How do I, reliably, check in SQLite, whether a particular user table exists?
I am not asking for unreliable ways like checking if a "select *" on the table returned an error or not (is this even a good idea?).
The reason is like this:
In my program, I need to create and then populate some tables if they do not exist already.
If they do already exist, I need to update some tables.
Should I take some other path instead to signal that the tables in question have already been created - say for example, by creating/putting/setting a certain flag in my program initialization/settings file on disk or something?
Or does my approach make sense?
I missed that FAQ entry.
Anyway, for future reference, the complete query is:
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='{table_name}';
Where {table_name} is the name of the table to check.
Documentation section for reference: Database File Format. 2.6. Storage Of The SQL Database Schema
This will return a list of tables with the name specified; that is, the cursor will have a count of 0 (does not exist) or a count of 1 (does exist)
If you're using SQLite version 3.3+ you can easily create a table with:
create table if not exists TableName (col1 typ1, ..., colN typN)
In the same way, you can remove a table only if it exists by using:
drop table if exists TableName
A variation would be to use SELECT COUNT(*) instead of SELECT NAME, i.e.
SELECT count(*) FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='table_name';
This will return 0, if the table doesn't exist, 1 if it does. This is probably useful in your programming since a numerical result is quicker / easier to process. The following illustrates how you would do this in Android using SQLiteDatabase, Cursor, rawQuery with parameters.
boolean tableExists(SQLiteDatabase db, String tableName)
{
if (tableName == null || db == null || !db.isOpen())
{
return false;
}
Cursor cursor = db.rawQuery(
"SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sqlite_master WHERE type = ? AND name = ?",
new String[] {"table", tableName}
);
if (!cursor.moveToFirst())
{
cursor.close();
return false;
}
int count = cursor.getInt(0);
cursor.close();
return count > 0;
}
You could try:
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE name='table_name'
See (7) How do I list all tables/indices contained in an SQLite database in the SQLite FAQ:
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master
WHERE type='table'
ORDER BY name;
Use:
PRAGMA table_info(your_table_name)
If the resulting table is empty then your_table_name doesn't exist.
Documentation:
PRAGMA schema.table_info(table-name);
This pragma returns one row for each column in the named table. Columns in the result set include the column name, data type, whether or not the column can be NULL, and the default value for the column. The "pk" column in the result set is zero for columns that are not part of the primary key, and is the index of the column in the primary key for columns that are part of the primary key.
The table named in the table_info pragma can also be a view.
Example output:
cid|name|type|notnull|dflt_value|pk
0|id|INTEGER|0||1
1|json|JSON|0||0
2|name|TEXT|0||0
SQLite table names are case insensitive, but comparison is case sensitive by default. To make this work properly in all cases you need to add COLLATE NOCASE.
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='table_name' COLLATE NOCASE
If you are getting a "table already exists" error, make changes in the SQL string as below:
CREATE table IF NOT EXISTS table_name (para1,para2);
This way you can avoid the exceptions.
If you're using fmdb, I think you can just import FMDatabaseAdditions and use the bool function:
[yourfmdbDatabase tableExists:tableName].
The following code returns 1 if the table exists or 0 if the table does not exist.
SELECT CASE WHEN tbl_name = "name" THEN 1 ELSE 0 END FROM sqlite_master WHERE tbl_name = "name" AND type = "table"
Note that to check whether a table exists in the TEMP database, you must use sqlite_temp_master instead of sqlite_master:
SELECT name FROM sqlite_temp_master WHERE type='table' AND name='table_name';
Here's the function that I used:
Given an SQLDatabase Object = db
public boolean exists(String table) {
try {
db.query("SELECT * FROM " + table);
return true;
} catch (SQLException e) {
return false;
}
}
Use this code:
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='yourTableName';
If the returned array count is equal to 1 it means the table exists. Otherwise it does not exist.
class CPhoenixDatabase():
def __init__(self, dbname):
self.dbname = dbname
self.conn = sqlite3.connect(dbname)
def is_table(self, table_name):
""" This method seems to be working now"""
query = "SELECT name from sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='{" + table_name + "}';"
cursor = self.conn.execute(query)
result = cursor.fetchone()
if result == None:
return False
else:
return True
Note: This is working now on my Mac with Python 3.7.1
You can write the following query to check the table existance.
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE name='table_name'
Here 'table_name' is your table name what you created. For example
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS country(country_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, country_code TEXT, country_name TEXT)"
and check
SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE name='country'
Use
SELECT 1 FROM table LIMIT 1;
to prevent all records from being read.
Using a simple SELECT query is - in my opinion - quite reliable. Most of all it can check table existence in many different database types (SQLite / MySQL).
SELECT 1 FROM table;
It makes sense when you can use other reliable mechanism for determining if the query succeeded (for example, you query a database via QSqlQuery in Qt).
The most reliable way I have found in C# right now, using the latest sqlite-net-pcl nuget package (1.5.231) which is using SQLite 3, is as follows:
var result = database.GetTableInfo(tableName);
if ((result == null) || (result.Count == 0))
{
database.CreateTable<T>(CreateFlags.AllImplicit);
}
The function dbExistsTable() from R DBI package simplifies this problem for R programmers. See the example below:
library(DBI)
con <- dbConnect(RSQLite::SQLite(), ":memory:")
# let us check if table iris exists in the database
dbExistsTable(con, "iris")
### returns FALSE
# now let us create the table iris below,
dbCreateTable(con, "iris", iris)
# Again let us check if the table iris exists in the database,
dbExistsTable(con, "iris")
### returns TRUE
I thought I'd put my 2 cents to this discussion, even if it's rather old one..
This query returns scalar 1 if the table exists and 0 otherwise.
select
case when exists
(select 1 from sqlite_master WHERE type='table' and name = 'your_table')
then 1
else 0
end as TableExists
My preferred approach:
SELECT "name" FROM pragma_table_info("table_name") LIMIT 1;
If you get a row result, the table exists. This is better (for me) then checking with sqlite_master, as it will also check attached and temp databases.
This is my code for SQLite Cordova:
get_columnNames('LastUpdate', function (data) {
if (data.length > 0) { // In data you also have columnNames
console.log("Table full");
}
else {
console.log("Table empty");
}
});
And the other one:
function get_columnNames(tableName, callback) {
myDb.transaction(function (transaction) {
var query_exec = "SELECT name, sql FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name ='" + tableName + "'";
transaction.executeSql(query_exec, [], function (tx, results) {
var columnNames = [];
var len = results.rows.length;
if (len>0){
var columnParts = results.rows.item(0).sql.replace(/^[^\(]+\(([^\)]+)\)/g, '$1').split(','); ///// RegEx
for (i in columnParts) {
if (typeof columnParts[i] === 'string')
columnNames.push(columnParts[i].split(" ")[0]);
};
callback(columnNames);
}
else callback(columnNames);
});
});
}
Table exists or not in database in swift
func tableExists(_ tableName:String) -> Bool {
sqlStatement = "SELECT name FROM sqlite_master WHERE type='table' AND name='\(tableName)'"
if sqlite3_prepare_v2(database, sqlStatement,-1, &compiledStatement, nil) == SQLITE_OK {
if sqlite3_step(compiledStatement) == SQLITE_ROW {
return true
}
else {
return false
}
}
else {
return false
}
sqlite3_finalize(compiledStatement)
}
c++ function checks db and all attached databases for existance of table and (optionally) column.
bool exists(sqlite3 *db, string tbl, string col="1")
{
sqlite3_stmt *stmt;
bool b = sqlite3_prepare_v2(db, ("select "+col+" from "+tbl).c_str(),
-1, &stmt, 0) == SQLITE_OK;
sqlite3_finalize(stmt);
return b;
}
Edit: Recently discovered the sqlite3_table_column_metadata function. Hence
bool exists(sqlite3* db,const char *tbl,const char *col=0)
{return sqlite3_table_column_metadata(db,0,tbl,col,0,0,0,0,0)==SQLITE_OK;}
You can also use db metadata to check if the table exists.
DatabaseMetaData md = connection.getMetaData();
ResultSet resultSet = md.getTables(null, null, tableName, null);
if (resultSet.next()) {
return true;
}
If you are running it with the python file and using sqlite3 obviously. Open command prompt or bash whatever you are using use
python3 file_name.py first in which your sql code is written.
Then Run sqlite3 file_name.db.
.table this command will give tables if they exist.
I wanted to add on Diego Vélez answer regarding the PRAGMA statement.
From https://sqlite.org/pragma.html we get some useful functions that can can return information about our database.
Here I quote the following:
For example, information about the columns in an index can be read using the index_info pragma as follows:
PRAGMA index_info('idx52');
Or, the same content can be read using:
SELECT * FROM pragma_index_info('idx52');
The advantage of the table-valued function format is that the query can return just a subset of the PRAGMA columns, can include a WHERE clause, can use aggregate functions, and the table-valued function can be just one of several data sources in a join...
Diego's answer gave PRAGMA table_info(table_name) like an option, but this won't be of much use in your other queries.
So, to answer the OPs question and to improve Diegos answer, you can do
SELECT * FROM pragma_table_info('table_name');
or even better,
SELECT name FROM pragma_table_list('table_name');
if you want to mimic PoorLuzers top-voted answer.
If you deal with Big Table, I made a simple hack with Python and Sqlite and you can make the similar idea with any other language
Step 1: Don't use (if not exists) in your create table command
you may know that this if you run this command that will have an exception if you already created the table before, and want to create it again, but this will lead us to the 2nd step.
Step 2: use try and except (or try and catch for other languages) to handle the last exception
here if you didn't create the table before, the try case will continue, but if you already did, you can put do your process at except case and you will know that you already created the table.
Here is the code:
def create_table():
con = sqlite3.connect("lists.db")
cur = con.cursor()
try:
cur.execute('''CREATE TABLE UNSELECTED(
ID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY)''')
print('the table is created Now')
except sqlite3.OperationalError:
print('you already created the table before')
con.commit()
cur.close()
You can use a simple way, i use this method in C# and Xamarin,
public class LoginService : ILoginService
{
private SQLiteConnection dbconn;
}
in login service class, i have many methods for acces to the data in sqlite, i stored the data into a table, and the login page
it only shows when the user is not logged in.
for this purpose I only need to know if the table exists, in this case if it exists it is because it has data
public int ExisteSesion()
{
var rs = dbconn.GetTableInfo("Sesion");
return rs.Count;
}
if the table does not exist, it only returns a 0, if the table exists it is because it has data and it returns the total number of rows it has.
In the model I have specified the name that the table must receive to ensure its correct operation.
[Table("Sesion")]
public class Sesion
{
[PrimaryKey]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Token { get; set; }
public string Usuario { get; set; }
}
Look into the "try - throw - catch" construct in C++. Most other programming languages have a similar construct for handling errors.
I'am very new with text datatype in SQL Server 2008
I created table:
CREATE TABLE sample(id int identity,name varchar(20),Yell_Your_self text)
but I am facing problem with inserting
insert into sample values('ganesh','welcome to india')
insert into sample values('ganesh','welcome to india's largest temple')
First statement is working fine but how to execute second statement?
Try this one -
IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.sample') IS NOT NULL
DROP TABLE dbo.[sample]
CREATE TABLE dbo.[sample]
(
id INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY
, name VARCHAR(20)
, Yell_Your_self VARCHAR(2000)
)
INSERT INTO dbo.[sample]
VALUES
('ganesh', 'welcome to india'),
('ganesh', 'welcome to india''s largest temple')
Update3:
public int get(string val1,string val2)
{
using(SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
{
con.Open();
int i = 0;
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("INSERT INTO dbo.sample (name, Yell_Your_self) VALUES(#val1, #val2)", con))
{
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#val1", val1);
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("#val2", val2);
i = cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
con.Close();
return i;
}
}
Likely throwing an error on the apostrophe in the india's
insert into sample values('ganesh','welcome to india''s largest temple')
The issue is that you have a single quote in the string, and a single quote is a string delimiter in SQL.
Try:
INSERT INTO sample VALUES ('ganesh','welcome to india''s largest temple')
As you are already aware that the trouble SQL is facing is to escape an apostrophy in query, which is fixed i guess. To answer your second question about how to pass value from front end like C#, parametrized query is one of the good approach. As an alternative you can go with this one also which involves string manipulations to prepare a query:
public int get(string val1,string val2)
{
string temp = string.Concat(val1,"," + val2); // concatenate all your params
temp = temp.replace("'","''").replace(",","','"); // replace any single qoute with escaped single quote
string s="insert into sample values('" + temp + "')"; // append altered string in query
SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(s,con);
con.Open();
int i = cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
con.Close();
return i;
}
Hope it helps!
try this with passing dynamic value
insert into sample values(#name, N''' + #Yell_Your_self text + ''' )
I am working on a process in Codeigniter to take a user-uploaded image (managed using the CI upload library) and insert it into a varbinary(max) field in a SQLServer database. My controller and model code are as follows.
if($this->upload->do_upload($upload_name)) {
//get temp image
$tmpName = $config['upload_path'] . $config['file_name'];
// Read it into $data variable
$fp = fopen($tmpName, 'rb');
$data = fread($fp, filesize($tmpName));
fclose($fp);
//insert into DB
$this->the_model->storeImage($data, $user_id);
//delete temp image
unlink($config['upload_path'] . $config['file_name']);
}
/***** Function from the_model ************/
function storePropertyImage($image_data, $user_id) {
$my_db = $this->load->database('admin');
$stmt = "INSERT INTO my_table (UserID, ImageData) VALUES (" . $my_db->escape($user_id) . ", " . $my_db->escape($image_data) . ")";
$insert = $my_db->query($stmt);
return $insert;
}
This all seems like it should be OK but when I run the code, I get the error:
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message
'SQLSTATE[HY093]: Invalid parameter number: mixed named and positional parameters'
in {my app path}\helpers\mssql_helper.php on line 213
I've done some googling on this error message and the results seem to indicate this is the result of there being a colon character in the $data value being sent to the model, making the DB think that I am trying to pass a named parameter when I am not. However I haven't been able to find any reports that match my specific use case or that have much info on how to correct the error.
I'd appreciate any insight on where I might be tripping up.
$image_data is a binary string. ->escape may not work on it, since it may escape random bytes in it, thus leaving you with a corrupted image. Also the binary string may contain quote characters (or other characters) that is making your query invalid.
Try to encode the binary string as hex before inserting into MySQL. You can use PHP's bin2hex for this.
$escaped_user_id = $my_db->escape($user_id);
$hex_image = bin2hex($image_data);
$stmt = "INSERT INTO my_table (UserID, ImageData) VALUES ({$escaped_user_id}, X'{$hex_image}')";
The X in X{$hex_image} is how MySQL handles literal hex strings: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/hexadecimal-literals.html
If that doesn't work, you can also try UNHEX().
$escaped_user_id = $my_db->escape($user_id);
$hex_image = bin2hex($image_data);
$stmt = "INSERT INTO my_table (UserID, ImageData) VALUES ({$escaped_user_id}, UNHEX('{$hex_image}'))";
EDIT: I didn't notice you were using MSSQL and not MySQL. My bad. In MSSQL, you can insert literal hex strings with 0x.
$escaped_user_id = $my_db->escape($user_id);
$hex_image = bin2hex($image_data);
$stmt = "INSERT INTO my_table (UserID, ImageData) VALUES ({$escaped_user_id}, 0x{$hex_image})";
I have a database running on an MS SQL Server. My application communicates via JDBC and ODBC with it. Now I try to use prepared statements.
When I insert a numeric (Long) parameter everything works fine. When I insert a string
parameter it does not work. There is no error message, but an empty result set.
WHERE column LIKE ('%' + ? + '%') --inserted "test" -> empty result set
WHERE column LIKE ? --inserted "%test%" -> empty result set
WHERE column = ? --inserted "test" -> works
But I need the LIKE functionality. When I insert the same string directly into the query string (not as a prepared statement parameter) it runs fine.
WHERE column LIKE '%test%'
It looks a little bit like double quoting for me, but I never used quotes inside a string. I use preparedStatement.setString(int index, String x) for insertion.
What is causing this problem?
How can I fix it?
Thanks in advance.
What are you inserting at '?'
If you are inserting
test
Then this will result in
WHERE column LIKE ('%' + test + '%')
which will fail. If you are inserting
"test"
Then this will result in
WHERE column LIKE ('%' + "test" + '%')
Which will fail.
You need to insert
'test'
Then this will result in
WHERE column LIKE ('%' + 'test' + '%')
And this should work.
I don't know why = "test" works, it should not unless you have a column called test.
I am using SUN's JdbcOdbcBridge. As far as I read yet, you should avoid to use it. Maybe there is a better implementation out there.
For now, I wrote the folling method. It inserts string-type parameters into the statement with string operations before the statement is compiled.
You should build a map of the parameters with the parameter index as the key and the value as the parameter itself.
private static String insertStringParameters(String statement, Map<Integer, Object> parameters) {
for (Integer parameterIndex : parameters.keySet()) {
Object parameter = parameters.get(parameterIndex);
if (parameter instanceof String) {
String parameterString = "'" + (String) parameter + "'";
int occurence = 0;
int stringIndex = 0;
while(occurence < parameterIndex){
stringIndex = statement.indexOf("?", stringIndex) + 1;
occurence++;
}
statement = statement.substring(0, stringIndex - 1) + parameterString + statement.substring(stringIndex);
}
}
return statement;
}
I saw this example somewhere:
rs = connection.prepareStatement("select * from table").executeQuery();
Could I use this format, if I want to execute a query like this "Select * from table where column = "hello" "?
The way in which I usual I use prepareStatement object is something like this:
String sql = "select * from adresa where column = ?";
PreparedStatement pre = con.prepareStatement(sql);
pre.setString(1, i);
rs = pre.executeQuery();
Later Edit:
I don't understand. Pascal Thivent wrote that I can use the short version with In parameters, but Liu tells me this is not possible. :) Anw, using Pascal's version, i receive this error: void cannot be dereferenced
Here's a partial example how to use this interface:
static final String USER = "root";
static final String PASS = "newpass";
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(myUrl, USER, PASS);
// create a sql date object so we can use it in our INSERT statement
Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
java.sql.Date startDate = new java.sql.Date(calendar.getTime().getTime());
// the mysql insert statement
String query = " insert into students (ID, last_name, first_name, birthday, hometown)"
+ " values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)";
// create the mysql insert preparedstatement
PreparedStatement preparedStmt = conn.prepareStatement(query);
preparedStmt.setInt(1, 808027);
preparedStmt.setString(2, "Davis");
preparedStmt.setString(3, "Felicita");
preparedStmt.setDate(4, startDate);
preparedStmt.setString(5, "Venice");
// execute the preparedstatement
preparedStmt.execute();
conn.close();
You can only use the first form if there are no bind variables (question marks) in the query. It's just a shortened version of what you posted.
Also, if you use the shortened form you won't have the opportunity to reuse the PreparedStatement object.
of course u can use a string variable for the query in which u put in ur dynamic data and run it.
rs = connection.prepareStatement(variable).executeQuery();
The long form is often, but prepared statements can be precompiled by the db, and if used properly will help prevent sql injection.
Connection conn = null;
ResultSet rs = null;
PreparedStatement ps = null;
try {
conn = getConn();
ps = conn.prepareStatement("select * from x where y = ? "); //note no sb.append()'s or +'s, to helps prevent sql injection
ps.setLong(1, 12l);
rs = ps.executeQuery();
while (rs.next()) {
... act ...
}
} catch ( Exception e) {
} finally {
if (rs != null) rs.close();
if (ps != null) ps.close();
if (conn != null) conn.close();
}
Who said java was verbose. :)