wxSQLite3 - a lightweight wrapper for SQLite

wxSQLite3 is a C++ wrapper around the public domain SQLite 3.x database and is specifically designed for use in programs based on the wxWidgets library.

wxSQLite3 does not try to hide the underlying database, in contrary almost all special features of the current SQLite3 version are supported, like for example the creation of user defined scalar or aggregate functions.

Since SQLite stores strings in UTF-8 encoding, the wxSQLite3 methods provide automatic conversion between wxStrings and UTF-8 strings. This works best for the Unicode builds of wxWidgets. In ANSI builds the current locale conversion object (wxConvCurrent) is used for conversion to/from UTF-8. Special care has to be taken if external administration tools are used to modify the database contents, since not all of these tools operate in Unicode or UTF-8 mode.

Since version 1.7.0 wxSQLite3 includes a key-based SQLite3 encryption extension using AES encryption. The decision whether to use 128 bit or 256 bit AES encryption had to be made at compile time. Starting with version 4.0.0 the encryption extension allows to select the cipher scheme at runtime.

Currently the following encryption schemes are supported:

• AES 128 Bit CBC - No HMAC (wxSQLite3)
• AES 256 Bit CBC - No HMAC (wxSQLite3)
• ChaCha20 - Poly1305 HMAC (sqleet) (default)
• AES 256 Bit CBC - SHA1/SHA256/SHA512 HMAC (SQLCipher versions 1 - 4)
• RC4 - No HMAC (System.Data.SQLite)
• Ascon 128 - Ascon Tag (Ascon) (since version 4.9.8)

Important Notes

With the release of SQLite version 3.32.0 on May 22, 2020 critical changes to the public SQLite code finally took officially effect, although they weren't officially announced. They were introduced on Feb 7, 2020: "Simplify the code by removing the unsupported and undocumented SQLITE_HAS_CODEC compile-time option". As a consequence, updating the wxSQLite3 encryption extension to support SQLite version 3.32.0 and later was no longer possible.

Since August 2020 a new implementation of an encryption extension, capable of supporting SQLite version 3.32.0 and later, is available as a separate project, SQLite3 Multiple Ciphers. Starting with the release of wxSQLite3 4.6.0 this new implementation is used.

Table of Contents

• Version history
• Installation
• Optional features
• Key based database encryption support
• Static SQLite library
• License
• Acknowledgements

Version history

• 4.9.12 - October 2024

  • Upgrade to SQLite3 Multiple Ciphers version 1.9.0 (SQLite version 3.47.0)

For further version information please consult the CHANGELOG.

Installation

The build files for Windows platforms are now generated with Premake 5 (version Premake 5.0 alpha 15).

Ready to use project files are provided for Visual C++ 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019. Additionally, GNU Makefiles are provided supporting for example MinGW-w64.

For Visual Studio 2010+ solutions it is possible to customize the build by creating a wx_local.props file in the build directory which is used, if it exists, by the projects. The settings in that file override the default values for the properties. The typical way to make the file is to copy wx_setup.props to wx_local.props and then edit locally.

For GNU Makefiles the file config.gcc serves the same purpose as the file wx_setup.props for Visual C++ projects.

The customization files wx_setup.props resp. config.gcc allow to customize certain settings like for example the version number and the root directory of the wxWidgets library.

wxMSW

When building on Win32 or Win64, you can use the makefiles or one of the Microsoft Visual Studio solution files in the build folder.

The Visual Studio solution files reference the property file wx_setup.props in the build subdirectory. This file is configured in a way to allow running AppVeyor CI without any modifications. Especially, specific library directories are used for different compiler versions (as it is used by the pre-built wxWidgets libraries) by adding the toolkit version (i.e., 141 for VS 2015, 142 for VS 2019) to the library path name.

To get library path names without toolkit version (as you usually get when compiling wxWidgets yourself) please adjust the 2 parameters wxCompilerPrefix and wxMsvcVersionAuto in file wx_setup.props as follows:

<wxCompilerPrefix>vc</wxCompilerPrefix>
<wxMsvcVersionAuto></wxMsvcVersionAuto>

Additionally, the property file assumes that the environment variable WXWIN is defined and points to the root directory of the wxWidgets installation. Make sure that WXWIN is set up properly, or replace it by a environment variable of your choice or by an absolute path specification.

For Visual C++ the debugging properties are set up in such a way that debugging the sample applications should work right out of the box. For release builds you may need to copy the wxSQLite3 DLL or add the lib folder path to the Windows search path (PATH environment variable).

The SQLite3 library is now compiled as an integrated part of wxSQLite3. The advantage is that SQLite3 and wxSQLite3 are always compiled with matching configuration options. Additionally, the SQLite3 encryption extension is automatically enabled, too.

A precompiled SQLite shell program supporting encrypted databases is provided as a separate download. Use

PRAGMA KEY="encryption key";

to create or open an encrypted database. Use

ATTACH DATABASE x AS y KEY z;

to attach an encrypted database.

wxGTK

When building on an autoconf-based system (like Linux/GNU-based systems), the first setup is to recreate the configure script doing:

  autoreconf

Thereafter you should create a build directory

  mkdir build-gtk [or any other suitable name]
  cd build-gtk
  ../configure [here you should use the same flags you used to configure wxWidgets]
  make

Type ../configure --help for more info.

The autoconf-based system also supports a make install target which builds the library and then copies the headers of the component to /usr/local/include and the lib to /usr/local/lib.

Optional features

SQLite has many optional features and offers a number of optional extensions. The below table lists the features that are enabled for wxSQLite3 as default. For details, please see SQLite Compile Time Options.

In case of memory constraints it is of course possible to disable unneeded features. However, this will usually require to modify the build files.

Key based database encryption support

The public release of SQLite contains hooks for key based database encryption, but the code for implementing this feature is not freely available. D. Richard Hipp offers a commercial solution (see http://www.hwaci.com/sw/sqlite/prosupport.html#crypto).

There exist other closed-source commercial solutions, among them:

• http://www.sqlcrypt.com
• http://www.sqlite-crypt.com

Both use a slightly different encryption API, which is currently NOT supported by wxSQLite3.

For Windows based systems there exists an open source solution: System.Data.SQLite. For SQLite version 3.32.0 or higher encryption support has been dropped. However, the new encryption extension SQLite3 Multiple Ciphers allows to use this encryption scheme on all supported platforms.

wxSQLite3 uses now the new encryption extension SQLite3 Multiple Ciphers. Precompiled binaries of the SQLite3 DLL and the SQLite3 shell for Windows are now provided by this new separate project.

Using statically linked SQLite library on Windows

Starting with wxSQLite3 version 3.5.0 the SQLite3 library is compiled as an integrated part of wxSQLite3. A separate SQLite3 DLL is not required any longer.

License

Acknowledgements