SQLite
Developed by	D. Richard Hipp
Latest release	3.5.7 / March 17, 2008 (2008-03-17), 27 days ago
Written in	C
OS	Cross-platform
Genre	database management system
License	Public domain
Website	http://sqlite.org/

SQLite is a mostly ACID-compliant relational database management system contained in a relatively small (~500kb) C programming library. For other uses, see Software developer (disambiguation). ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Code complete redirects here. ... is the 76th day of the year (77th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ... A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... A cross-platform (or platform independent) programming language, software application or hardware device works on more than one system platform (e. ... A database management system (DBMS) is computer software designed for the purpose of managing databases. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... For other uses, see acid (disambiguation). ... A relational database management system (RDBMS) is a database management system (DBMS) that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. ... A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-, meaning 1,000) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 1,000 bytes or 1,024 bytes (210), depending on context. ... C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... Illustration of an application which may use libvorbisfile. ...

Unlike client-server database management systems, the SQLite engine is not a standalone process with which the program communicates. Instead, the SQLite library is linked in and thus becomes an integral part of the program. The program uses SQLite's functionality through simple function calls, which reduces latency in database access as function calls are more efficient than inter-process communication. The entire database (definitions, tables, indices, and the data itself) is stored as a single cross-platform file on a host machine. This simple design is achieved by locking the entire database file at the beginning of a transaction. Client/Server is a network application architecture which separates the client (usually the graphical user interface) from the server. ... In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. ... Illustration of an application which may use libvorbisfile. ... Figure of the linking process, where object files and static libraries are assembled into a new library or executable. ... In computer science, a subroutine (function, method, procedure, or subprogram) is a portion of code within a larger program, which performs a specific task and can be relatively independent of the remaining code. ... Latency is a time delay between the moment something is initiated, and the moment one of its effects begins. ... Inter-Process Communication (IPC) is a set of techniques for the exchange of data between two or more threads in one or more processes. ... This article is about computer files and file systems in general terms. ... In computer science, a lock is a synchronization mechanism for enforcing limits on access to a resource in an environment where there are many threads of execution. ...

SQLite was created by D. Richard Hipp, who sells training, direct technical support contracts and add-ons such as compression and encryption. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

Features

SQLite implements most of the SQL-92 standard, including database transactions that are atomic, isolated, and durable (three of the ACID requirements). SQLite supports triggers and most complex queries. SQLite silently ignores integrity constraints (foreign key constraints), so does not satisfy the consistency requirement.^[1] Structured Query Language (SQL) is the most popular computer language used to create, modify and retrieve data from relational database management systems. ... A database transaction is a unit of interaction with a database management system or similar system that is treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions. ... In computer science, an atomic operation is one that either completes fully, or has no lasting effect. ... In database systems, isolation is a property that the changes made by an operation are not visible to other simultaneous operations on the system until its completion. ... In database systems, durability is the ACID property that guarantees that transactions that are successfully committed will survive permanently and will not be undone by system failure. ... For other uses, see acid (disambiguation). ... A database trigger is procedural code that is automatically executed in response to certain events on a particular table in a database. ... In database systems, a consistent transaction is one that does not violate any integrity contraints during its execution. ...

SQLite uses an unusual type system for an SQL DBMS. Instead of assigning a type to a column as in most SQL database systems, types are assigned to individual values; in language terms it is dynamically typed. Moreover, it is weakly typed in some of the same ways that Perl is: one can insert a string into an integer column (although SQLite will try to convert the string to an integer first, if the column's preferred type is integer). This adds flexibility to columns, especially when bound to a dynamically typed scripting language. However, the technique is not portable to other SQL databases. The inability to have strictly typed columns, as in typical databases, is a common criticism. The SQLite web site describes a "strict affinity" mode, but this feature has not yet been added.^[2] In computer science, a type system defines how a programming language classifies values and expressions into types, how it can manipulate those types and how they interact. ... Programming Republic of Perl logo Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below), is a programming language released by Larry Wall on December 18, 1987 that borrows features from C, sed, awk, shell scripting (sh), and (to a lesser extent) from many other programming languages. ... In computer programming and formal language theory, (and other branches of mathematics), a string is an ordered sequence of symbols. ... The integers are commonly denoted by the above symbol. ...

Several computer processes or threads may access the same database without problems. Several read accesses can be satisfied in parallel. A write access can only be satisfied if no other accesses are currently being serviced, otherwise the write access fails with an error code (or can automatically be retried until a configurable timeout expires). This concurrent access situation would change when dealing with temporary tables. In computing, a process is, roughly speaking, a task being run by a computer, often simultaneously with many other tasks. ... For the form of code consisting entirely of subroutine calls, see Threaded code. ... In computer programming, error codes are enumerated messages that correspond to faults in a specific software application. ...

A standalone program called sqlite3 is provided which can be used to create a database, define tables within it, insert and change rows, run queries and manage an SQLite database file. This program is a single executable file on the host machine. It also serves as an example for writing applications that use the SQLite library.

SQLite also has bindings for a large number of programming languages, including BASIC, C, C++, Java, C#, Delphi, Lua, Tcl, R, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Objective-C (on Mac OS X), Python, newLisp and Smalltalk.^[3] In computer science, binding refers to the creation of a simple reference to something which is larger and more complicated and used frequently. ... A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... This article is about the programming language. ... C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... C++ (pronounced ) is a general-purpose programming language. ... Java language redirects here. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... Delphi has been released in many versions, including older versions which have been released in magazines for non-profit application use For the language Borland Delphi is programmed in, see Object Pascal. ... In computing, the Lua (pronounced LOO-ah) programming language is a lightweight, reflective, imperative and procedural language, designed as a scripting language with extensible semantics as a primary goal. ... Tcl (originally from Tool Command Language, but nonetheless conventionally rendered as Tcl rather than TCL; and pronounced tickle) is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. ... The R programming language, sometimes described as GNU S, is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. ... For other uses, see PHP (disambiguation). ... Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Perl Programming Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... Ruby is a reflective, dynamic, object-oriented programming language. ... Objective-C, often referred to as ObjC or more seldomly as Objective C or Obj-C, is an object oriented programming language implemented as an extension to C. It is used primarily on Mac OS X and GNUstep, two environments based on the OpenStep standard, and is the primary language... Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language. ... newLisp is a stripped down open source version of Lisp which is available on several platforms. ... For other uses, see Small talk. ...

High-profile deployment

SQLite's developers present a case for SQLite being the most widely deployed SQL database based on some of the more widely-deployed products known to be using SQLite.[1] These include:

• 125 million copies in Mozilla Firefox.
• 20 million Mac OS X computers, each of which contains multiple copies of SQLite. (In Mac OS X v10.4 Apple introduced SQLite as a persistence layer of the Core Data API.)
• 300 million downloads of Skype. (The Skype service has 100 million registered users.)
• An estimated 20 million Symbian phones with SQLite. (Newer versions of Symbian OS have SQLite built-in.)
• Every copy of Safari 3 and 3.1.
• Every iPhone and iPod touch.
• Google Gears Google's add on to Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer that enables off-line access to internet services.

Firefox redirects here. ... Mac OS X (pronounced ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... Mac OS X version 10. ... Core Data is part of the Cocoa API in Mac OS X, first introduced in Mac OS X 10. ... API may refer to: In computing, application programming interface In petroleum industry, American Petroleum Institute In education, Academic Performance Index This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Skype (IPA: , rhymes with type) is a software program created by the entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. ... Symbian OS is a proprietary operating system, designed for mobile devices, with associated libraries, user interface frameworks and reference implementations of common tools, produced by Symbian Ltd. ... For the Internet appliance line, see Linksys iPhone. ... The iPod touch is a portable media player designed and marketed by Apple Inc. ... Google Gears is a beta service offered by Google to enable access to online services while off-line. ... Firefox redirects here. ... Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. ...

Clients for managing SQLite databases

• SQLite Manager, a SQLite client available as a Firefox extension.
• SQLiteSpy, a portable GUI client for Win32. Embedded SQLite engine, Unicode and RegEx support, in-grid table editing. Freeware.
• SQLite Database Browser, a graphical client to access SQLite databases
• SqlPro SQL Client, another graphical client to work with SQLite databases

Mozilla Firefox showing several extensions and a custom theme See also: List of Firefox extensions Extensions are installable enhancements to the Mozilla Firefox or Mozilla web browsers, and add features to the application or allow existing features to be modified. ... A USB drive, shown with a mm ruler for scale. ... GUI redirects here. ... Windows redirects here. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... In computing, a regular expression is a string that is used to describe or match a set of strings, according to certain syntax rules. ... The term Freeware refers to gratis proprietary software with closed source. ... SQLite Database Browser is a freeware, public domain, open source GUI database client for SQLite database files. ... SQLPro is a visual database management and development tool for multiple databases. ...

See also

• List of relational database management systems
• Comparison of relational database management systems

Image File history File links Free_Software_Portal_Logo. ... See DBMS for a shorter list of “typical”, representative database management systems. ... The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of relational database management systems. ...

Further reading

• Owens, Michael (2006). The Definitive Guide to SQLite. Apress. ISBN 978-1-59059-673-9. 
• SQLite Tutorial An article exploring the power and simplicity of SQLite.

Apress is a computer book publisher founded by Gary Cornell. ...

References

External links

• SQLite home page
• Interview with Richard Hipp
• Introduction to SQLite at Google Video
• Another interview with Richard Hipp
• FLOSS Weekly interview with Richard Hipp