          <title>How To Compile SQLite</title>
<title>How To Compile SQLite</title>
<tcl>hd_keywords {how to compile} {How To Compile SQLite}</tcl>

<h1 align=center>How To Compile SQLite</h1>

<p>
SQLite is ANSI-C source code.
It must be compiled into machine code before it is useful.
This article is a guide to the various ways of compiling SQLite.
</p>

<p>This article does not contain a step-by-step recipe for compiling
SQLite.  That would be difficult since each development situation
is different.
Rather, this article describes and illustrates the principals behind the
compilation of SQLite.  Typical compilation commands are provided as examples
with the expectation that application developers can use these examples
as guidance for developing their own custom compilation procedures.
In other words, this article provides ideas and insights, not turnkey
solutions.</p>

<h2>Amalgamation Versus Individual Source Files</h2> 

<p>SQLite is built from over one hundred files of C code and script
spread across multiple directories.  The implementation of SQLite is pure
ANSI-C, but many of the C-language source code files are either
generated or transformed by auxiliary C programs and AWK, SED, and TCL 
scripts prior to being incorporated into the finished SQLite library.
Building the necessary C programs and transforming and/or creating the
C-language source code for SQLite is a complex process.</p>

<p>To simplify matters, SQLite is also available as a pre-packaged
[amalgamation] source code file: <b>sqlite3.c</b>.  The amalgamation is
a single file of ANSI-C code that implements the entire SQLite library.
The amalgamation is much easier to deal with.  Everything is contained
within a single code file, so it is easy to drop into the source tree
of a larger C or C++ program.  All the code generation and transformation
steps have already been carried out so there are no auxiliary C programs
to configure and compile and no scripts to run.  And, because the entire
library is contained in a single translation unit, compilers are able to
do more advanced optimizations resulting in a 5% to 10% performance 
improvement.  For these reasons, the amalgamation source file 
("<b>sqlite3.c</b>") is recommended for all applications.</p>

<blockquote><i>
The use of the [amalgamation] is recommended for all applications.
</i></blockquote>

<p>Building SQLite directly from individual source code files is certainly
possible, but it is not recommended.  For some specialized applications, it
might be necessary to modify the build process in ways that cannot be done
using just the prebuilt amalgamation source file downloaded from the website.
For those situations, it is recommended that a customized amalgamation be
built (as described [building the amalgamation | below])
and used.  In other words, even if a project requires building SQLite 
beginning with individual source files, it is still recommended that an
amalgamation source file be used as an intermediate step.</p>

<tcl>hd_fragment {cli} {compiling the CLI}</tcl>
<h2>Compiling The Command-Line Interface</h2>

<p>A build of the [CLI | command-line interface] requires three source
files:</p>

<ul>
<li><b>sqlite3.c</b>: The SQLite amalgamation source file
<li><b>sqlite3.h</b>: The header files that accompanies sqlite3.c and 
defines the C-language interfaces to SQLite.
<li><b>shell.c</b>: The command-line interface program itself.
This is the C source code file that contains the definition of
the <b>main()</b> routine and the loop that prompts for user input
and passes that input into the SQLite database engine for processing.
</ul>

<p>All three of the above source files are contained in the
[amalgamation tarball] available on the [download page].</p>

<p>To build the CLI, simply put these three files in the same directory
and compile them together.  Using MSVC:

<blockquote><pre>
cl shell.c sqlite3.c -Fesqlite3.exe
</pre></blockquote>

<p>On unix systems (or on Windows using cygwin or mingw+msys)
the command typically looks something like this:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
gcc shell.c sqlite3.c -lpthread -ldl
</pre></blockquote>

<p>The pthreads library is needed to make SQLite threadsafe.  But
since the CLI is single threaded,  we could instruct SQLite to build
in a non-threadsafe mode and thereby omit the pthreads library:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
gcc -DSQLITE_THREADSAFE=0 shell.c sqlite3.c -ldl
</pre></blockquote>

<p>The -ldl library is needed to support dynamic loading, the
[sqlite3_load_extension()] interface and the
[load_extension() SQL function].  If these features are not required,
then they can be omitted using [SQLITE_OMIT_LOAD_EXTENSION] compile-time
option:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
gcc -DSQLITE_THREADSAFE=0 -DSQLITE_OMIT_LOAD_EXTENSION shell.c sqlite3.c
</pre></blockquote>

<p>One might want to provide other [compile-time options] such as
[-DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4] or [-DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS5] for full-text search,
[-DSQLITE_ENABLE_RTREE] for the R*Tree search engine extension,
[-DSQLITE_ENABLE_JSON1] to include [JSON SQL functions], or
[-DSQLITE_ENABLE_DBSTAT_VTAB] for the [dbstat virtual table].
In order to see extra commentary in [EXPLAIN] listings, add the 
[-DSQLITE_ENABLE_EXPLAIN_COMMENTS] option.
On unix systems, add -DHAVE_USLEEP=1 if the host machine supports the
usleep() system call.  Add -DHAVE_READLINE and the -lreadline
and -lncurses libraries to get command-line editing support.
One might also want to
specify some compiler optimization switches.  (The precompiled
CLI available for download from the SQLite website uses "-Os".)
There are countless possible variations here.  A command to
compile a full-featured shell might look something like this:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
gcc -Os -I. -DSQLITE_THREADSAFE=0 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4 &#92;
   -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS5 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_JSON1 &#92;
   -DSQLITE_ENABLE_RTREE -DSQLITE_ENABLE_EXPLAIN_COMMENTS &#92;
   -DHAVE_USLEEP -DHAVE_READLINE &#92;
   shell.c sqlite3.c -ldl -lreadline -lncurses -o sqlite3
</pre></blockquote>

<p>The key point is this:  Building the CLI consists of compiling 
together two C-language files.   The <b>shell.c</b> file contains the
definition of the entry point and the user input loop and the
SQLite amalgamation <b>sqlite3.c</b> contains the complete implementation
of the SQLite library.</p>

<tcl>hd_fragment {tcl} {compiling the TCL interface}</tcl>
<h2>Compiling The TCL Interface</h2>

<p>The TCL interface for SQLite is a small module that is added into
the regular amalgamation.  The result is a new amalgamated source
file called "<b>tclsqlite3.c</b>".  This single source file is all that
is needed to generate a shared library that can be loaded into a
standard 
[http://wiki.tcl-lang.org/2541 | tclsh] or 
[http://wiki.tcl-lang.org/2364 | wish] using the 
[http://wiki.tcl-lang.org/9830 | TCL load command], or to generate a
standalone tclsh that comes with SQLite built in.
A copy of the tcl amalgamation
is included on the [download page] as a file in the [TEA tarball].</p>

<p>To generate a TCL-loadable library for SQLite on Linux, the following
command will suffice:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
gcc -o libtclsqlite3.so -shared tclsqlite3.c -lpthread -ldl -ltcl
</pre></blockquote>

<p>Building shared libraries for Mac OS X and Windows is not nearly so simple,
unfortunately.  For those platforms it is best to use the configure script
and makefile that is included with the [TEA tarball].</p>

<p>To generate a standalone tclsh that is statically linked with SQLite,
use this compiler invocation:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
gcc -DTCLSH=1 tclsqlite3.c -ltcl -lpthread -ldl -lz -lm
</pre></blockquote>

<p>The trick here is the -DTCLSH=1 option.  The TCL interface module for
SQLite includes a <b>main()</b> procedure that initializes a TCL interpreter
and enters a command-line loop when it is compiled with -DTCLSH=1.  The
command above works on both Linux and Mac OS X, though one may need to adjust
the library options depending on the platform and which version of TCL one
is linking against.</p>

<tcl>hd_fragment {amal} {building the amalgamation}</tcl>
<h2>Building The Amalgamation</h2>

<p>The versions of the SQLite amalgamation that are supplied on the
[download page] are normally adequate for most users.  However, some
projects may want or need to build their own amalgamations.  A common
reason for building a custom amalgamation is in order to use certain
[compile-time options] to customize the SQLite library.  Recall that
the SQLite amalgamation contains a lot of C-code that is generated by
auxiliary programs and scripts.  Many of the compile-time
options effect this generated code and must be supplied to the code
generators before the amalgamation is assembled.  The set of 
compile-time options that must be passed into the code generators can
vary from one release of SQLite to the next, but at the time of this
writing (circa SQLite 3.6.20, 2009-11-04) the set of options that must
be known by the code generators includes:</p>

<ul>
<li>[SQLITE_ENABLE_UPDATE_DELETE_LIMIT]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_ALTERTABLE]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_ANALYZE]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_ATTACH]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_AUTOINCREMENT]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_CAST]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_COMPOUND_SELECT]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_EXPLAIN]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_FOREIGN_KEY]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_PRAGMA]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_REINDEX]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_SUBQUERY]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_TEMPDB]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_TRIGGER]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_VACUUM]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_VIEW]
<li>[SQLITE_OMIT_VIRTUALTABLE]
</ul>

<p>To build a custom amalgamation, first download the original individual
source files onto a unix or unix-like development platform.  
Be sure to get the original source
files not the "preprocessed source files".  One can obtain the complete
set of original source files either from the [download page] or directly
from the [http://www.sqlite.org/src | configuration management system].</p>

<p>Suppose the SQLite source tree is stored in a directory named "sqlite".
Plan to construct the amalgamation in a parallel directory named (for
example) "bld".  First construct an appropriate Makefile by either
running the configure script at the top of the SQLite source tree, or by
making a copy of one of the template Makefiles at the top of the source tree.
Then hand edit this Makefile to include the desired compile-time options.
Finally run:</p>

<blockquote><pre>
make sqlite3.c
</pre></blockquote>

<p>Or on Windows with MSVC:

<blockquote><pre>
nmake /f Makefile.msc sqlite3.c
</pre></blockquote>

<p>The "sqlite3.c" make target will automatically construct the regular
"<b>sqlite3.c</b>" amalgamation source file, its header file
"<b>sqlite3.h</b>", and the "<b>tclsqlite3.c</b>" amalgamation source
file that includes the TCL interface.
Afterwards, the needed files can be copied into project directories and
compiled according to the procedures outlined above.</p>

<tcl>hd_fragment {dll} {building a DLL}</tcl>
<h2>Building A Windows DLL</h2>

<p>To build a DLL of SQLite for use in Windows, first acquire the
appropriate amalgamated source code files, sqlite3.c and sqlite3.h.  
These can either
be downloaded from the [http://www.sqlite.org/download.html | SQLite website]
or custom generated from sources as shown above.</p>

<p>With source code files in the working directory, a DLL
can be generated using MSVC with the following command:

<blockquote><pre>
cl sqlite3.c -link -dll -out:sqlite3.dll
</pre></blockquote>

<p>The above command should be run from the MSVC Native Tools Command
Prompt.  If you have MSVC installed on your machine, you probably
have multiple versions of this Command Prompt, for native builds
for x86 and x64, and possibly also for cross-compiling to ARM.
Use the appropriate Command Prompt depending on the desired DLL.</p>

<p>If using the MinGW compiler, the command-line is this:

<blockquote><pre>
gcc -shared sqlite3.c -o sqlite3.dll
</pre></blockquote>

<p>Note that MinGW generates 32-bit DLLs only.  There is a separate
MinGW64 project that can be used to generate 64-bit DLLs.  Presumably
the command-line syntax is similar.
Also note that recent versions of MSVC generate DLLs that will not work
on WinXP and earlier versions of Windows.  So for maximum compatibility
of your generated DLL, MinGW is recommended.  A good rule-of-thumb
is to generate 32-bit DLLs using MinGW and 64-bit DLLs using MSVC.

<p>In most cases, you will want to supplement the basic commands above with
[compile-time options] appropriate for your application.  Commonly used
compile-time options include:

<ul>
<li><p><b>-Os</b> - Optimize for size. 
Make the DLL as small as possible.</p>

<li><p><b>-O2</b> - Optimize for speed.  This will make the DLL larger by
unrolling loops and inlining functions.</p>

<li><p><b>-DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4</b> -
Include the [full-text search] engine code in SQLite.

<li><p><b>-DSQLITE_ENABLE_RTREE</b> - Include the [R-Tree extension].

<li><p><b>-DSQLITE_ENABLE_COLUMN_METADATA</b> -
This enables some extra APIs that are required by some common systems,
including Ruby-on-Rails.
</ul>
