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The CSV extension is a port of SQLite’s CSV virtual table. It lets you query a CSV file — or an inline CSV string — using standard SQL SELECT statements.

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Creating a CSV virtual table

Use CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE ... USING csv(...) to expose a CSV source as a table: 
CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.my_data USING csv(
  filename = 'data.csv',
  header = yes
);

SELECT * FROM my_data;
Use the temp schema (e.g. temp.my_data) so the virtual table exists only for the current session and is not persisted to disk.

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Parameters

ParameterValuesDescription
filenamefile pathPath to the CSV file on disk. Mutually exclusive with data.
dataCSV stringInline CSV content as a string literal. Mutually exclusive with filename.
headeryes / no / true / false / on / off / 1 / 0Whether the first row contains column names. Default: no.
columnspositive integerNumber of columns to expose. Rows with fewer columns return NULL for the missing fields; extra columns in the file are ignored.
schemaSQL CREATE TABLE statementCustom schema string. Overrides the automatically generated column definitions.
You must specify exactly one of filename or data. Providing both, or neither, is an error.

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Column naming

  • When header=yes, column names are taken from the first row of the CSV.
  • When header=no, columns are named c0, c1, c2, … by default.
  • Provide a schema argument to use any column names and types you choose.

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Examples

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Read a CSV file with a header row

CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.employees USING csv(
  filename = '/data/employees.csv',
  header = yes
);

SELECT name, department FROM employees WHERE department = 'Engineering';

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Read inline CSV data

CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.scores USING csv(
  data = 'alice,92
bob,87
carol,95',
  header = no
);

SELECT c0 AS name, CAST(c1 AS INTEGER) AS score
FROM scores
ORDER BY score DESC;

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Provide a custom schema

CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.products USING csv(
  filename = 'products.csv',
  header = no,
  schema = 'CREATE TABLE x (id INTEGER, name TEXT, price REAL)'
);

SELECT name, price FROM products WHERE price < 20.0;

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Limit the number of columns

CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE temp.log_entries USING csv(
  filename = 'access.log.csv',
  columns = 3
);

SELECT c0 AS timestamp, c1 AS method, c2 AS path FROM log_entries;

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CSV format

The extension uses comma (,) as the field delimiter and double-quote (") as the quote character. Fields containing commas, newlines, or double-quotes must be enclosed in double-quotes. A literal double-quote inside a quoted field is represented by two consecutive double-quotes ("").

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Limitations

  • The CSV virtual table is read-only. INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported.
  • The extension reads the entire file on each query scan; there is no indexing.

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