go-sqlite3 VS better-sqlite3

SQLite encryption at-rest is a hot requested feature of both the “default” CGo driver [1] and the transpiled alternative driver [2]. So, this is a feature I wanted to bring to my own Wasm based Go driver/bindings [3].

Open-source SQLite encryption extensions have had a troubled last few years. For whatever reason, in 2020 the (undocumented) feature that made it easy to offer page-level encryption was removed [4]. Some solutions are stuck with SQLite 3.31.1, but Ulrich Telle stepped up with a VFS approach [5].

Still, their solution seemed harder than something I'd want to maintain, as it requires understanding the structure of what's being written to disk at the VFS layer. So, I looked at full disk encryption for something with less of an impedance mismatch.

Specifically, I'm using the Adiantum tweakable and length-preserving encryption (with 4K blocks, matching the default SQLite page size), and encrypting whole files (rather than page content).

I'm not a cryptographer, so I'd really appreciate some roasting before release.

There is nothing very Go specific about this (apart from the implementation) so if there are no obvious flaws, it may make sense to port it to C/Rust/etc and make it a loadable extension.

[1] https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3/pull/1109

for what it's worth, the two pool approach is suggested here by a collaborator to github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3: https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3/issues/1179#issuecomment...

SQLite is great. I've also recently settled on it as a key-value store, after considering a few purpose-built key-value solutions. Turns out that it's really easy to make SQLite work as a key-value store, but very difficult to make key-value stores relational.

Just be careful with `:memory:` databases. From the mattn/go-sqlite3 FAQ[1]:

> Each connection to ":memory:" opens a brand new in-memory sql database, so if the stdlib's sql engine happens to open another connection and you've only specified ":memory:", that connection will see a brand new database. A workaround is to use "file::memory:?cache=shared" (or "file:foobar?mode=memory&cache=shared"). Every connection to this string will point to the same in-memory database.

I noticed strange behaviors with just `:memory:` where tables would just disappear at random, and this workaround helped. Make sure to use a unique filename as the `file:` value, especially if using this in tests.

[1]: https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3#faq

github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3

For building my web server, I chose to use the Gin framework as the foundation of my app. It was incredibly easy to understand and work with, and I was pleasantly surprised by how seamlessly it integrated with writing unit tests for the server. To handle the database, I leveraged the power of go-sqlite and migrate for efficient SQL queries and migrations. These libraries proved to be both powerful and user-friendly, making the development process a breeze.

https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3/blob/master/_example/sim...

SQLite does have an optional "user authentication" extension, though I've not personally tried it out:

https://www.sqlite.org/src/doc/trunk/ext/userauth/user-auth....

The widely used Go SQLite library by mattn says it supports it, if that's useful:

https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3#user-authentication

I have an OSS project, sq which is a data-wrangling swiss-army knife for structured data. Think of it as jq for databases. It supports Postgres, SQLServer, MySQL and - relevantly - SQLite. It embeds SQLite via CGo and the mattn/go-sqlite3 driver.

IDE: use whatever make you productive. I personally use vscode. VCS: git, as golang communities use github heavily as base for many libraries. AFAIK Linter: use staticcheck for linting as it looks like mostly used linting tool in go, supported by many also. In Vscode it will be recommended once you install go plugin. Libraries/Framework: actually the standard libraries already included many things you need, decent enough for your day-to-day development cycles(e.g. `net/http`). But here are things for extra: - Struct fields validator: validator - Http server lib: chi router , httprouter , fasthttp (for non standard http implementations, but fast) - Web Framework: echo , gin , fiber , beego , etc - Http client lib: most already covered by stdlib(net/http), so you rarely need extra lib for this, but if you really need some are: resty - CLI: cobra - Config: godotenv , viper - DB Drivers: sqlx , postgre , sqlite , mysql - nosql: redis , mongodb , elasticsearch - ORM: gorm , entgo , sqlc(codegen) - JS Transpiler: gopherjs - GUI: fyne - grpc: grpc - logging: zerolog - test: testify , gomock , dockertest - and many others you can find here

In the second video of the series, we are separating routers and adding SQLite, Better SQLite 3, Database to the application to show access to context for performing a simple query and mutation.

If I were charged with this task I'd probably take an actual SQLite DB and write methods to parse data from text files, then process it within SQLite, and serialize it back to the text file when an API method is called or after each processing step. A fresh DB engine, fully re-implemented to match SQLite's API is insane unless you're a prodigy or have a sizable team and will come with numerous downsides. I can recommend https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3 and https://github.com/loveencounterflow/dbay

better-sqlite3 is orders of magnitude faster than the async SQLite bindings. We found this to be true when testing SQLite options for Notion's desktop app anyways.

https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3#why-should-i-use-...

Better SQLite is a wrapper around the SQLite database engine that provides a number of improvements over the standard SQLite API. One of those benefits is type safety, Better SQLite uses TypeScript to provide type safety for queries, which can help to prevent errors.

better-sqlite3 does the job synchronously

I used better-sqlite3 . It is simple to use as it is synchronous. I don't know if it scales good (at least the docs say it) but works great for my small use cases.

Kent's recommended NodeJS module, `better-sqlite3`, has some very nifty features including the creation of JavaScript user-defined functions[0] that (if I understand this right) can be called from SQLite. Combined with TRIGGERs, I wonder if it might fire a function within the app when an UPDATE/INSERT happens from a different process? (This is me wondering out loud, I don't actually know.)

I also recommend checking out Replicache[1] and alternatives, which may be a better way to handle the networking and database replication so that it doesn't rely on the underlying DB.

[0] https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/blob/HEAD/docs/ap...