Installation and customization — APSW 3.53.3.1 documentation

# Installation and customization

## PyPI (recommended)

APSW is on PyPI at https://pypi.org/project/apsw/

It can be installed in the same way as other packages:

    python3 -m pip install apsw

When you install from PyPI:

- The corresponding SQLite version is embedded privately inside and not affected by or visible to the rest of the machine or even the rest of the process.

  This means other modules and libraries will continue using whatever SQLite they would have before. For example Core Data on MacOS uses SQLite, but will not know of or be affected by the SQLite inside APSW.

- All extensions are enabled, except ICU.

- SQLite extra are available

- SQLITE_ENABLE_COLUMN_METADATA is enabled, providing `Cursor.description_full`

The PyPI releases include pre-built binaries for common platforms. If yours is not covered, then pip will download the source release and automatically compile with the same settings. It will require a C compiler and the Python development header files.

### Encryption

APSW compiled against SQLite with SQLite3MultipleCiphers is available via its author at https://pypi.org/project/apsw-sqlite3mc/

## Linux/BSD provided

Most Linux & BSD distributions have packaged APSW which may trail the SQLite and APSW releases by a year, or more. The distribution provided APSW uses the system wide SQLite library.

Debian | Install python3-apsw
Fedora | Install python3-apsw
Ubuntu | Install python3-apsw
Gentoo | Install dev-python/apsw
Arch | Install python-apsw
FreeBSD | databases/py-apsw in Ports

There is a full list (150+) of distributions, the package name for APSW, and what APSW version they are currently on.

## Source

It is recommended you get the source from Github releases. If you get the source from PyPi then ensure you edit the `setup.apsw` file inside.

- apsw-3.53.3.1.zip (Source as zip, includes this HTML Help)

- apsw-3.53.3.1.tar.gz (Source as tar.gz, includes this HTML Help)

- apsw-3.53.3.1.zip.cosign-bundle cosign signature for zip source

- apsw-3.53.3.1.tar.gz.cosign-bundle cosign signature for tar.gz source

### Verifying your download

Github source releases are digitally signed so you can verify they have not been tampered with, and were produced by the project maintainer.

Sigstore is used. Instructions are shown for the standalone cosign tool (easiest, recommended), and the Python sigstore module.

Verify

> Checking the signature needs to provide the source release, the cosign bundle, the maintainer id, and issuer. The command is all one line shown here across multiple lines for clarity, along with the expected successful output.

>     $ cosign verify-blob apsw-3.53.3.1.zip                        \
>         --new-bundle-format                                       \
>         --bundle apsw-3.53.3.1.zip.cosign-bundle                  \
>         --certificate-identity=rogerb@rogerbinns.com              \
>         --certificate-oidc-issuer=https://github.com/login/oauth
>     Verified OK

>     $ python3 -m sigstore verify identity apsw-3.53.3.1.zip       \
>         --bundle apsw-3.53.3.1.zip.cosign-bundle                  \
>         --cert-identity=rogerb@rogerbinns.com                     \
>         --cert-oidc-issuer=https://github.com/login/oauth
>     OK: apsw-3.53.3.1.zip

> Check for a success exit code, and verified message.

## Building and customization

APSW is configured for standard building (PEP 518)

    $ python3 -m build

You will need to update the MANIFEST first if you are providing your own SQLite, or if you are providing a `setup.apsw` with custom configuration. setuptools is used to compile the extension. You can use it directly instead by invoking `setup.py`.

### Build process

A series of commands and options are given to `setup.py` in this pattern:

    python setup.py cmdone --option --option value cmdtwo --option \
       cmdthree --option --option value

The only necessary command is build. You can get help by –help:

    python setup.py build --help

Each command takes options which can be specified on the command line, or in a configuration file named `setup.cfg` or `setup.apsw`. The leading double dash on options is omitted, and dashes inside should become underscores.

    # This is used with pypi source and binary builds

    [build]
    # download corresponding sqlite release
    fetch = True
    # all extensions included
    enable_all_extensions = True
    # ... except icu (not abi stable)
    omit = icu
    # for Cursor.description_full
    enable = COLUMN_METADATA

### SQLite options

It is important to understand SQLite’s compile time options. They provide control over functionality and APIs included or excluded from SQLite.

APSW needs to know the options chosen so it can adapt. For example if extension loading is omitted from SQLite then APSW also needs to omit the same functionality, otherwise compilation or linking will fail.

### Finding SQLite

APSW can fetch SQLite as detailed below, and places it in a `sqlite3/` subdirectory. You can place your own SQLite in that directory. If there is a `sqlite3.c` (ie the amalgamation) then it will be statically included inside APSW. A compiled SQLite will be picked up if present. If none of that is present, then the standard compiler locations are used (eg `/usr/include` on Unix).

If `sqlite3/sqlite3config.h` is present it is included before `sqlite3/sqlite3.c`. It is a good location to put platform configuration which APSW’s fetch does automatically by running `configure`.

### setup.py commands and their options

These are the relevant `setup.py` commands and their relevant options.

#### build

Does the complete build. This will invoke build_ext - use only one of build or build_ext.

`--fetch` | Fetches the corresponding SQLite version amalgamation and all source to make SQLite extra available
`--enable-all-extensions` | Enables all the standard extensions
`--enable` | A comma separated list of options to enable that are normally off omitting the `SQLITE_ENABLE` prefix. They will be uppercased. eg `--enable column_metadata,fts5`
`--omit` | A comma separated list of options to omit that are normally enabled omitting the `SQLITE_OMIT` prefix. They will be uppercased. eg `--omit automatic_index`

#### fetch

This provides more fine grained control over what is fetched.

`--version` | Specify an explicit version of SQLite to fetch
`--fetch-sqlite` | Downloads the SQLite amalgamation
`--all` | Downloads all SQLite source which makes the SQLite extra available
`--missing-checksum-ok` | APSW includes checksums of SQLite releases and will fail a fetch if you specify a version for which no checksum is known. This allows proceeding.

#### build_ext

This performs the compilation of the C code, and provides more control than build.

`--use-system-sqlite-config` | Uses `ctypes` to determine the system wide SQLite library compilation options
`--definevalues` | Additional #defines separated by commas. eg `--definevalues SQLITE_MAX_ATTACHED=37,SQLITE_EXTRA_INIT=mycore_init`
`--enable-all-extensions` | Enables all the standard extensions
`--enable` | A comma separated list of options to enable that are normally off omitting the `SQLITE_ENABLE` prefix. They will be uppercased. eg `--enable column_metadata,fts5`
`--omit` | A comma separated list of options to omit that are normally enabled omitting the `SQLITE_OMIT` prefix. They will be uppercased. eg `--omit automatic_index`
`--apsw-no-old-names` | Excludes old non PEP 8 complaint name aliases from the extension and type stubs.

## Advice for packagers

This is the recommendation for packagers such as Linux and BSD distributions, who want APSW to use the system shared SQLite library.

- Use the source file from github releases. Note you should use the zip or tar.gz file including the version number, not the github repository copy at the end. The file is signed and can be verified.

  The file also includes a copy of the built documentation in HTML format with no analytics in the `doc/` subdirectory.

- After extracting the zip or tar, replace the file named `setup.apsw` that sits alongside `setup.py` with the following contents:

      [build_ext]
      use_system_sqlite_config = True

  This will probe the system SQLite shared library for its compilation options. Various C level APIs are included or excluded from the shared library based on those options, so APSW needs to know at compilation time which APIs it can or can’t call.

- You can compile APSW using whatever works for your packaging system. APSW complies with the latest Python packaging guidelines and metadata. (The traditional setuptools is the build backend.) You will see lines like the following during build (note the `Extracting configuration`).

      running build_ext
      Extracting configuration from libsqlite3.so.0
      SQLite: Using system sqlite include/libraries

- pyproject.toml defines a script entry point (command line tool) for `apsw` which invokes the Shell. It is optional to package this. A man page is included in the `man/` directory.

## Testing

SQLite itself is extensively tested. It has considerably more code dedicated to testing than makes up the actual database functionality.

APSW includes tests which use the standard Python testing modules to verify correct operation. New code is developed alongside the tests. Reported issues also have test cases to ensure the issue doesn’t happen or doesn’t happen again. Use `python3 -m apsw.tests` to run all the tests. You can provide a `-v` option to see each test as it is run.

Test output will look similar to this.

    $ python3 -m apsw.tests
                    Python  /space/apsw/.venv-314/bin/python sys.version_info(major=3, minor=14, micro=0, releaselevel='final', serial=0) 64bit ELF
    Testing with APSW file  /space/apsw/apsw/__init__.cpython-314-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
              APSW version  3.51.2.0
        SQLite lib version  3.51.2
    SQLite headers version  3051002
        Using amalgamation  True
         SQLITE_SCM_BRANCH  branch-3.51
           SQLITE_SCM_TAGS  release version-3.51.2
       SQLITE_SCM_DATETIME  2026-01-09T17:27:48.405Z

    ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Ran 223 tests in 46.654s

    OK

The tests also ensure that as much APSW code as possible is executed including alternate paths through the code. 95.5% of the APSW code is executed by the tests. In the source, there is a script that enables extra code that deliberately induces extra conditions such as memory allocation failures, SQLite returning error codes, Python APIs erroring etc. That brings coverage up to 99.6% of the code.

Compiler sanitizers options are also used for further validation.

To ensure compatibility with the various Python versions, a script downloads and compiles all supported Python versions in both debug and release configurations (and 32 and 64 bit) against the APSW and SQLite supported versions running the tests.

In short both SQLite and APSW have a lot of testing!