xref: /sqlite-3.40.0/README.md (revision 7ff64dc2)
1<h1 align="center">SQLite Source Repository</h1>
2
3This repository contains the complete source code for the SQLite database
4engine.  Some test scripts are also include.  However, many other test scripts
5and most of the documentation are managed separately.
6
7If you are reading this on a Git mirror someplace, you are doing it wrong.
8The [official repository](https://www.sqlite.org/src/) is better.  Go there
9now.
10
11## Obtaining The Code
12
13SQLite sources are managed using the
14[Fossil](https://www.fossil-scm.org/), a distributed version control system
15that was specifically designed to support SQLite development.
16If you do not want to use Fossil, you can download tarballs or ZIP
17archives as follows:
18
19  *  Lastest trunk check-in:
20     <https://www.sqlite.org/src/tarball/sqlite.tar.gz> or
21     <https://www.sqlite.org/src/zip/sqlite.zip>.
22
23  *  Latest release:
24     <https://www.sqlite.org/src/tarball/sqlite.tar.gz?r=release> or
25     <https://www.sqlite.org/src/zip/sqlite.zip?r=release>.
26
27  *  For other check-ins, substitute an appropriate branch name or
28     tag or hash prefix for "release" in the URLs of the previous
29     bullet.  Or browse the [timeline](https://www.sqlite.org/src/timeline)
30     to locate the check-in desired, click on its information page link,
31     then click on the "Tarball" or "ZIP Archive" links on the information
32     page.
33
34If you do want to use Fossil to check out the source tree,
35first install Fossil version 2.0 or later.
36(Source tarballs and precompiled binaries available
37[here](https://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil/uv/download.html).  Fossil is
38a stand-alone program.  To install, simply download or build the single
39executable file and put that file someplace on your $PATH.)
40Then run commands like this:
41
42        mkdir ~/sqlite
43        cd ~/sqlite
44        fossil clone https://www.sqlite.org/src sqlite.fossil
45        fossil open sqlite.fossil
46
47After setting up a repository using the steps above, you can always
48update to the lastest version using:
49
50        fossil update trunk   ;# latest trunk check-in
51        fossil update release ;# latest official release
52
53Or type "fossil ui" to get a web-based user interface.
54
55## Compiling
56
57First create a directory in which to place
58the build products.  It is recommended, but not required, that the
59build directory be separate from the source directory.  Cd into the
60build directory and then from the build directory run the configure
61script found at the root of the source tree.  Then run "make".
62
63For example:
64
65        tar xzf sqlite.tar.gz    ;#  Unpack the source tree into "sqlite"
66        mkdir bld                ;#  Build will occur in a sibling directory
67        cd bld                   ;#  Change to the build directory
68        ../sqlite/configure      ;#  Run the configure script
69        make                     ;#  Run the makefile.
70        make sqlite3.c           ;#  Build the "amalgamation" source file
71        make test                ;#  Run some tests (requires Tcl)
72
73See the makefile for additional targets.
74
75The configure script uses autoconf 2.61 and libtool.  If the configure
76script does not work out for you, there is a generic makefile named
77"Makefile.linux-gcc" in the top directory of the source tree that you
78can copy and edit to suit your needs.  Comments on the generic makefile
79show what changes are needed.
80
81## Using MSVC
82
83On Windows, all applicable build products can be compiled with MSVC.
84First open the command prompt window associated with the desired compiler
85version (e.g. "Developer Command Prompt for VS2013").  Next, use NMAKE
86with the provided "Makefile.msc" to build one of the supported targets.
87
88For example:
89
90        mkdir bld
91        cd bld
92        nmake /f Makefile.msc TOP=..\sqlite
93        nmake /f Makefile.msc sqlite3.c TOP=..\sqlite
94        nmake /f Makefile.msc sqlite3.dll TOP=..\sqlite
95        nmake /f Makefile.msc sqlite3.exe TOP=..\sqlite
96        nmake /f Makefile.msc test TOP=..\sqlite
97
98There are several build options that can be set via the NMAKE command
99line.  For example, to build for WinRT, simply add "FOR_WINRT=1" argument
100to the "sqlite3.dll" command line above.  When debugging into the SQLite
101code, adding the "DEBUG=1" argument to one of the above command lines is
102recommended.
103
104SQLite does not require [Tcl](http://www.tcl.tk/) to run, but a Tcl installation
105is required by the makefiles (including those for MSVC).  SQLite contains
106a lot of generated code and Tcl is used to do much of that code generation.
107The makefiles also require AWK.
108
109## Source Code Tour
110
111Most of the core source files are in the **src/** subdirectory.  The
112**src/** folder also contains files used to build the "testfixture" test
113harness. The names of the source files used "by testfixture" all begin
114with "test".
115The **src/** also contains the "shell.c" file
116which is the main program for the "sqlite3.exe"
117[command-line shell](https://sqlite.org/cli.html) and
118the "tclsqlite.c" file which implements the
119[TCL bindings](https://sqlite.org/tclsqlite.html) for SQLite.
120(Historical note:  SQLite began as a Tcl
121extension and only later escaped to the wild as an independent library.)
122
123Test scripts and programs are found in the **test/** subdirectory.
124Addtional test code is found in other source repositories.
125See [How SQLite Is Tested](http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html) for
126additional information.
127
128The **ext/** subdirectory contains code for extensions.  The
129Full-text search engine is in **ext/fts3**.  The R-Tree engine is in
130**ext/rtree**.  The **ext/misc** subdirectory contains a number of
131smaller, single-file extensions, such as a REGEXP operator.
132
133The **tool/** subdirectory contains various scripts and programs used
134for building generated source code files or for testing or for generating
135accessory programs such as "sqlite3_analyzer(.exe)".
136
137### Generated Source Code Files
138
139Several of the C-language source files used by SQLite are generated from
140other sources rather than being typed in manually by a programmer.  This
141section will summarize those automatically-generated files.  To create all
142of the automatically-generated files, simply run "make target&#95;source".
143The "target&#95;source" make target will create a subdirectory "tsrc/" and
144fill it with all the source files needed to build SQLite, both
145manually-edited files and automatically-generated files.
146
147The SQLite interface is defined by the **sqlite3.h** header file, which is
148generated from src/sqlite.h.in, ./manifest.uuid, and ./VERSION.  The
149[Tcl script](http://www.tcl.tk) at tool/mksqlite3h.tcl does the conversion.
150The manifest.uuid file contains the SHA3 hash of the particular check-in
151and is used to generate the SQLITE\_SOURCE\_ID macro.  The VERSION file
152contains the current SQLite version number.  The sqlite3.h header is really
153just a copy of src/sqlite.h.in with the source-id and version number inserted
154at just the right spots. Note that comment text in the sqlite3.h file is
155used to generate much of the SQLite API documentation.  The Tcl scripts
156used to generate that documentation are in a separate source repository.
157
158The SQL language parser is **parse.c** which is generate from a grammar in
159the src/parse.y file.  The conversion of "parse.y" into "parse.c" is done
160by the [lemon](./doc/lemon.html) LALR(1) parser generator.  The source code
161for lemon is at tool/lemon.c.  Lemon uses a
162template for generating its parser.  A generic template is in tool/lempar.c,
163but SQLite uses a slightly modified template found in src/lempar.c.
164
165Lemon also generates the **parse.h** header file, at the same time it
166generates parse.c. But the parse.h header file is
167modified further (to add additional symbols) using the ./addopcodes.awk
168AWK script.
169
170The **opcodes.h** header file contains macros that define the numbers
171corresponding to opcodes in the "VDBE" virtual machine.  The opcodes.h
172file is generated by the scanning the src/vdbe.c source file.  The
173AWK script at ./mkopcodeh.awk does this scan and generates opcodes.h.
174A second AWK script, ./mkopcodec.awk, then scans opcodes.h to generate
175the **opcodes.c** source file, which contains a reverse mapping from
176opcode-number to opcode-name that is used for EXPLAIN output.
177
178The **keywordhash.h** header file contains the definition of a hash table
179that maps SQL language keywords (ex: "CREATE", "SELECT", "INDEX", etc.) into
180the numeric codes used by the parse.c parser.  The keywordhash.h file is
181generated by a C-language program at tool mkkeywordhash.c.
182
183Th3 **pragma.h** header file contains various definitions used to parse
184and implement the PRAGMA statements.  The header is generated by a
185script **tool/mkpragmatab.tcl**. If you want to add a new PRAGMA, edit
186the **tool/mkpragmatab.tcl** file to insert the information needed by the
187parser for your new PRAGMA, then run the script to regenerate the
188**pragma.h** header file.
189
190### The Amalgamation
191
192All of the individual C source code and header files (both manually-edited
193and automatically-generated) can be combined into a single big source file
194**sqlite3.c** called "the amalgamation".  The amalgamation is the recommended
195way of using SQLite in a larger application.  Combining all individual
196source code files into a single big source code file allows the C compiler
197to perform more cross-procedure analysis and generate better code.  SQLite
198runs about 5% faster when compiled from the amalgamation versus when compiled
199from individual source files.
200
201The amalgamation is generated from the tool/mksqlite3c.tcl Tcl script.
202First, all of the individual source files must be gathered into the tsrc/
203subdirectory (using the equivalent of "make target_source") then the
204tool/mksqlite3c.tcl script is run to copy them all together in just the
205right order while resolving internal "#include" references.
206
207The amalgamation source file is more than 200K lines long.  Some symbolic
208debuggers (most notably MSVC) are unable to deal with files longer than 64K
209lines.  To work around this, a separate Tcl script, tool/split-sqlite3c.tcl,
210can be run on the amalgamation to break it up into a single small C file
211called **sqlite3-all.c** that does #include on about five other files
212named **sqlite3-1.c**, **sqlite3-2.c**, ..., **sqlite3-5.c**.  In this way,
213all of the source code is contained within a single translation unit so
214that the compiler can do extra cross-procedure optimization, but no
215individual source file exceeds 32K lines in length.
216
217## How It All Fits Together
218
219SQLite is modular in design.
220See the [architectural description](http://www.sqlite.org/arch.html)
221for details. Other documents that are useful in
222(helping to understand how SQLite works include the
223[file format](http://www.sqlite.org/fileformat2.html) description,
224the [virtual machine](http://www.sqlite.org/opcode.html) that runs
225prepared statements, the description of
226[how transactions work](http://www.sqlite.org/atomiccommit.html), and
227the [overview of the query planner](http://www.sqlite.org/optoverview.html).
228
229Years of effort have gone into optimizating SQLite, both
230for small size and high performance.  And optimizations tend to result in
231complex code.  So there is a lot of complexity in the current SQLite
232implementation.  It will not be the easiest library in the world to hack.
233
234Key files:
235
236  *  **sqlite.h.in** - This file defines the public interface to the SQLite
237     library.  Readers will need to be familiar with this interface before
238     trying to understand how the library works internally.
239
240  *  **sqliteInt.h** - this header file defines many of the data objects
241     used internally by SQLite.
242
243  *  **parse.y** - This file describes the LALR(1) grammer that SQLite uses
244     to parse SQL statements, and the actions that are taken at each step
245     in the parsing process.
246
247  *  **vdbe.c** - This file implements the virtual machine that runs
248     prepared statements.  There are various helper files whose names
249     begin with "vdbe".  The VDBE has access to the vdbeInt.h header file
250     which defines internal data objects.  The rest of SQLite interacts
251     with the VDBE through an interface defined by vdbe.h.
252
253  *  **where.c** - This file analyzes the WHERE clause and generates
254     virtual machine code to run queries efficiently.  This file is
255     sometimes called the "query optimizer".  It has its own private
256     header file, whereInt.h, that defines data objects used internally.
257
258  *  **btree.c** - This file contains the implementation of the B-Tree
259     storage engine used by SQLite.
260
261  *  **pager.c** - This file contains the "pager" implementation, the
262     module that implements transactions.
263
264  *  **os_unix.c** and **os_win.c** - These two files implement the interface
265     between SQLite and the underlying operating system using the run-time
266     pluggable VFS interface.
267
268  *  **shell.c** - This file is not part of the core SQLite library.  This
269     is the file that, when linked against sqlite3.a, generates the
270     "sqlite3.exe" command-line shell.
271
272  *  **tclsqlite.c** - This file implements the Tcl bindings for SQLite.  It
273     is not part of the core SQLite library.  But as most of the tests in this
274     repository are written in Tcl, the Tcl language bindings are important.
275
276There are many other source files.  Each has a suscinct header comment that
277describes its purpose and role within the larger system.
278
279
280## Contacts
281
282The main SQLite webpage is [http://www.sqlite.org/](http://www.sqlite.org/)
283with geographically distributed backups at
284[http://www2.sqlite.org/](http://www2.sqlite.org) and
285[http://www3.sqlite.org/](http://www3.sqlite.org).
286