SQLite 3.53.0 (https://sqlite.org/releaselog/3_53_0.html)

SQLite 3.52.0 was withdrawn so this is a pretty big release with a whole lot of accumulated user-facing and internal improvements. Some that stood out to me:

• ALTER TABLE can now add and remove NOT NULL and CHECK constraints - I’ve previously used my own sqlite-utils transform() method (https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/en/stable/python-api.html#changing-not-null-status) for this.

• New json_array_insert() function (https://sqlite.org/json1.html#jarrayins) and its jsonb equivalent.

• Significant improvements to CLI mode (https://sqlite.org/climode.html), including result formatting.

The result formatting improvements come from a new library, the Query Results Formatter (https://sqlite.org/src/file/ext/qrf). I had Claude Code (https://github.com/simonw/tools/pull/266) (on my phone) compile that to WebAssembly and build this playground interface (https://tools.simonwillison.net/sqlite-qrf) for trying that out.

Via Lobste.rs (https://lobste.rs/s/sqsb24/sqlite_3_53_0)

Tags: sql (https://simonwillison.net/tags/sql), sqlite (https://simonwillison.net/tags/sqlite)