Documentation Source Text

<h3>Getting Started</h3>

<p>To start the <b>sqlite3</b> program, just type "sqlite3" optionally
followed by the name the file that holds the SQLite database.  If the 
file does not exist, a new database file with the given name will be
created automatically.  If no database file is specified, a temporary 
database is created, then deleted when the "sqlite3" program exits.

<p>When started, the <b>sqlite3</b> program will show a brief banner
message then prompt you to enter SQL.  Type in SQL statements (terminated
by a semicolon), press "Enter" and the SQL will be executed.</p>

<p>For example, to create a new SQLite database named "ex1" 
with a single table named "tbl1", you might do this:</p>

<tcl>
proc Code {body} {
  hd_puts {<blockquote><pre>}

}</tcl>

<h3>Double-click Startup On Windows</h3>

<p>Windows users can double-click on the <b>sqlite3.exe</b> icon to cause
the command-line shell to pop-up a terminal window running SQLite.  Note,
however, that by default this SQLite session is using an in-memory database,
not a file on disk, and so all changes will be lost when the session exits.
To use a persistent disk file as the database, enter the ".open" command
immediately after the terminal window starts up:

<tcl>Code {
SQLite version 3.8.4 2014-02-11 16:24:34
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
Connected to a transient in-memory database.
Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database.
sqlite> (((.open ex1.db)))
sqlite> 
}</tcl>

<p>The example above causes the database file named "ex1.db" to be opened
and used, and created if it does not previously exist.  You might want to
use a full pathname to ensure that the file is in the directory that you
think it is in.  Use forward-slashes as the directory separator character.
In other words use "c:/work/ex1.db", not "c:\work\ex1.db".</p>

<p>Alternatively, you can create a new database using the default in-memory
storage, then save that database into a disk file using the ".save" command:

<tcl>Code {
SQLite version 3.8.4 2014-02-11 16:24:34
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
Connected to a transient in-memory database.
Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database.
sqlite> [[[... many SQL commands omitted ...]]]
sqlite> (((.save ex1.db)))
sqlite> 
}</tcl>

<p>Be careful when using the ".save" command as it will overwrite any
preexisting database files having the same name without prompting for
confirmation.  As with the ".open" command, you might want to use a
full pathname with forward-slash directory separators to avoid abiguity.

<h3>Special commands to sqlite3</h3>

<p>
Most of the time, sqlite3 just reads lines of input and passes them
on to the SQLite library for execution.
But if an input line begins with a dot ("."), then

The first output column is the name the database is attached with, 
and the second column is the filename of the external file.</p>

<tcl>Code {
sqlite> (((.databases)))
}</tcl>


<tcl>hd_fragment csv {CSV import}</tcl>
<h3>CSV Import</h3>

<p>Use the ".import" command to import CSV (comma separated value) data into
an SQLite table.  The ".import" command takes two arguments which are the
name of the disk file from which CSV data is to be read and the name of the
SQLite table into which the CSV data is to be inserted.

<p>Note that it is important to set the "mode" to "csv" before running the
 ".import" command.  This is necessary to prevent the command-line shell
from trying to interpret the input file text as some other format.

<tcl>Code {
sqlite> (((.mode csv)))
sqlite> (((.import C:/work/somedata.csv tab1)))
}</tcl>

<p>There are two cases to consider:  (1) Table "tab1" does not previously
exist and (2) table "tab1" does already exist.

<p>In the first case, when the table does not previously exist, the table is
automatically created and the content of the first row of the input CSV
file is used to determine the name of all the columns in the table.  In
other words, if the table does not previously exist, the first row of the
CSV file is interpreted to be column names and the actual data starts on
the second row of the CSV file.

<p>For the second case, when the table already exists, every row of the
CSV file, including the first row, is assumed to be actual content.  If
the CSV file contains an initial row of column labels, that row will be
read as data and inserted into the table.  To avoid this, make sure that
table does not previously exist.

<tcl>hd_fragment csvout {CSV export}</tcl>
<h3>CSV Export</h3>

<p>To export an SQLite table (or part of a table) as CSV, simply set
the "mode" to "csv" and then run a query to extract the desired rows
of the table.

<tcl>Code {
sqlite> (((.header on)))
sqlite> (((.output c:/work/dataout.csv)))
sqlite> (((.mode csv)))
sqlite> (((SELECT * FROM tab1;)))
sqlite> (((.output stdout)))
}</tcl>

<p>In the example above, the ".header on" line causes column labels to
be printed as the first row of output.  This means that the first row of
the resulting CSV file will contain column labels.  If column labels are
not desired, set ".header off" instead. (The ".header off" setting is
the default and can be omitted if the headers have not been previously
turned on.)

<p>The line ".output <i>FILENAME</i>" causes all query output to go into
the named file instead of being printed on the console.  In the example
above, that line causes the CSV content to be written into a file named
"C:/work/dataout.csv".  The final line of the example
(the ".output stdout" line) causes subsequent output to be written to
the console again.  The use of ".output" is not required for CSV export,
but it is often more convenient than trying to copy/paste the resulting
CSV text from the console.

<h3>Converting An Entire Database To An ASCII Text File</h3>

<p>Use the ".dump" command to convert the entire contents of a
database into a single ASCII text file.  This file can be converted
back into a database by piping it back into <b>sqlite3</b>.</p>