Documentation Source Text

But for larger and more complex queries, such as
multi-way joins with many indices
and subqueries, there can be hundreds, thousands, or millions
of reasonable algorithms for computing the result.
The job of the query planner is to chose a single "best" query plan from
this multitude of possibilities.</p>

<p>Query planner are what make SQL database engines so amazingly useful and powerful.
(This is true of all SQL database engines, not just SQLite.)
The query planner frees the programmer from the chore of selecting
a particular query plan, and thereby allows the programmer to
focus more mental energy on higher-level application issues and on 
providing more value to the end user.  For simple queries where the choice
of query plan is obvious, this is convenient but not hugely important.
But as applications and schemas and queries grow more complex, a

But for larger and more complex queries, such as
multi-way joins with many indices
and subqueries, there can be hundreds, thousands, or millions
of reasonable algorithms for computing the result.
The job of the query planner is to chose a single "best" query plan from
this multitude of possibilities.</p>

<p>Query planners are what make SQL database engines so amazingly useful and powerful.
(This is true of all SQL database engines, not just SQLite.)
The query planner frees the programmer from the chore of selecting
a particular query plan, and thereby allows the programmer to
focus more mental energy on higher-level application issues and on 
providing more value to the end user.  For simple queries where the choice
of query plan is obvious, this is convenient but not hugely important.
But as applications and schemas and queries grow more complex, a

in an error.

<li><p>
<b>^The special behaviors associated "[INTEGER PRIMARY KEY]" do not apply
on WITHOUT ROWID tables.</b>
In an ordinary table, "INTEGER PRIMARY KEY" means that the column is an
alias for the rowid.  But since there is no rowid in a WITHOUT ROWID
table, that special meaning no longer applies.  An "INTEGER PRIMARY KEY" works

like an "INT PRIMARY KEY" in an ordinary table: It is a PRIMARY KEY
that has integer [affinity].

<li><p>
<b>^[AUTOINCREMENT] does not work on WITHOUT ROWID tables.</b>
The [AUTOINCREMENT] mechanism assumes the presence of a rowid and so it
does not work on a WITHOUT ROWID table.  ^An error is raised if the
 "AUTOINCREMENT" keyword is used in the CREATE TABLE statement for

in an error.

<li><p>
<b>^The special behaviors associated "[INTEGER PRIMARY KEY]" do not apply
on WITHOUT ROWID tables.</b>
In an ordinary table, "INTEGER PRIMARY KEY" means that the column is an
alias for the rowid.  But since there is no rowid in a WITHOUT ROWID
table, that special meaning no longer applies.  An "INTEGER PRIMARY KEY" 
column in a WITHOUT ROWID table works
like an "INT PRIMARY KEY" column in an ordinary table: It is a PRIMARY KEY
that has integer [affinity].

<li><p>
<b>^[AUTOINCREMENT] does not work on WITHOUT ROWID tables.</b>
The [AUTOINCREMENT] mechanism assumes the presence of a rowid and so it
does not work on a WITHOUT ROWID table.  ^An error is raised if the
 "AUTOINCREMENT" keyword is used in the CREATE TABLE statement for