USAGE.md

How to Specify Database Files

Here is an example to establishing a connection to a database file C:\work\mydatabase.db (in Windows)

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:C:/work/mydatabase.db")) { /*...*/ }

Opening a UNIX (Linux, maxOS, etc.) file /home/leo/work/mydatabase.db

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:/home/leo/work/mydatabase.db")) { /*...*/ }

How to Use Memory Databases

SQLite supports on-memory database management, which does not create any database files. To use a memory database in your Java code, get the database connection as follows:

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite::memory:")) { /*...*/ }

And also, you can create memory database as follows:

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:")) { /*...*/ }

How to use Online Backup and Restore Feature

Take a backup of the whole database to backup.db file:

try (
    // Create a memory database
    Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:");
    Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
) {
    // Do some updates
    stmt.executeUpdate("create table sample(id, name)");
    stmt.executeUpdate("insert into sample values(1, \"leo\")");
    stmt.executeUpdate("insert into sample values(2, \"yui\")");
    // Dump the database contents to a file
    stmt.executeUpdate("backup to backup.db");
}

Restore the database from a backup file:

try (
    // Create a memory database
    Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:");
    // Restore the database from a backup file
    Statement stat = conn.createStatement();
) {
    stat.executeUpdate("restore from backup.db");
}

Creating BLOB data

1. Create a table with a column of blob type: create table T (id integer, data blob)
2. Create a prepared statement with ? symbol: insert into T values(1, ?)
3. Prepare a blob data in byte array (e.g., byte[] data = ...)
4. preparedStatement.setBytes(1, data)
5. preparedStatement.execute()...

Reading Database Files in classpaths or network (read-only)

To load db files that can be found from the class loader (e.g., db files inside a jar file in the classpath), use jdbc:sqlite::resource: prefix.

For example, here is an example to access an SQLite DB file, sample.db in a Java package org.yourdomain:

try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite::resource:org/yourdomain/sample.db")) { /*...*/ }

In addition, external DB resources can be used as follows:

try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite::resource:http://www.xerial.org/svn/project/XerialJ/trunk/sqlite-jdbc/src/test/java/org/sqlite/sample.db")) { /*...*/ }

To access db files inside some specific jar file (in local or remote), use the JAR URL:

try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite::resource:jar:http://www.xerial.org/svn/project/XerialJ/trunk/sqlite-jdbc/src/test/resources/testdb.jar!/sample.db")) { /*...*/ }

DB files will be extracted to a temporary folder specified in System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir").

Configure directory to extract native library

sqlite-jdbc extracts a native library for your OS to the directory specified by java.io.tmpdir JVM property. To use another directory, set org.sqlite.tmpdir JVM property to your favorite path.

How to use a specific native library

You can use a specific version of the native library by setting the following JVM properties:

-Dorg.sqlite.lib.path=/path/to/folder
-Dorg.sqlite.lib.name=your-custom.dll

Override detected architecture

If the detected architecture is incorrect for your system, thus loading the wrong native library, you can override the value setting the following JVM property:

-Dorg.sqlite.osinfo.architecture=arm

Configure Connections

SQLiteConfig config = new SQLiteConfig();
// config.setReadOnly(true);   
config.setSharedCache(true);
config.recursiveTriggers(true);
// ... other configuration can be set via SQLiteConfig object
try (Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:sample.db", config.toProperties())) { /*...*/ }

How to Use Encrypted Databases

Important: xerial/sqlite-jdbc does not support encryption out of the box, you need a special .dll/.so

SQLite support encryption of the database via special drivers and a key. To use an encrypted database you need a driver which supports encrypted database via pragma key or pragma hexkey, e.g. SQLite SSE or SQLCipher. You need to specify those drivers via directly referencing the .dll/.so through:

-Dorg.sqlite.lib.path=.
-Dorg.sqlite.lib.name=sqlite_cryption_support.dll

Now the only need to specify the password is via:

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:db.sqlite", "", "password")) { /*...*/ }

Binary Passphrase

If you need to provide the password in binary form, you have to specify how the provided .dll/.so needs it. There are two different modes available:

SSE

The binary password is provided via pragma hexkey='AE...'

SQLCipher

The binary password is provided via pragma key="x'AE...'"

You set the mode at the connection string level:

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite:db.sqlite?hexkey_mode=sse", "", "AE...")) { /*...*/ }

Explicit read only transactions (use with Hibernate)

In order for the driver to be compliant with Hibernate, it needs to allow setting the read only flag after a connection has been created.

SQLite has a notion of "auto-upgrading" read-only transactions to read-write transactions. This can cause SQLITE_BUSY exceptions which are difficult to deal with in a JPA/Hibernate/Spring scenario.

For example:

• open connection
• query data <--- this uses a read-only transaction in SQLite by default
• write data <--- this is risky as it promotes the transaction to read-write
• commit

The approach taken is:

• open transactions on demand
• allow setting readOnly only if no statement has been executed yet
• if readOnly(false) is received, then we quit out of our transaction, and open a new transaction with BEGIN IMMEDIATE. This forces a global lock on the database, preventing SQLITE_BUSY.

You can activate explicit read only support in 2 ways:

• via SQLiteConfig#setExplicitReadOnly(true):

SQLiteConfig config = new SQLiteConfig();
config.setExplicitReadOnly(true);

• using the pragma jdbc.explicit_readonly:

try (Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlite::memory:?jdbc.explicit_readonly=true")) { /*...*/ }

How to use with Android

Android expects JNI native libraries to be bundled differently than a normal Java application.

You will need to extract the native libraries from our jar (from org/sqlite/native/Linux-Android), and place them in the jniLibs directory:

The name of directories in our jar and in Android Studio differ, here is a mapping table:

Jar directory	Android Studio directory
aarch64	arm64-v8a
arm	armeabi
x86	x86
x86_64	x86_64