Resource Provider : Muhammad Rizwan (Visiting Lecturer) IUB-RYK

SQLite Tutorial for Beginners

SQLite is a RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) similar to
MySQL or Oracle. It has all the features of relational database engine
including normalization. Its lightweight and one of the most often used
database engine across the globe, particularly with mobile applications.
Why Use SQLite?
SQLite is a database engine designed with an objective to keep database
design and management as simple as possible. SQLite is easier to administer
with no overhead, easy to operate and embed in an application, simpler to
maintain, and extremely efficient in terms of resource usage and
customization. The following are some of the distinguishing attributes of
SQLite Database.
Features of SQLite
1. Zero configuration SQLite does not need to be Installed as there is
no setup procedure to use it.
2. Serverless SQLite is not implemented as a separate server process.
With SQLite, the process that wants to access the database reads and
writes directly from the database files on disk as there is no
intermediary server process.
3. Stable Cross-Platform Database File The SQLite file format is
cross-platform. A database file written on one machine can be copied to
and used on a different machine with a different architecture.
4. Single Database File An SQLite database is a single ordinary disk
file that can be located anywhere in the directory hierarchy.
5. Compact When optimized for size, the whole SQLite library with
everything enabled is less than 400KB in size

When to Use SQLite?

Due to the small size of SQLite code structure that makes it memory efficient,
its widely used in mobile application development owing to the limitations of
memory and storage on hand held devices. It is also preferable to use SQLite
in small to medium size websites since there is no need for complex

Resource Provider : Muhammad Rizwan (Visiting Lecturer) IUB-RYK

configuration and maintenance, which also makes SQLite a replacement for

an enterprise database engine for testing and early launch of an application.
SQLite Commands
SQLite commands interact with the relational database in a way similar to
SQL. There are three groups of these commands based on the category of
operations they perform. These are Data Definition Language (CREATE,
ALTER and DROP), Data Manipulation Language (INSERT, UPDATE and
DELETE) and Data Query Language (SELECT).
SQLite Data Types
Unlike SQL, SQLite uses a dynamic type system. In SQL, the data type of a
value is determined by its column data type in a table. In contrast, the data
type of value is related to the value itself.
Every value stored in a SQLite database is associated with one of five storage
classes.

NULL value.
INTEGER is a signed 64 bit numeric value. SQLite optimizes the
storage of small integers by itself, which is why it is stored in 1, 2, 3, 4, 6,
or 8 bytes depending on the magnitude of the integer value.
REAL is a 64 bit floating point value.
TEXT is a text string, which is stored using database encoding such
as UTF-8.
BLOB is a blob of data, which is stored as direct input. Both Text and
BLOB have default size of 1,000,000,000 bytes.

SQLite uses the concept of type affinity on columns of a table that reduces the
compatibility issues with other database engines. Any column can store any
type of data, but the recommended storage class for a column is called its
affinity. These type affinities are TEXT, NUMERIC, INTEGER, REAL and
NONE. The following is the details of the data types that are used to create
the database table and their affinities.

TEXT affinity applies on VARCHAR, NCHAR, NVARCHAR, and TEXT,

etc.
NUMERIC applies on BOOLEAN, DATE and DATETIME, etc.
INTEGER applies on INT, TINYINT, SMALLINT, MEDIUMINT and
BIGINT, etc.
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Resource Provider : Muhammad Rizwan (Visiting Lecturer) IUB-RYK

REAL applies on REAL, DOUBLE and FLOAT, etc.

NONE applies on BLOB and column with no specified data type.

From the above list of affinities, it is clear that there is no specified data type
available for date-time in SQLite, but by default, these values are saved as
numeric data (number of seconds since the Jan 01, 1970 midnight).
Sometimes, a text string is also used to save the date-time. Same goes for a
Boolean where true and false are stored as 1 and 0 respectively in a column.
SQLite CRUD Statement
SQLite statements start with keywords such as CREATE, INSERT, UPDATE,
DELETE, SELECT, ALTER, DROP, etc. and is case insensitive. CRUD (Create,
Read, Update and Delete) are commonly used operations in every database
engine.
The CREATE statement is used to create new tables in SQLite database. Basic
syntax and a simple example of CREATE TABLE are as follow.
Create Table Statement Syntax:
CREATE TABLE DATABASE_NAME. TABLE_NAME (
column1 datatype,
column2 datatype,

columnN datatype,
PRIMARY KEY (one or more columns)
);
Create EMPLOYEE Table:
sqlite3> CREATE TABLE COMPANY.EMPLOYEE (
ID INT PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
NAME TEXT NOT NULL,
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Resource Provider : Muhammad Rizwan (Visiting Lecturer) IUB-RYK

AGE INT NOT NULL,

);
The INSERT INTO statement inserts new rows in a table and UPDATE is
used to modify the existing rows based on a certain criteria (WHERE clause).
Following is the SQLite syntax and examples for these statements.
Insert Into Statement Syntax:
INSERT INTO TABLE_NAME (column1, column2 columnN) VALUES
(value1, value2
valueN);
Update Statement Syntax:
UPDATE TABLE_NAME SET column1=value1, column2=value2
columnN=valueN [where
criteria_To_Update_Row];
Insert 1 row in EMPLOYEE Table:
INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE (ID, NAME, AGE) VALUES (1, John, 22);
Update 1 row in EMPLOYEE Table:
UPDATE EMPLOYEE SET AGE = 21 WHERE ID = 1;
The SELECT statement retrieves the specific data of specific rows in table.
Finally DELETE removes the particular rows based on criteria or all the rows
in table. Following example demonstrates the syntax of these statements in
SQLite.
Select Statement Syntax:
SELECT column1, column2, columnN FROM TABLE_NAME [where
criteria_To_Retrieve_Row];
Delete Statement Syntax:
DELETE FROM TABLE_NAME [where criteria_To_Delete_Row];
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Select All EMPLOYEEs Data with AGE greater than 25:

SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE WHERE AGE > 25;
Delete All EMPLOYEEs Data:
DELETE FROM EMPLOYE;