SQLite Forum

about "strict" mode
Login
Keith, I don't know if you do this because you like to argue or because you aren't reading all the provided information. The original statement might have been imprecise, but pedantry doesn't help solve problems. The genesis of this thread branch would cause any reasonable person to infer that a table lacking an INTEGER PRIMARY KEY column lacks stable ROWID values across a VACUUM. This is a true statement: they aren't stable, whether the row was inserted with an explicit value or a SQLite generated value:

```
sqlite> create table a(b);
sqlite> insert into a (rowid,b) values (42,'foo');
sqlite> insert into a (b) values ('bar');
sqlite> select rowid,* from a;
42|foo
43|bar
sqlite> vacuum;
sqlite> select rowid,* from a;
1|foo
2|bar
```

Both ROWID values changed because there is no INTEGER PRIMARY KEY in the table, but stable ROWID values are required for some use cases.

I know you've said as much, but the way you "debate" the issue is confusing as you appear to contradict yourself. If the session extension didn't require a stable ROWID (as I understand an earlier reply) then this would be moot. But someone wants to use it with a different PRIMARY KEY and cannot. All the arguing in the world about how people should do things or insulting their lack of aptitude with how they use the tools provided doesn't solve the problem in this case. Sure, they could write their own equivalent to the session extension and circumvent this problem. But then they could also write their own SQL engine, and their own C standard library, text editor, operating system, and everything else in the software stack.

Presumably they are here to leverage the excellent resources available so they don't have to reinvent the wheel, and what (to them, anyway) is a minor tweak to improve utility is not an unreasonable suggestion. That doesn't mean it must be implemented, but everything else presented since then is a distraction from the original suggestion and is increasing the noise and depressing the signal.