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RSQLite

Embeds the SQLite database engine in R, providing a DBI-compliant interface. SQLite is a public-domain, single-user, very light-weight database engine that implements a decent subset of the SQL 92 standard, including the core table creation, updating, insertion, and selection operations, plus transaction management.

You can install the latest released version from CRAN with:

install.packages("RSQLite")

Or install the latest development version from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("r-dbi/RSQLite")

Extensions

RSQLite supports loadable extensions. An experimental HTTP/HTTPS VFS is available when the package is built with libcurl support, enabling read-only access to remote SQLite databases. See the help pages for initExtension(), sqliteHttpConfig(), sqliteRemote(), and sqliteHasHttpVFS().

Discussions associated with DBI and related database packages take place on R-SIG-DB. The website Databases using R describes the tools and best practices in this ecosystem.

Basic usage

library(DBI)
# Create an ephemeral in-memory RSQLite database
con <- dbConnect(RSQLite::SQLite(), ":memory:")

dbListTables(con)
## character(0)
dbWriteTable(con, "mtcars", mtcars)
dbListTables(con)
## [1] "mtcars"
dbListFields(con, "mtcars")
##  [1] "mpg"  "cyl"  "disp" "hp"   "drat" "wt"   "qsec" "vs"   "am"   "gear"
## [11] "carb"
dbReadTable(con, "mtcars")
##    mpg cyl  disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
## 1 21.0   6 160.0 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
## 2 21.0   6 160.0 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
## 3 22.8   4 108.0  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
## 4 21.4   6 258.0 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
## 5 18.7   8 360.0 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
## 6 18.1   6 225.0 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1
## 7 14.3   8 360.0 245 3.21 3.570 15.84  0  0    3    4
## 8 24.4   4 146.7  62 3.69 3.190 20.00  1  0    4    2
## 9 22.8   4 140.8  95 3.92 3.150 22.90  1  0    4    2
##  [ reached 'max' / getOption("max.print") -- omitted 23 rows ]
# You can fetch all results:
res <- dbSendQuery(con, "SELECT * FROM mtcars WHERE cyl = 4")
dbFetch(res)
##    mpg cyl  disp hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
## 1 22.8   4 108.0 93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
## 2 24.4   4 146.7 62 3.69 3.190 20.00  1  0    4    2
## 3 22.8   4 140.8 95 3.92 3.150 22.90  1  0    4    2
## 4 32.4   4  78.7 66 4.08 2.200 19.47  1  1    4    1
## 5 30.4   4  75.7 52 4.93 1.615 18.52  1  1    4    2
## 6 33.9   4  71.1 65 4.22 1.835 19.90  1  1    4    1
## 7 21.5   4 120.1 97 3.70 2.465 20.01  1  0    3    1
## 8 27.3   4  79.0 66 4.08 1.935 18.90  1  1    4    1
## 9 26.0   4 120.3 91 4.43 2.140 16.70  0  1    5    2
##  [ reached 'max' / getOption("max.print") -- omitted 2 rows ]
dbClearResult(res)

# Or a chunk at a time
res <- dbSendQuery(con, "SELECT * FROM mtcars WHERE cyl = 4")
while (!dbHasCompleted(res)) {
  chunk <- dbFetch(res, n = 5)
  print(nrow(chunk))
}
## [1] 5
## [1] 5
## [1] 1
# Clear the result
dbClearResult(res)

# Disconnect from the database
dbDisconnect(con)

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Doug Bates, Seth Falcon, Detlef Groth, Ronggui Huang, Kurt Hornik, Uwe Ligges, Charles Loboz, Duncan Murdoch, and Brian D. Ripley for comments, suggestions, bug reports, and/or patches.


Please note that the ‘RSQLite’ project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.

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Version

Install

install.packages('RSQLite')

Monthly Downloads

254,170

Version

3.53.3

License

LGPL (>= 2.1)

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Stars

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Maintainer

Kirill M<c3><bc>ller

Last Published

June 30th, 2026

Functions in RSQLite (3.53.3)

sqliteSetBusyHandler

Configure what SQLite should do when the database is locked
SQLiteResult-class

Class SQLiteResult (and methods)
datasetsDb

A sample sqlite database
dbWriteTable_SQLiteConnection_character_character

Write a local data frame or file to the database
SQLite

Connect to an SQLite database
dbReadTable_SQLiteConnection_character

Read a database table
sqliteCopyDatabase

Copy a SQLite database
initExtension

Add useful extension functions
sqliteHttpConfig

Configure experimental HTTP VFS behavior (optional)
sqliteHasHttpVFS

Check for HTTP VFS support
dbBeginTransaction

Generic for creating a new transaction
isIdCurrent

isIdCurrent
initRegExp

Add regular expression operator
SQLiteDriver-class

Class SQLiteDriver (and methods)
sqliteBuildTableDefinition

Build the SQL CREATE TABLE definition as a string
dbListResults_SQLiteConnection

dbListResults
SQLKeywords_SQLiteConnection

Make R/S-Plus identifiers into legal SQL identifiers
SQLiteConnection-class

Class SQLiteConnection (and methods)
fetch_SQLiteResult

Fetch
rsqliteVersion

RSQLite version
dbBegin_SQLiteConnection

SQLite transaction management
sqliteHttpStats

Experimental HTTP VFS statistics
dbGetPreparedQuery

Deprecated querying tools
sqliteQuickColumn

Return an entire column from a SQLite database
reexports

Objects exported from other packages
sqliteRemote

Convenience helper for opening remote SQLite databases over HTTP/HTTPS
sqliteHttpVfsCompiled

Was HTTP VFS compiled into this build?