SQLite understands most of the standard SQL language. But it does omit some features while at the same time adding a few features of its own. This document attempts to describe precisely what parts of the SQL language SQLite does and does not support. A list of keywords is also provided.
In all of the syntax diagrams that follow, literal text is shown in bold blue. Non-terminal symbols are shown in italic red. Operators that are part of the syntactic markup itself are shown in black roman.
This document is just an overview of the SQL syntax implemented by SQLite. Many low-level productions are omitted. For detailed information on the language that SQLite understands, refer to the source code and the grammar file "parse.y".
The following syntax documentation topics are available:
|
|
" } proc Section {name label keywords} { global DOC hd_close_main hd_open_main lang_$label.html hd_header "SQLite Query Language: $name" $DOC/pages/lang.in eval hd_keywords $keywords hd_puts {$text
SQLite supports a limited subset of ALTER TABLE. The ALTER TABLE command in SQLite allows the user to rename a table or to add a new column to an existing table. It is not possible to rename a colum, remove a column, or add or remove constraints from a table.
The RENAME TO syntax is used to rename the table identified by [database-name.]table-name to new-table-name. This command cannot be used to move a table between attached databases, only to rename a table within the same database.
If the table being renamed has triggers or indices, then these remain attached to the table after it has been renamed. However, if there are any view definitions, or statements executed by triggers that refer to the table being renamed, these are not automatically modified to use the new table name. If this is required, the triggers or view definitions must be dropped and recreated to use the new table name by hand.
The ADD [COLUMN] syntax is used to add a new column to an existing table. The new column is always appended to the end of the list of existing columns. Column-def may take any of the forms permissable in a [CREATE TABLE] statement, with the following restrictions:
The execution time of the ALTER TABLE command is independent of the amount of data in the table. The ALTER TABLE command runs as quickly on a table with 10 million rows as it does on a table with 1 row.
After ADD COLUMN has been run on a database, that database will not be readable by SQLite version 3.1.3 and earlier.
The ANALYZE command gathers statistics about indices and stores them in a special tables in the database where the query optimizer can use them to help make better index choices. If no arguments are given, all indices in all attached databases are analyzed. If a database name is given as the argument, all indices in that one database are analyzed. If the argument is a table name, then only indices associated with that one table are analyzed.
The initial implementation stores all statistics in a single table named sqlite_stat1. Future enhancements may create additional tables with the same name pattern except with the "1" changed to a different digit. The [DROP TABLE] command does not work on the sqlite_stat1 table, but all the content can be removed using the [DELETE] command, which has the same effect.
The ATTACH DATABASE statement adds another database file to the current database connection. If the filename contains punctuation characters it must be quoted. The names 'main' and 'temp' refer to the main database and the database used for temporary tables. These cannot be detached. Attached databases are removed using the [DETACH] statement.
You cannot create a new table with the same name as a table in an attached database, but you can attach a database which contains tables whose names are duplicates of tables in the main database. It is also permissible to attach the same database file multiple times.
Tables in an attached database can be referred to using the syntax database-name.table-name. If an attached table doesn't have a duplicate table name in the main database, it doesn't require a database name prefix. When a database is attached, all of its tables which don't have duplicate names become the default table of that name. Any tables of that name attached afterwards require the database prefix. If the default table of a given name is detached, then the last table of that name attached becomes the new default.
Transactions involving multiple attached databases are atomic, assuming that the main database is not ":memory:". If the main database is ":memory:" then transactions continue to be atomic within each individual database file. But if the host computer crashes in the middle of a [COMMIT] where two or more database files are updated, some of those files might get the changes where others might not.
There is a compile-time limit of [SQLITE_MAX_ATTACHED] attached database files.
No changes can be made to the database except within a transaction. Any command that changes the database (basically, any SQL command other than [SELECT]) will automatically start a transaction if one is not already in effect. Automatically started transactions are committed at the conclusion of the command.
Transactions can be started manually using the BEGIN command. Such transactions usually persist until the next COMMIT or ROLLBACK command. But a transaction will also ROLLBACK if the database is closed or if an error occurs and the ROLLBACK conflict resolution algorithm is specified. See the documentation on the [ON CONFLICT] clause for additional information about the ROLLBACK conflict resolution algorithm.
END TRANSACTION is an alias for COMMIT.
The optional transaction name is ignored. SQLite does not recognize nested transactions at this time. However, future versions of SQLite may be enhanced to support nested transactions and the transaction name would then become significant. Application are advised not to use the transaction name in order to avoid future compatibility problems.
Transactions can be deferred, immediate, or exclusive. The default transaction behavior is deferred. Deferred means that no locks are acquired on the database until the database is first accessed. Thus with a deferred transaction, the BEGIN statement itself does nothing. Locks are not acquired until the first read or write operation. The first read operation against a database creates a [SHARED] lock and the first write operation creates a [RESERVED] lock. Because the acquisition of locks is deferred until they are needed, it is possible that another thread or process could create a separate transaction and write to the database after the BEGIN on the current thread has executed. If the transaction is immediate, then [RESERVED] locks are acquired on all databases as soon as the BEGIN command is executed, without waiting for the database to be used. After a BEGIN IMMEDIATE, you are guaranteed that no other thread or process will be able to write to the database or do a BEGIN IMMEDIATE or BEGIN EXCLUSIVE. Other processes can continue to read from the database, however. An exclusive transaction causes [EXCLUSIVE] locks to be acquired on all databases. After a BEGIN EXCLUSIVE, you are guaranteed that no other thread or process will be able to read or write the database until the transaction is complete.
The COMMIT command does not actually perform a commit until all pending SQL commands finish. Thus if one or more [SELECT] statements are in the middle of processing and a COMMIT is executed, the commit will not actually occur until all [SELECT] statements have been [sqlite3_reset() | reset] or [sqlite3_finalize() | finalized].
An attempt to execute COMMIT might result in an [SQLITE_BUSY] return code. This indicates that another thread or process had a [shared lock] on the database that prevented the database from being updated. When COMMIT fails in this way, the transaction remains active and the COMMIT can be retried later after the reader has had a chance to clear.
If certain kinds of errors occur within a transaction, the transaction may or may not be rolled back automatically. The errors that cause the behavior include:
For all of these errors, SQLite attempts to undo just the one statement it was working on and leave changes from prior statements within the same transaction intact and continue with the transaction. However, depending on the statement being evaluated and the point at which the error occurs, it might be necessary for SQLite to rollback and cancel the transaction. An application can tell which course of action SQLite took by using the [sqlite3_get_autocommit()] C-language interface.
It is recommended that applications respond to the errors listed above by explicitly issuing a ROLLBACK command. If the transaction has already been rolled back automatically by the error response, then the ROLLBACK command will fail with an error, but no harm is caused by this.
Future versions of SQLite may extend the list of errors which might cause automatic transaction rollback. Future versions of SQLite might change the error response. In particular, we may choose to simplify the interface in future versions of SQLite by causing the errors above to force an unconditional rollback.
Comments aren't SQL commands, but can occur in SQL queries. They are treated as whitespace by the parser. They can begin anywhere whitespace can be found, including inside expressions that span multiple lines.
SQL comments only extend to the end of the current line.
C comments can span any number of lines. If there is no terminating delimiter, they extend to the end of the input. This is not treated as an error. A new SQL statement can begin on a line after a multiline comment ends. C comments can be embedded anywhere whitespace can occur, including inside expressions, and in the middle of other SQL statements. C comments do not nest. SQL comments inside a C comment will be ignored.
The CREATE INDEX command consists of the keywords "CREATE INDEX" followed by the name of the new index, the keyword "ON", the name of a previously created table that is to be indexed, and a parenthesized list of names of columns in the table that are used for the index key.
Each column name can be followed by one of the "ASC" or "DESC" keywords to indicate sort order. The sort order may or may not be ignored depending on the database file format. The "legacy" file format ignores index sort order. The descending index file format takes index sort order into account. Only copies of SQLite newer than [version 3.3.0] (released on 2006-01-10) are able to understand the newer descending index file format and so for compatibility with older versions of SQLite, the legacy file format is generated by default. Use the [legacy_file_format] pragma to modify this behavior and generate databases that use the newer file format. Future versions of SQLite may begin to generate the newer file format by default.
The COLLATE clause following each column name defines a collating sequence used for text entires in that column. The default collating sequence is the collating sequence defined for that column in the [CREATE TABLE] statement. Or if no collating sequence is otherwise defined, the built-in BINARY collating sequence is used.
There are no arbitrary limits on the number of indices that can be attached to a single table. The number of columns in an index is limited to [SQLITE_MAX_COLUMN].
If the UNIQUE keyword appears between CREATE and INDEX then duplicate index entries are not allowed. Any attempt to insert a duplicate entry will result in an error. For the purposes of unique indices, all NULL values are considered to different from all other NULL values and are thus unique.
The text of each CREATE INDEX statement is stored in the sqlite_master or sqlite_temp_master table, depending on whether the table being indexed is temporary. Every time the database is opened, all CREATE INDEX statements are read from the sqlite_master table and used to regenerate SQLite's internal representation of the index layout.
If the optional IF NOT EXISTS clause is present and another index with the same name aleady exists, then this command becomes a no-op.
Indexes are removed with the DROP INDEX command.
A CREATE TABLE statement is basically the keywords "CREATE TABLE" followed by the name of a new table and a parenthesized list of column definitions and constraints. Tables names that begin with "sqlite_" are reserved for use by the engine.
Each column definition is the name of the column followed by the datatype for that column, then one or more optional column constraints. The datatype for the column does not restrict what data may be put in that column. See Datatypes In SQLite Version 3 for additional information. The UNIQUE constraint causes an unique index to be created on the specified columns. All NULL values are considered different from each other and from all other values for the purpose of determining uniqueness, hence a UNIQUE column may contain multiple entries with the value of NULL. The COLLATE clause specifies what text [collating function] to use when comparing text entries for the column. The built-in [BINARY] collating function is used by default.
The DEFAULT constraint specifies a default value to use when doing an [INSERT]. The value may be NULL, a string constant or a number. Starting with [version 3.1.0], the default value may also be one of the special case-independant keywords CURRENT_TIME, CURRENT_DATE or CURRENT_TIMESTAMP. If the value is NULL, a string constant or number, it is literally inserted into the column whenever an INSERT statement that does not specify a value for the column is executed. If the value is CURRENT_TIME, CURRENT_DATE or CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, then the current UTC date and/or time is inserted into the columns. For CURRENT_TIME, the format is HH:MM:SS. For CURRENT_DATE, YYYY-MM-DD. The format for CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS".
Specifying a PRIMARY KEY normally just creates a UNIQUE index on the corresponding columns. However, if primary key is on a single column that has datatype INTEGER, then that column is used internally as the actual key of the B-Tree for the table. This means that the column may only hold unique integer values. (Except for this one case, SQLite ignores the datatype specification of columns and allows any kind of data to be put in a column regardless of its declared datatype.) If a table does not have an INTEGER PRIMARY KEY column, then the B-Tree key will be a automatically generated integer. The B-Tree key for a row can always be accessed using one of the special names "ROWID", "OID", or "_ROWID_". This is true regardless of whether or not there is an INTEGER PRIMARY KEY. An INTEGER PRIMARY KEY column can also include the keyword [AUTOINCREMENT]. The [AUTOINCREMENT] keyword modified the way that B-Tree keys are automatically generated. Additional detail on automatic B-Tree key generation is available separately.
According to the SQL standard, PRIMARY KEY should imply NOT NULL. Unfortunately, due to a long-standing coding oversight, this is not the case in SQLite. SQLite allows NULL values in a PRIMARY KEY column. We could change SQLite to conform to the standard (and we might do so in the future), but by the time the oversight was discovered, SQLite was in such wide use that we feared breaking legacy code if we fixed the problem. So for now we have chosen to continue allowing NULLs in PRIMARY KEY columns. Developers should be aware, however, that we may change SQLite to conform to the SQL standard in future and should design new programs accordingly.
If the "TEMP" or "TEMPORARY" keyword occurs in between "CREATE" and "TABLE" then the table that is created is only visible within that same database connection and is automatically deleted when the database connection is closed. Any indices created on a temporary table are also temporary. Temporary tables and indices are stored in a separate file distinct from the main database file.
If a <database-name> is specified, then the table is created in the named database. It is an error to specify both a <database-name> and the TEMP keyword, unless the <database-name> is "temp". If no database name is specified, and the TEMP keyword is not present, the table is created in the main database.
The optional [conflict clause] following each constraint allows the specification of an alternative default constraint conflict resolution algorithm for that constraint. The default is abort ABORT. Different constraints within the same table may have different default conflict resolution algorithms. If an [INSERT] or [UPDATE] statement specifies a different conflict resolution algorithm, then that algorithm is used in place of the default algorithm specified in the CREATE TABLE statement. See the section titled [ON CONFLICT] for additional information.
CHECK constraints are supported as of [version 3.3.0]. Prior to version 3.3.0, CHECK constraints were parsed but not enforced.
The number of columns in a table is limited by the [SQLITE_MAX_COLUMN] compile-time parameter. A single row of a table cannot store more than [SQLITE_MAX_LENGTH] bytes of data. Both of these limits can be lowered at runtime using the [sqlite3_limit()] C/C++ interface.
The CREATE TABLE AS form defines the table to be the result set of a query. The names of the table columns are the names of the columns in the result.
The text of each CREATE TABLE statement is stored in the sqlite_master table. Every time the database is opened, all CREATE TABLE statements are read from the sqlite_master table and used to regenerate SQLite's internal representation of the table layout. If the original command was a CREATE TABLE AS then then an equivalent CREATE TABLE statement is synthesized and store in sqlite_master in place of the original command. The text of CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE statements are stored in the sqlite_temp_master table.
If the optional IF NOT EXISTS clause is present and another table with the same name aleady exists, then this command becomes a no-op.
Tables are removed using the DROP TABLE statement.
The CREATE TRIGGER statement is used to add triggers to the database schema. Triggers are database operations (the trigger-action) that are automatically performed when a specified database event (the database-event) occurs.
A trigger may be specified to fire whenever a [DELETE], [INSERT], or [UPDATE] of a particular database table occurs, or whenever an [UPDATE] of one or more specified columns of a table are updated.
At this time SQLite supports only FOR EACH ROW triggers, not FOR EACH STATEMENT triggers. Hence explicitly specifying FOR EACH ROW is optional. FOR EACH ROW implies that the SQL statements specified as trigger-steps may be executed (depending on the WHEN clause) for each database row being inserted, updated or deleted by the statement causing the trigger to fire.
Both the WHEN clause and the trigger-steps 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. OLD and NEW references may only be used in triggers on trigger-events for which they are relevant, as follows:
INSERT | NEW references are valid |
UPDATE | NEW and OLD references are valid |
DELETE | OLD references are valid |
If a WHEN clause is supplied, the SQL statements specified as trigger-steps 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 specified trigger-time determines when the trigger-steps will be executed relative to the insertion, modification or removal of the associated row.
An [ON CONFLICT] clause may be specified as part of an [UPDATE] or [INSERT] trigger-step. However if an [ON CONFLICT] clause is specified as part of the statement causing the trigger to fire, then this conflict handling policy is used instead.
Triggers are automatically dropped when the table that they are associated with is dropped.
Triggers may be created on [views], as well as ordinary tables, by specifying INSTEAD OF in the CREATE TRIGGER statement. If one or more ON INSERT, ON DELETE or ON UPDATE triggers are defined on a view, then it is not an error to execute an INSERT, DELETE or UPDATE statement on the view, respectively. Thereafter, executing an INSERT, DELETE or UPDATE on the view causes the associated triggers to fire. The real tables underlying the view are not modified (except possibly explicitly, by a trigger program).
Example:
Assuming that customer records are stored in the "customers" table, and that order records are stored in the "orders" table, the following trigger ensures that all associated orders are redirected when a customer changes his or her address:
With this trigger installed, executing the statement:
causes the following to be automatically executed:
Note that currently, triggers may behave oddly when created on tables with [INTEGER PRIMARY KEY] fields. If a BEFORE trigger program modifies the [INTEGER PRIMARY KEY] field of a row that will be subsequently updated by the statement that causes the trigger to fire, then the update may not occur. The workaround is to declare the table with a PRIMARY KEY column instead of an [INTEGER PRIMARY KEY] column.
A special SQL function RAISE() may be used within a trigger-program, with the following syntax
When one of the first three forms is called during trigger-program execution, the specified [ON CONFLICT] processing is performed (either ABORT, FAIL or ROLLBACK) and the current query terminates. An error code of [SQLITE_CONSTRAINT] is returned to the application, along with the specified error message.
When RAISE(IGNORE) is called, the remainder of the current trigger program, the statement that caused the trigger program to execute and any subsequent trigger programs that would of been executed are abandoned. No database changes are rolled back. If the statement that caused the trigger program to execute is itself part of a trigger program, then that trigger program resumes execution at the beginning of the next step.
Triggers are removed using the [DROP TRIGGER] statement.
The CREATE VIEW command assigns a name to a pre-packaged SELECT statement. Once the view is created, it can be used in the FROM clause of another [SELECT] in place of a table name.
If the "TEMP" or "TEMPORARY" keyword occurs in between "CREATE" and "VIEW" then the view that is created is only visible to the process that opened the database and is automatically deleted when the database is closed.
If a <database-name> is specified, then the view is created in the named database. It is an error to specify both a <database-name> and the TEMP keyword, unless the <database-name> is "temp". If no database name is specified, and the TEMP keyword is not present, the table is created in the main database.
You cannot [DELETE], [INSERT], or [UPDATE] a view. Views are read-only in SQLite. However, in many cases you can use an [INSTEAD OF trigger] on the view to accomplish the same thing. Views are removed with the [DROP VIEW] command.
A virtual table is an interface to an external storage or computation engine that appears to be a table but does not actually store information in the database file.
In general, you can do anything with a virtual table that can be done with an ordinary table, except that you cannot create indices or triggers on a virtual table. Some virtual table implementations might impose additional restrictions. For example, many virtual tables are read-only. Virtual tables cannot be used in [sqlite3_enable_shared_cache | shared cache mode].
The <module-name> is the name of an object that implements the virtual table. The <module-name> must be registered with the SQLite database connection using sqlite3_create_module() prior to issuing the CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE statement. The module takes zero or more comma-separated arguments. The arguments can be just about any text as long as it has balanced parentheses. The argument syntax is sufficiently general that the arguments can be made to appear as column definitions in a traditional [CREATE TABLE] statement. SQLite passes the module arguments directly to the module without any interpretation. It is the responsibility of the module implementation to parse and interpret its own arguments.
A virtual table is destroyed using the ordinary [DROP TABLE] statement. There is no DROP VIRTUAL TABLE statement.
The DELETE command is used to remove records from a table. The command consists of the "DELETE FROM" keywords followed by the name of the table from which records are to be removed.
Without a WHERE clause, all rows of the table are removed. If a WHERE clause is supplied, then only those rows that match the expression are removed.
When the WHERE clause is omitted from a DELETE statement, SQLite uses an optimization to erase the entire table content without having to visit each row of the table individual. This "truncate" optimization makes the delete run much faster. However, it also means that the [sqlite3_changes()] interface and the [count_changes] PRAGMA will not actually return the number of deleted rows. If you need to delete every row of a table and still have [sqlite3_changes()] and [count_changes] work correctly, then use WHERE clause that is always true:
DELETE FROM sometable WHERE 1;
This statement detaches an additional database connection previously attached using the [ATTACH] statement. It is possible to have the same database file attached multiple times using different names, and detaching one connection to a file will leave the others intact.
This statement will fail if SQLite is in the middle of a transaction.
The DROP INDEX statement removes an index added with the [CREATE INDEX] statement. The index named is completely removed from the disk. The only way to recover the index is to reenter the appropriate [CREATE INDEX] command.
The DROP INDEX statement does not reduce the size of the database file in the default mode. Empty space in the database is retained for later [INSERT] statements. To remove free space in the database, use the [VACUUM] command. If [auto_vacuum] mode is enabled for a database then space will be freed automatically by DROP INDEX.
The DROP TABLE statement removes a table added with the [CREATE TABLE] statement. The name specified is the table name. It is completely removed from the database schema and the disk file. The table can not be recovered. All indices associated with the table are also deleted.
The DROP TABLE statement does not reduce the size of the database file in the default mode. Empty space in the database is retained for later [INSERT] statements. To remove free space in the database, use the [VACUUM] statement. If [auto_vacuum] mode is enabled for a database then space will be freed automatically by DROP TABLE.
The optional IF EXISTS clause suppresses the error that would normally result if the table does not exist.
The DROP TRIGGER statement removes a trigger created by the [CREATE TRIGGER] statement. The trigger is deleted from the database schema. Note that triggers are automatically dropped when the associated table is dropped.
The DROP VIEW statement removes a view created by the [CREATE VIEW] statement. The name specified is the view name. It is removed from the database schema, but no actual data in the underlying base tables is modified.
The EXPLAIN command modifier is a non-standard extension. The idea comes from a similar command found in PostgreSQL, but the operation is completely different.
If the EXPLAIN keyword appears before any other SQLite SQL command then instead of actually executing the command, the SQLite library will report back the sequence of virtual machine instructions it would have used to execute the command had the EXPLAIN keyword not been present. For additional information about virtual machine instructions see the architecture description or the documentation on available opcodes for the virtual machine.
This section is different from the others. Most other sections of this document talks about a particular SQL command. This section does not talk about a standalone command but about "expressions" which are subcomponents of most other commands.
SQLite understands the following binary operators, in order from highest to lowest precedence:
|| * / % + - << >> & | < <= > >= = == != <> IN AND OR
Supported unary prefix operators are these:
- + ~ NOT
The COLLATE operator can be thought of as a unary postfix operator. The COLLATE operator has the highest precedence. It always binds more tightly than any prefix unary operator or any binary operator.
The unary operator [Operator +] is a no-op. It can be applied to strings, numbers, or blobs and it always gives as its result the value of the operand.
"Note that there are two variations of the equals and not equals
operators. Equals can be either
The result of any binary operator is a numeric value, except for the [Operator ||] concatenation operator which gives a string result.
"A literal value is an integer number or a floating point number. Scientific notation is supported. The "." character is always used as the decimal point even if the locale setting specifies "," for this role - the use of "," for the decimal point would result in syntactic ambiguity. A string constant is formed by enclosing the string in single quotes ('). A single quote within the string can be encoded by putting two single quotes in a row - as in Pascal. C-style escapes using the backslash character are not supported because they are not standard SQL. BLOB literals are string literals containing hexadecimal data and preceded by a single "x" or "X" character. For example:
X'53514C697465'
A literal value can also be the token "NULL".
A parameter specifies a placeholder in the expression for a literal value that is filled in at runtime using the [sqlite3_bind_blob() | sqlite3_bind()] APIs. Parameters can take several forms:
?NNN | A question mark followed by a number NNN holds a spot for the NNN-th parameter. NNN must be between 1 and [SQLITE_MAX_VARIABLE_NUMBER]. | |
? | A question mark that is not followed by a number holds a spot for the next unused parameter. | |
:AAAA | A colon followed by an identifier name holds a spot for a named parameter with the name AAAA. Named parameters are also numbered. The number assigned is the next unused number. To avoid confusion, it is best to avoid mixing named and numbered parameters. | |
@AAAA | An "at" sign works exactly like a colon. | |
$AAAA | A dollar-sign followed by an identifier name also holds a spot for a named parameter with the name AAAA. The identifier name in this case can include one or more occurances of "::" and a suffix enclosed in "(...)" containing any text at all. This syntax is the form of a variable name in the Tcl programming language. |
Parameters that are not assigned values using [sqlite3_bind_blob() | sqlite3_bind()] are treated as NULL.
The LIKE operator does a pattern matching comparison. The operand
to the right contains the pattern, the left hand operand contains the
string to match against the pattern.
If the optional ESCAPE clause is present, then the expression following the ESCAPE keyword must evaluate to a string consisting of a single character. This character may be used in the LIKE pattern to include literal percent or underscore characters. The escape character followed by a percent symbol, underscore or itself matches a literal percent symbol, underscore or escape character in the string, respectively. The infix LIKE operator is implemented by calling the user function like(X,Y).
The LIKE operator is not case sensitive and will match upper case characters on one side against lower case characters on the other. (A bug: SQLite only understands upper/lower case for 7-bit Latin characters. Hence the LIKE operator is case sensitive for 8-bit iso8859 characters or UTF-8 characters. For example, the expression 'a' LIKE 'A' is TRUE but 'æ' LIKE 'Æ' is FALSE.).The infix LIKE operator is implemented by calling the user function like(X,Y). If an ESCAPE clause is present, it adds a third parameter to the function call. If the functionality of LIKE can be overridden by defining an alternative implementation of the like() SQL function.
The GLOB operator is similar to LIKE but uses the Unix file globbing syntax for its wildcards. Also, GLOB is case sensitive, unlike LIKE. Both GLOB and LIKE may be preceded by the NOT keyword to invert the sense of the test. The infix GLOB operator is implemented by calling the function [GLOB | glob(X,Y)] and can be modified by overriding that function.
The REGEXP operator is a special syntax for the regexp() user function. No regexp() user function is defined by default and so use of the REGEXP operator will normally result in an error message. If a user-defined function named "regexp" is added at run-time, that function will be called in order to implement the REGEXP operator.
The MATCH operator is a special syntax for the match() user function. The default match() function implementation raises and exception and is not really useful for anything. But extensions can override the match() function with more helpful logic.
A column name can be any of the names defined in the [CREATE TABLE] statement or one of the following special identifiers: "ROWID", "OID", or "_ROWID_". These special identifiers all describe the unique integer key (the "row key") associated with every row of every table. The special identifiers only refer to the row key if the [CREATE TABLE] statement does not define a real column with the same name. Row keys act like read-only columns. A row key can be used anywhere a regular column can be used, except that you cannot change the value of a row key in an [UPDATE] or [INSERT] statement. "SELECT * ..." does not return the row key.
[SELECT] statements can appear in expressions as either the right-hand operand of the IN operator, as a scalar quantity, or as the operand of an EXISTS operator. As a scalar quantity or the operand of an IN operator, the SELECT should have only a single column in its result. Compound SELECTs (connected with keywords like UNION or EXCEPT) are allowed. With the EXISTS operator, the columns in the result set of the [SELECT] are ignored and the expression returns TRUE if one or more rows exist and FALSE if the result set is empty. If no terms in the [SELECT] expression refer to value in the containing query, then the expression is evaluated once prior to any other processing and the result is reused as necessary. If the [SELECT] expression does contain variables from the outer query, then the [SELECT] is reevaluated every time it is needed.
When a SELECT is the right operand of the IN operator, the IN operator returns TRUE if the result of the left operand is any of the values generated by the select. The IN operator may be preceded by the NOT keyword to invert the sense of the test.
When a SELECT appears within an expression but is not the right operand of an IN operator, then the first row of the result of the SELECT becomes the value used in the expression. If the SELECT yields more than one result row, all rows after the first are ignored. If the SELECT yields no rows, then the value of the SELECT is NULL.
A CAST expression changes the datatype of the
Both [corefunc|simple] and [aggfunc|aggregate] functions are supported. (For presentation purposes, simple functions are further subdivided into [corefunc | core functions] and [datefunc | date-time functions].) A simple function can be used in any expression. Simple functions return a result immediately based on their inputs. Aggregate functions may only be used in a SELECT statement. Aggregate functions compute their result across all rows of the result set.
The core functions shown below are available by default. [datefunc | Date & Time functions] and [aggfunc | aggregate functions] are documented separately. An application may define additional functions written in C and added to the database engine using the [sqlite3_create_function()] API.
SQLite supports five date and time functions as follows:
All five 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.
The date() function returns the date in this format: YYYY-MM-DD. The time() function returns the time as HH:MM:SS. The datetime() function returns "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS". The julianday() function returns the julian day - number of days since noon in Greenwich on November 24, 4714 B.C. ( Proleptic Gregorian calendar). The strftime() routine returns the date formatted according to the format string specified as the first argument. The format string supports the most common substitutions found in the strftime() function from the standard C library plus two new substitutions, %f and %J. The following is a complete list of valid strftime() substitutions:
%d day of month: 00 %f fractional seconds: SS.SSS %H hour: 00-24 %j day of year: 001-366 %J Julian day number %m month: 01-12 %M minute: 00-59 %s seconds since 1970-01-01 %S seconds: 00-59 %w day of week 0-6 with sunday==0 %W week of year: 00-53 %Y year: 0000-9999 %% %
Notice that all other date and time functions can be expressed in terms of strftime():
Function Equivalent strftime() date(...) strftime("%Y-%m-%d", ...) time(...) strftime("%H:%M:%S", ...) datetime(...) strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", ...) julianday(...) strftime("%J", ...)
The only reasons for providing functions other than strftime() is for convenience and for efficiency.
A time string can be in any of the following formats:
In formats 5 through 7, the "T" is a literal character separating the date and the time, as required by ISO-8601. Formats 8 through 10 that specify only a time assume a date of 2000-01-01. Format 11, the string 'now', is converted into the current date and time as obtained from the xCurrentTime method of the [sqlite3_vfs] object in use. Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) is used. Format 12 is the julian day number expressed as a floating point value.
The time string can be followed by zero or more modifiers that alter the date or alter the interpretation of the date. The available modifiers are as follows.
The first six modifiers (1 through 6) simply add the specified amount of time to the date specified by the preceding timestring.
The "start of" modifiers (7 through 9) shift the date backwards to the beginning of the current month, year or day.
The "weekday" modifier advances the date forward to the next date where the weekday number is N. Sunday is 0, Monday is 1, and so forth.
The "unixepoch" modifier (11) only works if it immediately follows a timestring in the DDDDDDDDDD format. This modifier causes the DDDDDDDDDD to be interpreted not as a julian day number as it normally would be, but as Unix Time - the number of seconds since 1970.
The "localtime" modifier (12) adjusts the previous time string so that it displays the correct local time. "utc" undoes this.
Compute the current date.
SELECT date('now');
Compute the last day of the current month.
SELECT date('now','start of month','+1 month','-1 day');
Compute the date and time given a unix timestamp 1092941466.
SELECT datetime(1092941466, 'unixepoch');
Compute the date and time given a unix timestamp 1092941466, and compensate for your local timezone.
SELECT datetime(1092941466, 'unixepoch', 'localtime');
Compute the current unix timestamp.
SELECT strftime('%s','now');
Compute the number of days since the signing of the US Declaration of Independent.
SELECT julianday('now') - julianday('1776-07-04');
Compute the number of seconds since a particular moment in 2004:
SELECT strftime('%s','now') - strftime('%s','2004-01-01 02:34:56');
Compute the date of the first Tuesday in October for the current year.
SELECT date('now','start of year','+9 months','weekday 2');
Compute the time since the unix epoch in seconds (like strftime('%s','now') except includes fractional part):
SELECT (julianday('now') - 2440587.5)*86400.0;
The computation of local time depends heavily on the whim of politicians and is thus difficult to get correct for all locales. In this implementation, the standard C library function localtime_r() is used to assist in the calculation of local time. The localtime_r() C function normally only works for years between 1970 and 2037. For dates outside this range, SQLite attempts to map the year into an equivalent year within this range, do the calculation, then map the year back.
Date computations do not give correct results for dates before Julian day number 0 (-4713-11-24 12:00:00).
Non-Vista Windows platforms only support one set of DST rules. Vista only supports two. Therefore, on these platforms, historical DST calculations will be incorrect. For example, in the US, in 2007 the DST rules changed. Non-Vista Windows platforms apply the new 2007 DST rules to all previous years as well. Vista does somewhat better getting results correct back to 1986, when the rules were also changed.
All internal computations assume the Gregorian calendar system. It is also assumed that every day is exactly 86400 seconds in duration.
The aggregate functions shown below are available by default. Additional aggregate functions written in C may be added using the [sqlite3_create_function()] API.
In any aggregate function that takes a single argument, that argument can be preceeded by the keyword DISTINCT. In such cases, duplicate elements are filtered before being passed into the aggregate function. For example, the function "count(distinct X)" will return the number of distinct values of column X instead of the total number of non-null values in column X.
The INSERT statement comes in two basic forms. The first form (with the "VALUES" keyword) creates a single new row in an existing table. If no column-list is specified then the number of values must be the same as the number of columns in the table. If a column-list is specified, then the number of values must match the number of specified columns. Columns of the table that do not appear in the column list are filled with the default value, or with NULL if no default value is specified.
The second form of the INSERT statement takes it data from a SELECT statement. The number of columns in the result of the SELECT must exactly match the number of columns in the table if no column list is specified, or it must match the number of columns name in the column list. A new entry is made in the table for every row of the SELECT result. The SELECT may be simple or compound.
The optional conflict-clause allows the specification of an alternative constraint conflict resolution algorithm to use during this one command. See the section titled [ON CONFLICT] for additional information. For compatibility with MySQL, the parser allows the use of the single keyword REPLACE as an alias for "INSERT OR REPLACE".
The ON CONFLICT clause is not a separate SQL command. It is a non-standard clause that can appear in many other SQL commands. It is given its own section in this document because it is not part of standard SQL and therefore might not be familiar.
The syntax for the ON CONFLICT clause is as shown above for the CREATE TABLE command. For the INSERT and UPDATE commands, the keywords "ON CONFLICT" are replaced by "OR", to make the syntax seem more natural. For example, instead of "INSERT ON CONFLICT IGNORE" we have "INSERT OR IGNORE". The keywords change but the meaning of the clause is the same either way.
The ON CONFLICT clause specifies an algorithm used to resolve constraint conflicts. There are five choices: ROLLBACK, ABORT, FAIL, IGNORE, and REPLACE. The default algorithm is ABORT. This is what they mean:
When a constraint violation occurs, an immediate ROLLBACK occurs, thus ending the current transaction, and the command aborts with a return code of SQLITE_CONSTRAINT. If no transaction is active (other than the implied transaction that is created on every command) then this algorithm works the same as ABORT.
When a constraint violation occurs, the command backs out any prior changes it might have made and aborts with a return code of SQLITE_CONSTRAINT. But no ROLLBACK is executed so changes from prior commands within the same transaction are preserved. This is the default behavior.
When a constraint violation occurs, the command aborts with a return code SQLITE_CONSTRAINT. But any changes to the database that the command made prior to encountering the constraint violation are preserved and are not backed out. For example, if an UPDATE statement encountered a constraint violation on the 100th row that it attempts to update, then the first 99 row changes are preserved but changes to rows 100 and beyond never occur.
When a constraint violation occurs, the one row that contains the constraint violation is not inserted or changed. But the command continues executing normally. Other rows before and after the row that contained the constraint violation continue to be inserted or updated normally. No error is returned.
When a UNIQUE constraint violation occurs, the pre-existing rows that are causing the constraint violation are removed prior to inserting or updating the current row. Thus the insert or update always occurs. The command continues executing normally. No error is returned. If a NOT NULL constraint violation occurs, the NULL value is replaced by the default value for that column. If the column has no default value, then the ABORT algorithm is used. If a CHECK constraint violation occurs then the IGNORE algorithm is used.
When this conflict resolution strategy deletes rows in order to satisfy a constraint, it does not invoke delete triggers on those rows. This behavior might change in a future release.
The algorithm specified in the OR clause of a INSERT or UPDATE overrides any algorithm specified in a CREATE TABLE. If no algorithm is specified anywhere, the ABORT algorithm is used.