sqlite/doc/compile-for-unix.md

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.

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.

   1. Get the TCL source archive, perhaps from https://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/download.html or https://sqlite.org/tmp/tcl9.0.0.tar.gz.
   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
   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.

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

   7. 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.

   8. 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 only 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.

      • For a debugging build of the CLI, where the ".treetrace" and ".wheretrace" commands work, add the the --with-debug argument to configure.