This question already has an answer here:
- Is there an SQLite equivalent to MySQL's DESCRIBE [table]? 5 answers
How can I see the structure of table in SQLite as desc
was in Oracle?
This question already has an answer here:
How can I see the structure of table in SQLite as desc
was in Oracle?
Invoke the sqlite3
utility on the database file, and use its special dot commands:
.tables
will list tables.schema [tablename]
will show the CREATE statement(s) for a table or tablesThere are many other useful builtin dot commands -- see the documentation at http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite.html, section Special commands to sqlite3.
Example:
sqlite> entropy:~/Library/Mail>sqlite3 Envelope\ Index
SQLite version 3.6.12
Enter ".help" for instructions
Enter SQL statements terminated with a ";"
sqlite> .tables
addresses ews_folders subjects
alarms feeds threads
associations mailboxes todo_notes
attachments messages todos
calendars properties todos_deleted_log
events recipients todos_server_snapshot
sqlite> .schema alarms
CREATE TABLE alarms (ROWID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, alarm_id,
todo INTEGER, flags INTEGER, offset_days INTEGER,
reminder_date INTEGER, time INTEGER, argument,
unrecognized_data BLOB);
CREATE INDEX alarm_id_index ON alarms(alarm_id);
CREATE INDEX alarm_todo_index ON alarms(todo);
Note also that SQLite saves the schema and all information about tables in the database itself, in a magic table named sqlite_master, and it's also possible to execute normal SQL queries against that table. For example, the documentation link above shows how to derive the behavior of the .schema
and .tables
commands, using normal SQL commands (see section: Querying the database schema).
PRAGMA table_info(table_name);
This will work for both: command-line and when executed against a connected database.
You can query sqlite_master
SELECT sql FROM sqlite_master WHERE name='foo';
which will return a create table
SQL statement, for example:
$ sqlite3 mydb.sqlite
sqlite> create table foo (id int primary key, name varchar(10));
sqlite> select sql from sqlite_master where name='foo';
CREATE TABLE foo (id int primary key, name varchar(10))
sqlite> .schema foo
CREATE TABLE foo (id int primary key, name varchar(10));
sqlite> pragma table_info(foo)
0|id|int|0||1
1|name|varchar(10)|0||0
.schema TableName
Where TableName is the name of the Table
You should be able to see the schema by running
.schema <table>
You will get the structure by typing the command:
.schema <tableName>
If you are using PHP you can get it this way:
<?php
$dbname = 'base.db';
$db = new SQLite3($dbname);
$sturturequery = $db->query("SELECT sql FROM sqlite_master WHERE name='foo'");
$table = $sturturequery->fetchArray();
echo '<pre>' . $table['sql'] . '</pre>';
$db->close();
?>
You can use the Firefox add-on called SQLite Manager to view the database's structure clearly.
I've implemented a SQLite table schema parser in PHP. You may check here: I implemented a sqlite table parser
https://github.com/maghead/sqlite-parser
The syntax follows the SQLite create table statement syntax: http://www.sqlite.org/lang_createtable.html