in COMPANY table created in the above example −

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sqlite3.h> 

static int callback(void *NotUsed, int argc, char **argv, char **azColName) {
   int i;
   for(i = 0; i<argc; i++) {
      printf("%s = %sn", azColName[i], argv[i] ? argv[i] : "NULL");
   }
   printf("n");
   return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   sqlite3 *db;
   char *zErrMsg = 0;
   int rc;
   char *sql;

   /* Open database */
   rc = sqlite3_open("test.db", &db);
   
   if( rc ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "Can''t open database: %sn", sqlite3_errmsg(db));
      return(0);
   } else {
      fprintf(stderr, "Opened database successfullyn");
   }

   /* Create SQL statement */
   sql = "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) "  
         "VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 ); " 
         "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) "  
         "VALUES (2, ''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 ); "     
         "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)" 
         "VALUES (3, ''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 );" 
         "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)" 
         "VALUES (4, ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 );";

   /* Execute SQL statement */
   rc = sqlite3_exec(db, sql, callback, 0, &zErrMsg);
   
   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ){
      fprintf(stderr, "SQL error: %sn", zErrMsg);
      sqlite3_free(zErrMsg);
   } else {
      fprintf(stdout, "Records created successfullyn");
   }
   sqlite3_close(db);
   return 0;
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will create the given records in COMPANY table and will display the following two lines −

Opened database successfully
Records created successfully

SELECT Operation

Before proceeding with actual example to fetch records, let us look at some detail about the callback function, which we are using in our examples. This callback provides a way to obtain results from SELECT statements. It has the following declaration −

typedef int (*sqlite3_callback)(
   void*,    /* Data provided in the 4th argument of sqlite3_exec() */
   int,      /* The number of columns in row */
   char**,   /* An array of strings representing fields in the row */
   char**    /* An array of strings representing column names */
);

If the above callback is provided in sqlite_exec() routine as the third argument, SQLite will call this callback function for each record processed in each SELECT statement executed within the SQL argument.

Following C code segment shows how you can fetch and display records from the COMPANY table created in the above example −

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sqlite3.h> 

static int callback(void *data, int argc, char **argv, char **azColName){
   int i;
   fprintf(stderr, "%s: ", (const char*)data);
   
   for(i = 0; i<argc; i++){
      printf("%s = %sn", azColName[i], argv[i] ? argv[i] : "NULL");
   }
   
   printf("n");
   return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   sqlite3 *db;
   char *zErrMsg = 0;
   int rc;
   char *sql;
   const char* data = "Callback function called";

   /* Open database */
   rc = sqlite3_open("test.db", &db);
   
   if( rc ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "Can''t open database: %sn", sqlite3_errmsg(db));
      return(0);
   } else {
      fprintf(stderr, "Opened database successfullyn");
   }

   /* Create SQL statement */
   sql = "SELECT * from COMPANY";

   /* Execute SQL statement */
   rc = sqlite3_exec(db, sql, callback, (void*)data, &zErrMsg);
   
   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "SQL error: %sn", zErrMsg);
      sqlite3_free(zErrMsg);
   } else {
      fprintf(stdout, "Operation done successfullyn");
   }
   sqlite3_close(db);
   return 0;
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Callback function called: ID = 1
NAME = Paul
AGE = 32
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

Callback function called: ID = 2
NAME = Allen
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

Callback function called: ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
AGE = 23
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

Callback function called: ID = 4
NAME = Mark
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

UPDATE Operation

Following C code segment shows how we can use UPDATE statement to update any record and then fetch and display updated records from the COMPANY table.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sqlite3.h> 

static int callback(void *data, int argc, char **argv, char **azColName){
   int i;
   fprintf(stderr, "%s: ", (const char*)data);
   
   for(i = 0; i<argc; i++) {
      printf("%s = %sn", azColName[i], argv[i] ? argv[i] : "NULL");
   }
   printf("n");
   return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   sqlite3 *db;
   char *zErrMsg = 0;
   int rc;
   char *sql;
   const char* data = "Callback function called";

   /* Open database */
   rc = sqlite3_open("test.db", &db);
   
   if( rc ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "Can''t open database: %sn", sqlite3_errmsg(db));
      return(0);
   } else {
      fprintf(stderr, "Opened database successfullyn");
   }

   /* Create merged SQL statement */
   sql = "UPDATE COMPANY set SALARY = 25000.00 where ID=1; " 
         "SELECT * from COMPANY";

   /* Execute SQL statement */
   rc = sqlite3_exec(db, sql, callback, (void*)data, &zErrMsg);
   
   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "SQL error: %sn", zErrMsg);
      sqlite3_free(zErrMsg);
   } else {
      fprintf(stdout, "Operation done successfullyn");
   }
   sqlite3_close(db);
   return 0;
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Callback function called: ID = 1
NAME = Paul
AGE = 32
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000.0

Callback function called: ID = 2
NAME = Allen
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

Callback function called: ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
AGE = 23
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

Callback function called: ID = 4
NAME = Mark
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

DELETE Operation

Following C code segment shows how you can use DELETE statement to delete any record and then fetch and display the remaining records from the COMPANY table.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sqlite3.h> 

static int callback(void *data, int argc, char **argv, char **azColName) {
   int i;
   fprintf(stderr, "%s: ", (const char*)data);
   
   for(i = 0; i<argc; i++) {
      printf("%s = %sn", azColName[i], argv[i] ? argv[i] : "NULL");
   }
   printf("n");
   return 0;
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
   sqlite3 *db;
   char *zErrMsg = 0;
   int rc;
   char *sql;
   const char* data = "Callback function called";

   /* Open database */
   rc = sqlite3_open("test.db", &db);
   
   if( rc ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "Can''t open database: %sn", sqlite3_errmsg(db));
      return(0);
   } else {
      fprintf(stderr, "Opened database successfullyn");
   }

   /* Create merged SQL statement */
   sql = "DELETE from COMPANY where ID=2; " 
         "SELECT * from COMPANY";

   /* Execute SQL statement */
   rc = sqlite3_exec(db, sql, callback, (void*)data, &zErrMsg);
   
   if( rc != SQLITE_OK ) {
      fprintf(stderr, "SQL error: %sn", zErrMsg);
      sqlite3_free(zErrMsg);
   } else {
      fprintf(stdout, "Operation done successfullyn");
   }
   sqlite3_close(db);
   return 0;
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Callback function called: ID = 1
NAME = Paul
AGE = 32
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

Callback function called: ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
AGE = 23
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

Callback function called: ID = 4
NAME = Mark
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

SQLite – Java

In this chapter, you will learn how to use SQLite in Java programs.

Installation

Before you start using SQLite in our Java programs, you need to make sure that you have SQLite JDBC Driver and Java set up on the machine. You can check Java tutorial for Java installation on your machine. Now, let us check how to set up SQLite JDBC driver.

• Download latest version of sqlite-jdbc-(VERSION).jar from repository.

• Add downloaded jar file sqlite-jdbc-(VERSION).jar in your class path, or you can use it along with -classpath option as explained in the following examples.

Following section assumes you have little knowledge about Java JDBC concepts. If you don”t, then it is suggested to spent half an hour with to become comfortable with the concepts explained below.

Connect to Database

Following Java programs shows how to connect to an existing database. If the database does not exist, then it will be created and finally a database object will be returned.

import java.sql.*;

public class SQLiteJDBC {
  public static void main( String args[] ) {
      Connection c = null;
      
      try {
         Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");
         c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:test.db");
      } catch ( Exception e ) {
         System.err.println( e.getClass().getName() + ": " + e.getMessage() );
         System.exit(0);
      }
      System.out.println("Opened database successfully");
   }
}

Now, let”s compile and run the above program to create our database test.db in the current directory. You can change your path as per your requirement. We are assuming the current version of JDBC driver sqlite-jdbc-3.7.2.jar is available in the current path.

$javac SQLiteJDBC.java
$java -classpath ".:sqlite-jdbc-3.7.2.jar" SQLiteJDBC
Open database successfully

If you are going to use Windows machine, then you can compile and run your code as follows −

$javac SQLiteJDBC.java
$java -classpath ".;sqlite-jdbc-3.7.2.jar" SQLiteJDBC
Opened database successfully

Create a Table

Following Java program will be used to create a table in the previously created database.

import java.sql.*;

public class SQLiteJDBC {

   public static void main( String args[] ) {
      Connection c = null;
      Statement stmt = null;
      
      try {
         Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");
         c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:test.db");
         System.out.println("Opened database successfully");

         stmt = c.createStatement();
         String sql = "CREATE TABLE COMPANY " +
                        "(ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL," +
                        " NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL, " + 
                        " AGE            INT     NOT NULL, " + 
                        " ADDRESS        CHAR(50), " + 
                        " SALARY         REAL)"; 
         stmt.executeUpdate(sql);
         stmt.close();
         c.close();
      } catch ( Exception e ) {
         System.err.println( e.getClass().getName() + ": " + e.getMessage() );
         System.exit(0);
      }
      System.out.println("Table created successfully");
   }
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will create COMPANY table in your test.db and final listing of the file will be as follows −

-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3201128 Jan 22 19:04 sqlite-jdbc-3.7.2.jar
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    1506 May  8 05:43 SQLiteJDBC.class
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root     832 May  8 05:42 SQLiteJDBC.java
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    3072 May  8 05:43 test.db

INSERT Operation

Following Java program shows how to create records in the COMPANY table created in above example.

import java.sql.*;

public class SQLiteJDBC {

   public static void main( String args[] ) {
      Connection c = null;
      Statement stmt = null;
      
      try {
         Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");
         c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:test.db");
         c.setAutoCommit(false);
         System.out.println("Opened database successfully");

         stmt = c.createStatement();
         String sql = "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) " +
                        "VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 );"; 
         stmt.executeUpdate(sql);

         sql = "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) " +
                  "VALUES (2, ''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 );"; 
         stmt.executeUpdate(sql);

         sql = "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) " +
                  "VALUES (3, ''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 );"; 
         stmt.executeUpdate(sql);

         sql = "INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) " +
                  "VALUES (4, ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 );"; 
         stmt.executeUpdate(sql);

         stmt.close();
         c.commit();
         c.close();
      } catch ( Exception e ) {
         System.err.println( e.getClass().getName() + ": " + e.getMessage() );
         System.exit(0);
      }
      System.out.println("Records created successfully");
   }
}

When above program is compiled and executed, it will create given records in COMPANY table and will display following two line −

Opened database successfully
Records created successfully

SELECT Operation

Following Java program shows how to fetch and display records from the COMPANY table created in the above example.

import java.sql.*;

public class SQLiteJDBC {

  public static void main( String args[] ) {

   Connection c = null;
   Statement stmt = null;
   try {
      Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");
      c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:test.db");
      c.setAutoCommit(false);
      System.out.println("Opened database successfully");

      stmt = c.createStatement();
      ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery( "SELECT * FROM COMPANY;" );
      
      while ( rs.next() ) {
         int id = rs.getInt("id");
         String  name = rs.getString("name");
         int age  = rs.getInt("age");
         String  address = rs.getString("address");
         float salary = rs.getFloat("salary");
         
         System.out.println( "ID = " + id );
         System.out.println( "NAME = " + name );
         System.out.println( "AGE = " + age );
         System.out.println( "ADDRESS = " + address );
         System.out.println( "SALARY = " + salary );
         System.out.println();
      }
      rs.close();
      stmt.close();
      c.close();
   } catch ( Exception e ) {
      System.err.println( e.getClass().getName() + ": " + e.getMessage() );
      System.exit(0);
   }
   System.out.println("Operation done successfully");
  }
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
AGE = 32
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
AGE = 23
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

UPDATE Operation

Following Java code shows how to use UPDATE statement to update any record and then fetch and display the updated records from the COMPANY table.

import java.sql.*;

public class SQLiteJDBC {

  public static void main( String args[] ) {
  
   Connection c = null;
   Statement stmt = null;
   
   try {
      Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");
      c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:test.db");
      c.setAutoCommit(false);
      System.out.println("Opened database successfully");

      stmt = c.createStatement();
      String sql = "UPDATE COMPANY set SALARY = 25000.00 where ID=1;";
      stmt.executeUpdate(sql);
      c.commit();

      ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery( "SELECT * FROM COMPANY;" );
      
      while ( rs.next() ) {
         int id = rs.getInt("id");
         String  name = rs.getString("name");
         int age  = rs.getInt("age");
         String  address = rs.getString("address");
         float salary = rs.getFloat("salary");
         
         System.out.println( "ID = " + id );
         System.out.println( "NAME = " + name );
         System.out.println( "AGE = " + age );
         System.out.println( "ADDRESS = " + address );
         System.out.println( "SALARY = " + salary );
         System.out.println();
      }
      rs.close();
      stmt.close();
      c.close();
   } catch ( Exception e ) {
      System.err.println( e.getClass().getName() + ": " + e.getMessage() );
      System.exit(0);
   }
    System.out.println("Operation done successfully");
   }
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
AGE = 32
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000.0

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
AGE = 23
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

DELETE Operation

Following Java code shows how to use use DELETE statement to delete any record and then fetch and display the remaining records from the our COMPANY table.

import java.sql.*;

public class SQLiteJDBC {

   public static void main( String args[] ) {
      Connection c = null;
      Statement stmt = null;
      
      try {
         Class.forName("org.sqlite.JDBC");
         c = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:test.db");
         c.setAutoCommit(false);
         System.out.println("Opened database successfully");

         stmt = c.createStatement();
         String sql = "DELETE from COMPANY where ID=2;";
         stmt.executeUpdate(sql);
         c.commit();

         ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery( "SELECT * FROM COMPANY;" );
         
         while ( rs.next() ) {
         int id = rs.getInt("id");
         String  name = rs.getString("name");
         int age  = rs.getInt("age");
         String  address = rs.getString("address");
         float salary = rs.getFloat("salary");
         
         System.out.println( "ID = " + id );
         System.out.println( "NAME = " + name );
         System.out.println( "AGE = " + age );
         System.out.println( "ADDRESS = " + address );
         System.out.println( "SALARY = " + salary );
         System.out.println();
      }
      rs.close();
      stmt.close();
      c.close();
      } catch ( Exception e ) {
         System.err.println( e.getClass().getName() + ": " + e.getMessage() );
         System.exit(0);
      }
      System.out.println("Operation done successfully");
   }
}

When the above program is compiled and executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
AGE = 32
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
AGE = 23
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
AGE = 25
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

SQLite – PHP

In this chapter, you will learn how to use SQLite in PHP programs.

Installation

SQLite3 extension is enabled by default as of PHP 5.3.0. It”s possible to disable it by using –without-sqlite3 at compile time.

Windows users must enable php_sqlite3.dll in order to use this extension. This DLL is included with Windows distributions of PHP as of PHP 5.3.0.

For detailed installation instructions, kindly check our PHP tutorial and its official website.

PHP Interface APIs

Following are important PHP routines which can suffice your requirement to work with SQLite database from your PHP program. If you are looking for a more sophisticated application, then you can look into PHP official documentation.

Connect to Database

Following PHP code shows how to connect to an existing database. If database does not exist, then it will be created and finally a database object will be returned.

<?php
   class MyDB extends SQLite3 {
      function __construct() {
         $this->open(''test.db'');
      }
   }
   $db = new MyDB();
   if(!$db) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Opened database successfullyn";
   }
?>

Now, let”s run the above program to create our database test.db in the current directory. You can change your path as per your requirement. If the database is successfully created, then it will display the following message −

Open database successfully

Create a Table

Following PHP program will be used to create a table in the previously created database.

<?php
   class MyDB extends SQLite3 {
      function __construct() {
         $this->open(''test.db'');
      }
   }
   $db = new MyDB();
   if(!$db) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Opened database successfullyn";
   }

   $sql =<<<EOF
      CREATE TABLE COMPANY
      (ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
      NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
      AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
      ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
      SALARY         REAL);
EOF;

   $ret = $db->exec($sql);
   if(!$ret){
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Table created successfullyn";
   }
   $db->close();
?>

When the above program is executed, it will create the COMPANY table in your test.db and it will display the following messages −

Opened database successfully
Table created successfully

INSERT Operation

Following PHP program shows how to create records in the COMPANY table created in the above example.

<?php
   class MyDB extends SQLite3 {
      function __construct() {
         $this->open(''test.db'');
      }
   }
   
   $db = new MyDB();
   if(!$db){
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Opened database successfullyn";
   }

   $sql =<<<EOF
      INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
      VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 );

      INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
      VALUES (2, ''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 );

      INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
      VALUES (3, ''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 );

      INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
      VALUES (4, ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 );
EOF;

   $ret = $db->exec($sql);
   if(!$ret) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Records created successfullyn";
   }
   $db->close();
?>

When the above program is executed, it will create the given records in the COMPANY table and will display the following two lines.

Opened database successfully
Records created successfully

SELECT Operation

Following PHP program shows how to fetch and display records from the COMPANY table created in the above example −

<?php
   class MyDB extends SQLite3 {
      function __construct() {
         $this->open(''test.db'');
      }
   }
   
   $db = new MyDB();
   if(!$db) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Opened database successfullyn";
   }

   $sql =<<<EOF
      SELECT * from COMPANY;
EOF;

   $ret = $db->query($sql);
   while($row = $ret->fetchArray(SQLITE3_ASSOC) ) {
      echo "ID = ". $row[''ID''] . "n";
      echo "NAME = ". $row[''NAME''] ."n";
      echo "ADDRESS = ". $row[''ADDRESS''] ."n";
      echo "SALARY = ".$row[''SALARY''] ."nn";
   }
   echo "Operation done successfullyn";
   $db->close();
?>

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000

Operation done successfully

UPDATE Operation

Following PHP code shows how to use UPDATE statement to update any record and then fetch and display the updated records from the COMPANY table.

<?php
   class MyDB extends SQLite3 {
      function __construct() {
         $this->open(''test.db'');
      }
   }
   
   $db = new MyDB();
   if(!$db) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Opened database successfullyn";
   }
   $sql =<<<EOF
      UPDATE COMPANY set SALARY = 25000.00 where ID=1;
EOF;
   $ret = $db->exec($sql);
   if(!$ret) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo $db->changes(), " Record updated successfullyn";
   }

   $sql =<<<EOF
      SELECT * from COMPANY;
EOF;
   
   $ret = $db->query($sql);
   while($row = $ret->fetchArray(SQLITE3_ASSOC) ) {
      echo "ID = ". $row[''ID''] . "n";
      echo "NAME = ". $row[''NAME''] ."n";
      echo "ADDRESS = ". $row[''ADDRESS''] ."n";
      echo "SALARY = ".$row[''SALARY''] ."nn";
   }
   echo "Operation done successfullyn";
   $db->close();
?>

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
1 Record updated successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000

Operation done successfully

DELETE Operation

Following PHP code shows how to use DELETE statement to delete any record and then fetch and display the remaining records from the COMPANY table.

<?php
   class MyDB extends SQLite3 {
      function __construct() {
         $this->open(''test.db'');
      }
   }
   
   $db = new MyDB();
   if(!$db) {
      echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo "Opened database successfullyn";
   }
   $sql =<<<EOF
      DELETE from COMPANY where ID = 2;
EOF;
   
   $ret = $db->exec($sql);
   if(!$ret){
     echo $db->lastErrorMsg();
   } else {
      echo $db->changes(), " Record deleted successfullyn";
   }

   $sql =<<<EOF
      SELECT * from COMPANY;
EOF;
   $ret = $db->query($sql);
   while($row = $ret->fetchArray(SQLITE3_ASSOC) ) {
      echo "ID = ". $row[''ID''] . "n";
      echo "NAME = ". $row[''NAME''] ."n";
      echo "ADDRESS = ". $row[''ADDRESS''] ."n";
      echo "SALARY = ".$row[''SALARY''] ."nn";
   }
   echo "Operation done successfullyn";
   $db->close();
?>

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
1 Record deleted successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000

Operation done successfully

SQLite – Perl

In this chapter, you will learn how to use SQLite in Perl programs.

Installation

SQLite3 can be integrated with Perl using Perl DBI module, which is a database access module for the Perl programming language. It defines a set of methods, variables, and conventions that provide a standard database interface.

Following are simple steps to install DBI module on your Linux/UNIX machine −

$ wget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/T/TI/TIMB/DBI-1.625.tar.gz
$ tar xvfz DBI-1.625.tar.gz
$ cd DBI-1.625
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
$ make install

If you need to install SQLite driver for DBI, then it can be installed as follows −

$ wget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/M/MS/MSERGEANT/DBD-SQLite-1.11.tar.gz
$ tar xvfz DBD-SQLite-1.11.tar.gz
$ cd DBD-SQLite-1.11
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
$ make install

DBI Interface APIs

Following are important DBI routines, which can suffice your requirement to work with SQLite database from your Perl program. If you are looking for a more sophisticated application, then you can look into Perl DBI official documentation.

Connect To Database

Following Perl code shows how to connect to an existing database. If the database does not exist, then it will be created and finally a database object will be returned.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;
use strict;

my $driver   = "SQLite"; 
my $database = "test.db";
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:dbname=$database";
my $userid = "";
my $password = "";
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $userid, $password, { RaiseError => 1 }) 
   or die $DBI::errstr;

print "Opened database successfullyn";

Now, let”s run the above program to create our database test.db in the current directory. You can change your path as per your requirement. Keep the above code in sqlite.pl file and execute it as shown below. If the database is successfully created, then it will display the following message −

$ chmod +x sqlite.pl
$ ./sqlite.pl
Open database successfully

Create a Table

Following Perl program is used to create a table in the previously created database.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;
use strict;

my $driver   = "SQLite";
my $database = "test.db";
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:dbname=$database";
my $userid = "";
my $password = "";
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $userid, $password, { RaiseError => 1 })
   or die $DBI::errstr;
print "Opened database successfullyn";

my $stmt = qq(CREATE TABLE COMPANY
   (ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
      NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
      AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
      ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
      SALARY         REAL););

my $rv = $dbh->do($stmt);
if($rv < 0) {
   print $DBI::errstr;
} else {
   print "Table created successfullyn";
}
$dbh->disconnect();

When the above program is executed, it will create COMPANY table in your test.db and it will display the following messages −

Opened database successfully
Table created successfully

NOTE − In case you see the following error in any of the operation −

DBD::SQLite::st execute failed: not an error(21) at dbdimp.c line 398

In such case, open dbdimp.c file available in DBD-SQLite installation and find out sqlite3_prepare() function and change its third argument to -1 instead of 0. Finally, install DBD::SQLite using make and do make install to resolve the problem.

INSERT Operation

Following Perl program shows how to create records in the COMPANY table created in the above example.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;
use strict;

my $driver   = "SQLite";
my $database = "test.db";
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:dbname=$database";
my $userid = "";
my $password = "";
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $userid, $password, { RaiseError => 1 })
   or die $DBI::errstr;
print "Opened database successfullyn";

my $stmt = qq(INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
               VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 ));
my $rv = $dbh->do($stmt) or die $DBI::errstr;

$stmt = qq(INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
               VALUES (2, ''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 ));
$rv = $dbh->do($stmt) or die $DBI::errstr;

$stmt = qq(INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
               VALUES (3, ''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 ));

$rv = $dbh->do($stmt) or die $DBI::errstr;

$stmt = qq(INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
               VALUES (4, ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 ););

$rv = $dbh->do($stmt) or die $DBI::errstr;

print "Records created successfullyn";
$dbh->disconnect();

When the above program is executed, it will create the given records in the COMPANY table and it will display the following two lines −

Opened database successfully
Records created successfully

SELECT Operation

Following Perl program shows how to fetch and display records from the COMPANY table created in the above example.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;
use strict;

my $driver = "SQLite";
my $database = "test.db";
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:dbname=$database";
my $userid = "";
my $password = "";
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $userid, $password, { RaiseError => 1 })
   or die $DBI::errstr;
print "Opened database successfullyn";

my $stmt = qq(SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY;);
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( $stmt );
my $rv = $sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;

if($rv < 0) {
   print $DBI::errstr;
}

while(my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
      print "ID = ". $row[0] . "n";
      print "NAME = ". $row[1] ."n";
      print "ADDRESS = ". $row[2] ."n";
      print "SALARY =  ". $row[3] ."nn";
}
print "Operation done successfullyn";
$dbh->disconnect();

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY =  20000

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY =  15000

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY =  20000

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY =  65000

Operation done successfully

UPDATE Operation

Following Perl code shows how to UPDATE statement to update any record and then fetch and display the updated records from the COMPANY table.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;
use strict;

my $driver   = "SQLite";
my $database = "test.db";
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:dbname=$database";
my $userid = "";
my $password = "";
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $userid, $password, { RaiseError => 1 })
   or die $DBI::errstr;
print "Opened database successfullyn";

my $stmt = qq(UPDATE COMPANY set SALARY = 25000.00 where ID=1;);
my $rv = $dbh->do($stmt) or die $DBI::errstr;

if( $rv < 0 ) {
   print $DBI::errstr;
} else {
   print "Total number of rows updated : $rvn";
}
$stmt = qq(SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY;);
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( $stmt );
$rv = $sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;

if($rv < 0) {
   print $DBI::errstr;
}

while(my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
      print "ID = ". $row[0] . "n";
      print "NAME = ". $row[1] ."n";
      print "ADDRESS = ". $row[2] ."n";
      print "SALARY =  ". $row[3] ."nn";
}
print "Operation done successfullyn";
$dbh->disconnect();

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Total number of rows updated : 1
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY =  25000

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY =  15000

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY =  20000

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY =  65000

Operation done successfully

DELETE Operation

Following Perl code shows how to use DELETE statement to delete any record and then fetch and display the remaining records from the COMPANY table −

#!/usr/bin/perl

use DBI;
use strict;

my $driver   = "SQLite";
my $database = "test.db";
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:dbname=$database";
my $userid = "";
my $password = "";
my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn, $userid, $password, { RaiseError => 1 })
   or die $DBI::errstr;
print "Opened database successfullyn";

my $stmt = qq(DELETE from COMPANY where ID = 2;);
my $rv = $dbh->do($stmt) or die $DBI::errstr;

if( $rv < 0 ) {
   print $DBI::errstr;
} else {
   print "Total number of rows deleted : $rvn";
}

$stmt = qq(SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY;);
my $sth = $dbh->prepare( $stmt );
$rv = $sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;

if($rv < 0) {
   print $DBI::errstr;
}

while(my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
      print "ID = ". $row[0] . "n";
      print "NAME = ". $row[1] ."n";
      print "ADDRESS = ". $row[2] ."n";
      print "SALARY =  ". $row[3] ."nn";
}
print "Operation done successfullyn";
$dbh->disconnect();

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Total number of rows deleted : 1
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000

Operation done successfully

SQLite – Python

In this chapter, you will learn how to use SQLite in Python programs.

Installation

SQLite3 can be integrated with Python using sqlite3 module, which was written by Gerhard Haring. It provides an SQL interface compliant with the DB-API 2.0 specification described by PEP 249. You do not need to install this module separately because it is shipped by default along with Python version 2.5.x onwards.

To use sqlite3 module, you must first create a connection object that represents the database and then optionally you can create a cursor object, which will help you in executing all the SQL statements.

Python sqlite3 module APIs

Following are important sqlite3 module routines, which can suffice your requirement to work with SQLite database from your Python program. If you are looking for a more sophisticated application, then you can look into Python sqlite3 module”s official documentation.

Connect To Database

Following Python code shows how to connect to an existing database. If the database does not exist, then it will be created and finally a database object will be returned.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(''test.db'')

print "Opened database successfully";

Here, you can also supply database name as the special name :memory: to create a database in RAM. Now, let”s run the above program to create our database test.db in the current directory. You can change your path as per your requirement. Keep the above code in sqlite.py file and execute it as shown below. If the database is successfully created, then it will display the following message.

$chmod +x sqlite.py
$./sqlite.py
Open database successfully

Create a Table

Following Python program will be used to create a table in the previously created database.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(''test.db'')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute(''''''CREATE TABLE COMPANY
         (ID INT PRIMARY KEY     NOT NULL,
         NAME           TEXT    NOT NULL,
         AGE            INT     NOT NULL,
         ADDRESS        CHAR(50),
         SALARY         REAL);'''''')
print "Table created successfully";

conn.close()

When the above program is executed, it will create the COMPANY table in your test.db and it will display the following messages −

Opened database successfully
Table created successfully

INSERT Operation

Following Python program shows how to create records in the COMPANY table created in the above example.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(''test.db'')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) 
      VALUES (1, ''Paul'', 32, ''California'', 20000.00 )");

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) 
      VALUES (2, ''Allen'', 25, ''Texas'', 15000.00 )");

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) 
      VALUES (3, ''Teddy'', 23, ''Norway'', 20000.00 )");

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) 
      VALUES (4, ''Mark'', 25, ''Rich-Mond '', 65000.00 )");

conn.commit()
print "Records created successfully";
conn.close()

When the above program is executed, it will create the given records in the COMPANY table and it will display the following two lines −

Opened database successfully
Records created successfully

SELECT Operation

Following Python program shows how to fetch and display records from the COMPANY table created in the above example.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(''test.db'')
print "Opened database successfully";

cursor = conn.execute("SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY")
for row in cursor:
   print "ID = ", row[0]
   print "NAME = ", row[1]
   print "ADDRESS = ", row[2]
   print "SALARY = ", row[3], "n"

print "Operation done successfully";
conn.close()

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

UPDATE Operation

Following Python code shows how to use UPDATE statement to update any record and then fetch and display the updated records from the COMPANY table.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(''test.db'')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute("UPDATE COMPANY set SALARY = 25000.00 where ID = 1")
conn.commit()
print "Total number of rows updated :", conn.total_changes

cursor = conn.execute("SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY")
for row in cursor:
   print "ID = ", row[0]
   print "NAME = ", row[1]
   print "ADDRESS = ", row[2]
   print "SALARY = ", row[3], "n"

print "Operation done successfully";
conn.close()

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Total number of rows updated : 1
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000.0

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

DELETE Operation

Following Python code shows how to use DELETE statement to delete any record and then fetch and display the remaining records from the COMPANY table.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect(''test.db'')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute("DELETE from COMPANY where ID = 2;")
conn.commit()
print "Total number of rows deleted :", conn.total_changes

cursor = conn.execute("SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY")
for row in cursor:
   print "ID = ", row[0]
   print "NAME = ", row[1]
   print "ADDRESS = ", row[2]
   print "SALARY = ", row[3], "n"

print "Operation done successfully";
conn.close()

When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.

Opened database successfully
Total number of rows deleted : 1
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully