06aSQLiteIntro

Database Management

Mick McQuaid
mcq@utexas.edu

University of Texas at Austin

12 May 2026

Introduction

Let’s review some concepts first, then talk about SQLite in particular

Kinds of databases

  • Relational databases (SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc.)
  • NoSQL databases (MongoDB, etc.)
  • Graph databases (Neo4j, etc.)
  • Key-value databases (Memcached, etc.)
  • Columnar databases (MonetDB, etc.)
  • Document databases (CouchDB, etc.)
  • Time-series databases (InfluxDB, etc.)
  • Object-oriented databases (ObjectDB, etc.)
  • … and many more

Relational databases

  • The software we’ll use is a relational database
  • The data is represented in tables
  • The tables have columns and rows
  • The tables are related to each other
  • The tables are stored in a database

Another way to categorize databases

  • Embedded databases (SQLite)
  • Client-Server databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc.)
  • Cloud databases (AWS, Azure, etc.)
  • … and others

The difference between embedded and client-server databases

  • Embedded databases are embedded in an application
  • Client-server databases may be used by many applications

A client-server database

Client-server idea

  • There are two processes
  • One process is the client (you)
  • The other process is the server (where the data is stored)
  • The client sends requests to the server
  • The server sends responses to the client
  • The client and server are usually on different computers

Usefulness of client-server databases

  • Client-server databases are used by enterprises
  • An enterprise is an entire business or agency
  • An enterprise may have many applications
  • An enterprise may have many users
  • An enterprise database can serve them all

Why we don’t use a client-server database in this class

  • We’re mainly interested in the client
  • In the workplace, the server and the communication between the client and server are set up by IT professionals called database administrators (DBAs) and network administrators (NAs)
  • We’re not interested in the server or the communication between the client and server
  • Hence, we’re going to use an embedded database, SQLite

SQLite

  • SQLite is an embedded relational database
  • In practice, it’s two things: (A) a library and (B) a command-line interface
  • We’re just going to use the command-line interface
  • The interface is in a file called sqlite3 (or, on Windows, sqlite3.exe)

Installing SQLite on macOS

  • On macOS it’s already installed
    • You can verify this by typing which sqlite3 in the terminal
    • Or you can type sqlite3 --version in the terminal

Installing SQLite on Windows

  • On Windows, it’s not installed
  • Look under Precompiled Binaries for Windows
  • Download the version marked sqlite-tools (third in the list)
  • Unzip the file
  • Move the files to C:\sqlite (which you’ll need to create)
  • Add C:\sqlite to your PATH environment variable

Next time

In the next video, I will say more about SQLite and give some examples of using it

END

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