You’ll want to find the section Precompiled Binaries for Windows and download one of the zip files. In this guide I’ll be using the bundle of command-line tools, simply because it’s always useful to have the additional utilities on hand.
The bundle includes the executables sqlite3.exe for managing SQLite databases, sqldiff.exe for displaying the differences between SQLite databases and sqlite3_analyzer.exe that provides information on the space utilization of SQLite databases.
Once you’ve downloaded the zip file, extract the executables into the local folder C:\sqlite
Edit PATH Environment Variable
You’ve now downloaded SQLite to your local Windows environment, but you haven’t installed it yet. We could simply use the command prompt to navigate to the folder containing the executables each time we run SQLite, but who wants to do that?! Let’s actually install SQLite by editing the PATH environment variable on Windows.
Let’s begin by using the Windows Start Menu to search for “environment variables” to open the Environment Variables window located in Settings. You’ll want to locate the ‘Path’ variable and click Edit:
Within ‘Edit environment variable’ for the ‘Path’ variable, add a new entry with a value of “C:\sqlite”. This is telling Windows that if you type the name of an executable into the command prompt, it will include this path when looking for it’s location.
Once you’ve added the new variable, open a new command prompt (or Windows Terminal) and type the name of one of the executables you downloaded. In this screenshot you can see that running the command sqlite3 is able to run the executable sqlite3.exe within the folder C:\sqlite!
You’ve now got SQLite installed on Windows and are ready to manage SQLite databases!
Useful SQLite Commands
If you’re looking to create a new database or list the databases and tables already on your local Windows environment, here are a few commands that you may find useful.
Create a new (or opening an existing) database
.open <FILENAME>
List all databases
.databases
List all tables in the current database
.tables
Read SQL in a file
.read <FILENAME>
View the result set in a table structure
.mode column
.headers on
Execute SQL Statements in SQLite
If you’d like to experiment with executing SQL statements in SQLite, why not create a new database and use the SQL statements in the following code snippets to return a result set in the command prompt?
Create tables and insert data
BEGIN;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS artist (
id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
title TEXT NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO artist (title) VALUES ('Arcade Fire');
INSERT INTO artist (title) VALUES ('The Chicks');
INSERT INTO artist (title) VALUES ('Oasis');
INSERT INTO artist (title) VALUES ('U2');
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS album (
id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
artist INTEGER,
title TEXT NOT NULL,
year INTEGER NOT NULL,
label TEXT NOT NULL,
FOREIGN KEY (artist) REFERENCES artist (id)
);
INSERT INTO album (artist, title, year, label) VALUES (1, 'Funeral', 2004, 'Rough Trade Records');
INSERT INTO album (artist, title, year, label) VALUES (1, 'The Suburbs', 2010, 'Merge Records');
INSERT INTO album (artist, title, year, label) VALUES (2, 'Taking the Long Way', 2006, 'Sony Music Nashville');
INSERT INTO album (artist, title, year, label) VALUES (3, '(What''s the Story) Morning Glory?', 1995, 'Creation Records');
INSERT INTO album (artist, title, year, label) VALUES (3, 'Definitely Maybe', 1994, 'Creation Records');
INSERT INTO album (artist, title, year, label) VALUES (4, 'The Joshua Tree', 1987, 'Island Records');
COMMIT;
SELECT statement
SELECT
artist.title AS [artist],
album.title AS [album],
album.year AS [released],
album.label AS [record label]
FROM
album
JOIN artist ON artist.id = album.artist
ORDER BY album.year DESC;
You should now be able to manage SQLite databases on Windows!
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