“Class SQLiteDatabase not found” error after upgrading SQLite

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2 min. reading

Class SQLiteDatabase is an object from sqlite library, which support was dropped in PHP 5.4, but on various systems and configuration could be disabled in an earlier releases, as this library was long time marked as going to be deprecated.

Library php_sqlite.dll (Windows) or php_sqlite.so (Linux) is no longer supported in newer versions of PHP and was replaced with php_sqlite3.dll or php_sqlite3.so respectively.

To solve this problem you can:

  1. Try to find php_sqlite.dll (php_sqlite.so) somewhere in the Internet. Links like this or this may be helpful for you. However, you’ll have to carefully match old SQLite library file to your PHP’s platform (x64 or x86), build engine (VC6, VC9 or VC11), version (5.x) and type (TS for thread safe or NTS for non-thread safe). This might be a hard task.
  2. Leave php_sqlite.dll (SQLiteDatabase) behind and ship toward new php_sqlite3.dll (SQLite3 object). You have to first use a tool like SQLite Studio to convert your database file from 2.1 to 3.0 (size can be lowered by even a half) and then carefully compare SQLite and SQLite3 PHP manual pages to change some objects and functions call.

If option two, note that this shouldn’t be a hard work, as changes aren’t that big.

For example, what I’ve learned so far, changes includes:

  • SQLiteDatabase -> SQLite3,
  • SQLiteDatabase::unbufferedQuery -> SQLite3::query,
  • SQLiteResult::fetchAll(SQLITE_*) -> SQLite3Result::fetchArray(SQLITE3_*) etc.

As for fetching, in old SQLite we had:

$rowsIMEI = $db->unbufferedQuery($imeiSQL)->fetchAll(SQLITE_ASSOC);

foreach($rowsIMEI as $r)
{
    ...
}

While, in new SQLite3 we should:

$rowsIMEI = $db->query($imeiSQL);

while($r = $rowsIMEI->fetchArray(SQLITE3_ASSOC))
{
    ...
}

Other changes requires similar amount of work, so this shouldn’t be a life-time process.

I, of course, strongly advice anyone to go forward and choose second option. Progress is in most cases the better one of two available options.

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