The documentation for limits states that "The maximum number of bytes in the text of an SQL statement is limited to SQLITE_MAX_SQL_LENGTH which defaults to 1,000,000,000." However, the limit seems to be 1,000,000 (one million), which the following sentence implies. Someone should change that.

Looks like 1 billion to me: https://sqlite.org/src/info/33b1c9baba5?ln=55,57

Why do you think it is 1 million instead? What is your evidence?

When I ran a query (from a Java script) I got an error: [SQLITE_TOOBIG] String or BLOB exceeds size limit (statement too long). The query text would have exceeded the 1,000,000 character limit but not the 1 billion character limit. When I reduced the query length, the code ran fine. Also, the very next line in the documentation starts: "If an SQL statement is limited to be a million bytes in length...". Based on that I thought it likely that the actual limit is 1 million. I did not find any way to check the limit directly, but figured one of the developers could check easily enough.

The code was actually run by someone else on a server that is managed by a campus service group. Unfortunately, I do not have access to that server myself. The Java code that ran the query was not compiled with that particular flag. We are using the sqlite-jdbc jar. I assume from your response that the default limit is 1 billion characters, so that the limit I am seeing came from something else. In any case, thanks for your quick response.

The source code accompanying Xerial's sqlite-jdbc-3.43.0.0.jar package has a SQLiteConfig.java file containing this section:

/* Default limits used by SQLite: https://www.sqlite.org/limits.html */ private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_LENGTH = 1000000000; private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_COLUMN = 2000; private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_SQL_LENGTH = 1000000; private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_FUNCTION_ARG = 100; private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_ATTACHED = 10; private static final int DEFAULT_MAX_PAGE_COUNT = 1073741823;

When I ran a query (from a Java script)

Perhaps relevant: this project's own JS/WASM build is built with a SQLITE_MAX_ALLOCATION_SIZE of 536870911 (0x1fffffff), i.e. half a gig. The JS/WASM binding does not modify the default MAX_SQL_LENGTH.

If you're running against some other JS binding (e.g. a 3rd-party node.js binding) then you'll need to submit your grievance to the maintainers of that binding.

I think the OP is running a Java script, not a JavaScript script

Based on that I thought it likely that the actual limit is 1 million

That's just giving an example and explaining the limit further. The figure quoted is for illustrative purposes only.