Notes On Compiling SQLite On Windows 11

Below are step-by-step instructions on how to build SQLite from canonical source on a new Windows 11 PC, as of 2024-10-09. See for a similar guide for unix-like systems, including MacOS.

Install Microsoft Visual Studio. The free "community edition" will work fine. Do a standard install for C++ development. SQLite only needs the "cl" compiler and the "nmake" build tool.
- Note: VS2015 or later is required for the procedures below to all work. You *might* be able to get the build to work with earlier versions of MSVC, but in that case the TCL installation of step 3 will be required, since the "jimsh0.c" program of Autosetup that is used as a substitute for "tclsh.exe" won't compile with versions of Visual Studio prior to VS2015. In any event, building SQLite from canonical source code on Windows is not supported for earlier versions of Visual Studio.
Under the "Start" menu, find "All Apps" then go to "Visual Studio 20XX" and find "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 20XX". Pin that application to your task bar, as you will use it a lot. Bring up an instance of this command prompt and do all of the subsequent steps in that "x64 Native Tools" command prompt. (Or use "x86" if you want a 32-bit build.) The subsequent steps will not work in a vanilla DOS prompt. Nor will they work in PowerShell.
(Optional): Install TCL development libraries. This note assumes that you will install the TCL development libraries in the "c:\Tcl" directory. Make adjustments if you want TCL installed somewhere else. SQLite needs both the "tclsh90.exe" command-line tool as part of the build process, and the "tcl90.lib" and "tclstub.lib" libraries in order to run tests. This document assumes you are working with TCL version 9.0. See for guidance on how to compile TCL version 8.6 for use with SQLite.
1. Get the TCL source archive, perhaps from or .
2. Untar or unzip the source archive. CD into the "win/" subfolder of the source tree.
3. Run: `nmake /f makefile.vc INSTALLDIR=c:\Tcl release`
4. Run: `nmake /f makefile.vc INSTALLDIR=c:\Tcl install`
  Notes:
  1. The previous two `nmake` commands must be run separately.
  2. Also, the INSTALLDIR=... argument is required on both.
5. Optional: CD to `c:\Tcl\bin` and make a copy of `tclsh90.exe` over into just `tclsh.exe`.
6. Optional: Add `c:\Tcl\bin` to your %PATH%. To do this, go to Settings and search for "path". Select "edit environment variables for your account" and modify your default PATH accordingly. You will need to close and reopen your command prompts after making this change.
As of 2024-10-25, TCL is not longer required for many common build targets, such as "sqlite3.c" or the "sqlite3.exe" 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.
Download the SQLite source tree and unpack it. CD into the toplevel directory of the source tree.
Run the "Makefile.msc" makefile with an appropriate target. Examples:
- `nmake /f makefile.msc`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc sqlite3.c`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc sqlite3.exe`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc sqldiff.exe`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc sqlite3_rsync.exe`
No TCL is required for the nmake targets above. But for the ones that follow, you will need a TCL installation, as described in step 3 above. If you install TCL in some directory other than C:\\Tcl, then you will also need to add the "TCLDIR=<dir>" option on the nmake command line to tell nmake where your TCL is installed.
- `nmake /f makefile.msc tclextension-install`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc devtest`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc releasetest`
- `nmake /f makefile.msc sqlite3_analyzer.exe`
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 DEBUG=3 argument to nmake. Like this:
- `nmake /f makefile.msc DEBUG=3 clean sqlite3.exe`

32-bit Builds

Doing a 32-bit build is just like doing a 64-bit build with the following minor changes:

Use the "x86 Native Tools Command Prompt" instead of "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt". "x86" instead of "x64".
Use a different installation directory for TCL. The recommended directory is c:\tcl32. Thus you end up with two TCL builds:
- `c:\tcl` ← 64-bit (the default)
- `c:\tcl32` ← 32-bit
Ensure that c:\tcl32\bin comes before c:\tcl\bin on your PATH environment variable. You can achieve this using a command like:
- `set PATH=c:\tcl32\bin;%PATH%`

Building a DLL

The command the developers use for building the deliverable DLL on the download page is as follows:

nmake /f Makefile.msc sqlite3.dll USE_NATIVE_LIBPATHS=1 "OPTS=-DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS5=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_RTREE=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_JSON1=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_GEOPOLY=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_SESSION=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_PREUPDATE_HOOK=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_SERIALIZE=1 -DSQLITE_ENABLE_MATH_FUNCTIONS=1"


That command generates both the sqlite3.dll and sqlite3.def files.  The same
command works for both 32-bit and 64-bit builds.

## Statically Linking The TCL Library

Some utility programs associated with SQLite need to be linked
with TCL in order to function.  The [sqlite3_analyzer.exe program](https://sqlite.org/sqlanalyze.html)
is an example.  You can build as described above, and then
enter:

> ~~~~
nmake /f Makefile.msc sqlite3_analyzer.exe

And you will end up with a working executable. However, that executable will depend on having the "tcl98.dll" library somewhere on your %PATH%. Use the following steps to build an executable that has the TCL library statically linked so that it does not depend on separate DLL:

Use the appropriate "Command Prompt" window - either x86 or x64, depending on whether you want a 32-bit or 64-bit executable.
Untar the TCL source tarball into a fresh directory. CD into the "win/" subfolder.
Run: nmake /f makefile.vc OPTS=static shell
CD into the "Release*" subfolder that is created (note the wildcard - the full name of the directory might vary). There you will find the "tcl90s.lib" file. Copy this file into the same directory that you put the "tcl90.lib" on your initial installation. (In this document, that directory is "C:\Tcl32\lib" for 32-bit builds and "C:\Tcl\lib" for 64-bit builds.)
CD into your SQLite source code directory and build the desired utility program, but add the following extra argument to the nmake command line:
```
STATICALLY_LINK_TCL=1
```
So, for example, to build a statically linked version of sqlite3_analyzer.exe, you might type:
```
nmake /f Makefile.msc STATICALLY_LINK_TCL=1 sqlite3_analyzer.exe
```
After your executable is built, you can verify that it does not depend on the TCL DLL by running:
```
dumpbin /dependents sqlite3_analyzer.exe
```