The sqlite3 command line tool

In this part of the SQLite tutorial, we will cover the sqlite3 command line tool.

The manual describes the sqlite3 as follows: sqlite3 is a terminal-based front-end to the SQLite library

that can evaluate queries interactively and display the results in multiple for‐ mats. sqlite3 can also be

used within shell scripts and other applica‐ tions to provide batch processing features.

sqlite3 tool

sqlite3 is a terminal based frontend to the SQLite library that can evaluate queries interactively and

display the results in multiple formats. It can also be used within scripts.

On the terminal screen, we see the following prompt of the sqlite3 tool.

$ sqlite3 test.db

SQLite version 3.5.9

Enter ".help" for instructions

sqlite>

The .help is one of the meta commnads of the sqlite3 tool. It shows a list of them. The .exit and the

The .quit commands exit the sqlite3 session. The .databases command shows the attached

databases. The .tables command lists the available tables.

Creating a database

The complete SQLite database is stored in a single cross-platform disk file. We use the sqlite3
command line tool to create a new database file.

$ sqlite3 movies.db

Here we create a new movies.db database. If the exists, it is opened.

Basic sqlite3 meta commnads

Next we describe some of the meta commands of the sqlite3 tool.

sqlite> .tables

Books Customers Log Orders Testing

Cars Friends Names Reservations

The .tables commnad now shows the available tables.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM Names;

1|Tom

2|Lucy

3|Frank

4|Jane

5|Robert

Here we get the output of a simple SELECT statement. By default, the output mode is line and the

separator is |.
 sqlite> .separator :

sqlite> SELECT * FROM Names;

1:Tom

2:Lucy

3:Frank

4:Jane

5:Robert

Here we have used a new colon separator.

There are several other output modes available. The following example will show the column output

mode.

sqlite> .mode column

sqlite> .headers on

sqlite> SELECT * FROM Names;

Id Name

---------- ----------

1 Tom
 2 Lucy

3 Frank

4 Jane

5 Robert

In this example, we have our data in the column mode. Plus we show the column headers with the

.headers command. By default, the headers are hidden.

The .width command adjusts the size of the columns.

sqlite> SELECT Title, Author FROM Books;

Title Author

------------- -----------

War and Peace Leo Tolstoy

The Brothers Fyodor Dost

Crime and Pun Fyodor Dost

Here, the column widths are not wide enough to display all data correctly.

sqlite> .width 22, 18

sqlite> SELECT Title, Author FROM Books;

Title Author
 ---------------------- ------------------

War and Peace Leo Tolstoy

The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Here we change the column widths. The first column will be 22 characters wide, the second 18.

sqlite> .show

echo: off

explain: off

headers: off

mode: list

nullvalue: ""

output: stdout

separator: "|"

width:

The .show command lists various settings. We can see the output mode, the separator used in the list

mode, the headers.

 sqlite> .schema Cars

CREATE TABLE Cars(Id integer primary key, Name text, Cost integer);

The .schema command shows the structure of the table. It gives the DDL SQL to create the table.

Executing SQL from the shell

We can execute SQL commands from the shell.

$ sqlite3 test.db "SELECT * FROM Cars;"

Id Name Cost

---------- ---------- ----------

1 Audi 52642

2 Mercedes 57127

3 Skoda 9000

4 Volvo 29000

5 Bentley 350000

6 Citroen 21000

7 Hummer 41400

8 Volkswagen 21600
Here we have non interactively executed a SELECT SQL command. We selected all cars from the Cars

table.

Dumping tables

It is possible to dump tables in SQL format to the disk. This way we can easily save the structure and

the data of a database table.

We have the Cars table.

sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars;

Id Name Cost

---------- ---------- ----------

1 Audi 52642

2 Mercedes 57127

3 Skoda 9000

4 Volvo 29000

5 Bentley 350000

6 Citroen 21000

7 Hummer 41400
 8 Volkswagen 21600

Now, we are going to use the .dump command to dump the table.

sqlite> .dump Cars

BEGIN TRANSACTION;

CREATE TABLE Cars(Id integer primary key, Name text, Cost integer);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(1,'Audi',52642);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(2,'Mercedes',57127);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(3,'Skoda',9000);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(4,'Volvo',29000);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(5,'Bentley',350000);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(6,'Citroen',21000);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(7,'Hummer',41400);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(8,'Volkswagen',21600);

COMMIT;

The .dump command shows us the SQL necessary to recreate the table.

sqlite> .output cars.sql

 sqlite> .dump Cars

We can also redirect the output to a file. The .output command will redirect the output to the cars.sql

file.

$ cat cars.sql

BEGIN TRANSACTION;

CREATE TABLE Cars(Id integer primary key, Name text, Cost integer);

INSERT INTO "Cars" VALUES(1,'Audi',52642);

...

We verify it.

Reading SQL

We can read SQL from a file name with the .read commnad.

sqlite> .tables Cars

Cars

sqlite> DROP TABLE CARS;

sqlite> .tables Cars

sqlite> .read cars.sql

 sqlite> .tables Cars

Cars

sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars WHERE id=1;

Id Name Cost

---------- ---------- ----------

1 Audi 52642

Here we have executed a series of commands. We drop the table and read it from the cars.sql, that we

have created previously.

Resource file

The sqlite3 tool has a resource file called .sqliterc. It is located in the home directory. If there is no

such file, we can simply create it. We can place the meta commnads there or the regular SQL

statements. However, we should avoid using SQL in the resource file.

$ cat .sqliterc

.mode column

.header on

.nullvalue NULL

Here is a simple example of a resource file. It has three meta commands. With resource file, we don't

have to execute meta commnads all over again, when we start the sqlite3 tool. They will be executed

automatically at the start of the tool.

 $ sqlite3 test.db

-- Loading resources from /home/vronskij/.sqliterc

SQLite version 3.5.9

Enter ".help" for instructions

We have a message saying, that the tool loaded resources upon the beginning.

Command line options

The tool has several command line options. They mostly duplicate the meta commands. Note, that

commnad line options overwrite the resource file meta commands.

$ sqlite3 -version

-- Loading resources from /home/vronskij/.sqliterc

3.5.9

We get the sqlite3 version.

$ sqlite3 -html test.db

-- Loading resources from /home/vronskij/.sqliterc

SQLite version 3.5.9

Enter ".help" for instructions

 sqlite> SELECT * FROM Cars LIMIT 2;

<TR><TH>Id</TH><TH>Name</TH><TH>Cost</TH></TR>

<TR><TD>1</TD>

<TD>Audi</TD>

<TD>52642</TD>

</TR>

<TR><TD>2</TD>

<TD>Mercedes</TD>

<TD>57127</TD>

</TR>

The -html option causes the results to be output as simple HTML tables

In this part of the SQLite tutorial, we worked with the sqlite3 command line tool. We have described

various meta commnads. We have shown, how to dump tables, read SQL from files; we described the

sqlite's resource file.