---
name: "tdbc_sqlite3"
section: "n"
platform: "linux"
package: "tcl"
version: "8.6.16-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/tdbc_sqlite3/n"
---

# tdbc\_sqlite3(n)

TDBC driver for the SQLite3 database manager

```

```

## NAME

tdbc::sqlite3 - TDBC driver for the SQLite3 database manager

## SYNOPSIS

package require **tdbc::sqlite3 1.0**

**tdbc::sqlite3::connection create** *db* *fileName* ?*-option value...*?

```

```

## DESCRIPTION

The **tdbc::sqlite3** driver provides a database interface that conforms to Tcl DataBase Connectivity (TDBC) and allows a Tcl script to connect to a SQLite3 database.  It is also provided as a worked example of how to write a database driver in Tcl, so that driver authors have a starting point for further development.

Connection to a SQLite3 database is established by invoking **tdbc::sqlite3::connection create**, passing it a string to be used as the connection handle followed by the file name of the database. The side effect of **tdbc::sqlite3::connection** **create** is to create a new database connection.. As an alternative, **tdbc::sqlite::connection new** may be used to create a database connection with an automatically assigned name. The return value from **tdbc::sqlite::connection new** is the name that was chosen for the connection handle. See **tdbc::connection(n)** for the details of how to use the connection to manipulate a database.

## CONFIGURATION OPTIONS

The standard configuration options **-encoding**, **-isolation**, **-readonly** and **-timeout** are all recognized, both on **tdbc::sqlite3::connection create** and on the **configure** method of the resulting connection.

Since the encoding of a SQLite3 database is always well known, the **-encoding** option accepts only **utf-8** as an encoding and always returns **utf-8** for an encoding. The actual encoding may be set using a SQLite3 **PRAGMA** statement when creating a new database.

Only the isolation levels **readuncommitted** and **serializable** are implemented. Other isolation levels are promoted to **serializable**.

The **-readonly** flag is not implemented. A **false** boolean value is accepted silently, while any other value reports an error.

The **-keepcase** flag is special and controls how table and column names are reported in the various methods to retrieve database metadata. By default the flag is zero, i.e. table and column names are reported all lower case. Otherwise, table and column names are reported as defined in the database.

## BUGS

If any column name is not unique among the columns in a result set, the results of **-as dicts** returns will be missing all but the rightmost of the duplicated columns. This limitation can be worked around by adding appropriate **AS** clauses to **SELECT** statements to ensure that all returned column names are unique.  Plans are to fix this bug by using a C implementation of the driver, which will also improve performance significantly.

## SEE ALSO

[tdbc(n)](/tdbc/n.md), tdbc::connection(n),  tdbc::resultset(n), tdbc::statement(n)

## KEYWORDS

TDBC, SQL, SQLite3, database, connectivity, connection

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2008 by Kevin B. Kenny.