If you’re using one of SQLite’s tabular output modes, you might find yourself battling with long lines of text that result in all subsequent columns being pushed out far to the right. This can cause you to have to keep scrolling sideways as you peruse the data.
Fortunately, there’s an easy fix.
Continue readingIt’s possible to output query results as a JSON document when using the SQLite command line interface.
We can do this with the json output mode.
We can also use SQLite functions like json_object() and/or json_array() to return query results as a JSON document.
In SQLite, substring() is an alias for substr().
It returns a substring from a string, based on a given starting location within the string. Two arguments are required, and a third optional argument is accepted.
The substring() naming was introduced in SQLite 3.34.0, which was released on 1st December 2020. The reason that the substring() syntax was introduced was for compatibility with SQL Server.
SQLite has a number of tabular output modes. One of these is called table mode.
Below is an example of using table mode to output SQLite’s query results as a table.
The SQLite command line interface provides us with several options for outputting our results in tabular format.
These can be set using the .mode command. You simply type .mode followed by the desired output format.
Below are examples of the various tabular modes available in SQLite.
Continue readingThe unix timestamp is the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. SQLite provides us with a couple of ways to get the unix timestamp.
Continue readingSQLite has introduced the FORMAT() function, which can be used to format strings.
More precisely, it has actually just renamed its SQL PRINTF() function to FORMAT(). The reason is for better compatibility with other DBMSs. The original PRINTF() name is retained as an alias for backwards compatibility.
The FORMAT() function (or its naming) was introduced in SQLite 3.38.0, which was released on 22 February 2022.
SQLite’s DATE() function provides us with the ability to return the date of the first instance of a given day of a given month. Therefore, we can use it to return the first Monday of a given month. We can also use it to return the first Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, etc.
We can use DATETIME() if we want a datetime value to be returned.
If you have a Unix timestamp, you can use SQLite’s DATETIME() function with the unixepoch modifier to compute the actual date and time.
You can alternatively use the DATE() function if you only need the date to be returned. And it’s also possible to use the TIME() function to return just the time portion.
SQLite doesn’t have a SHOW TABLES statement like MySQL and MariaDB have, but it does have a similar command.
In SQLite, you can use the .tables command to show a list of tables. You can alternatively use the table_list pragma to do the job.