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Notes On Compiling SQLite On All Kinds Of Unix

Here are step-by-step instructions on how to build SQLite from canonical source on any modern machine that isn't Windows. These notes are tested (on 2024-10-11) on Ubuntu and on MacOS, but they are general and should work on most any modern unix platform. See the companion document () for guidance on building for Windows.

  1. Install a C-compiler. GCC or Clang both work fine. If you are reading this document, you've probably already done that.

  2. (Optional): Install TCL development libraries. In this note, we'll do a private install in the $HOME/local directory, but you can make adjustments to install TCL wherever you like. This document assumes you are working with TCL version 9.0. See also the document that contains more details on compiling Tcl for use with SQLite.

    1. Get the TCL source archive, perhaps from or .
    2. Untar the source archive. CD into the "unix/" subfolder of the source tree.
    3. Run:   `mkdir $HOME/local`
    4. Run:   `./configure --prefix=$HOME/local`
      SQLite deliverable builds add:   `--static CFLAGS=-Os`
    5. Run:   `make install`

    As of 2024-10-25, TCL is not longer required for many common build targets, such as "sqlite3.c" or the "sqlite3" command-line tool. So you can skip this step if that is all you want to build. TCL is still required to run "make test" and similar, or to build the TCL extension, of course.

  3. Download the SQLite source tree and unpack it. CD into the toplevel directory of the source tree.

  4. (Optional): Download Antirez's "linenoise" command-line editing library to provide command-line editing in the CLI. You can find a suitable copy of the linenoise sources at https://sqlite.org/linenoise.tar.gz or at various other locations on the internet. If you put the linenoise source tree in a directory named $HOME/linenoise or a directory "linenoise" which is a sibling of the SQLite source tree, then the SQLite ./configure script will automatically find and use that source code to provide command-line editing in the CLI. If you would rather use the readline or editline libraries or a precompiled linenoise library, there are ./configure options to accommodate that choice. The SQLite developers typically use $HOME/linenoise since linenoise is small, has no external dependencies, "just works", and the ./configure script will pick it up and use it automatically. But you do what works best for you.

    You are not required to have any command-line editing support in order to use SQLite. But command-line editing does make the interactive experience more enjoyable.

  5. Run: ./configure --enable-all --with-tclsh=$HOME/local/bin/tclsh9.0

    You do not need to use --with-tclsh if the tclsh you want to use is the first one on your PATH or if you are building without TCL.

    Lots of other options to ./configure are available. Run ./configure --help for further guidance.

  6. Run the "Makefile" makefile with an appropriate target. Examples:

    • `make sqlite3.c`
    • `make sqlite3`
    • `make sqldiff`
    • `make sqlite3_rsync`

    None of the targets above require TCL. TCL is needed for the following targets:

    • `make tclextension-install`
    • `make devtest`
    • `make releasetest`
    • `make sqlite3_analyzer`

    It is not required that you run the "tclextension-install" target prior to running tests. However, the tests will run more smoothly if you do. The version of SQLite used for the TCL extension does not need to correspond to the version of SQLite under test. So you can install the SQLite TCL extension once, and then use it to test many different versions of SQLite.

  7. For a debugging build of the CLI, use ./configure --dev. A debugging build contains lots of extra debugging code, so it is slow and a lot bigger. You probably do not want to deploy a debugging build. But if you are working on the code, a debugging build works much better.