SQLite CLOB Tools - Import, Export, View and Edit

• Import file data to SQLite TEXT (CLOB)
• Export SQLite TEXT (CLOB) data to files
• View and edit SQLite TEXT / NTEXT data
• Batch export SQLite query results TEXT data to files
• Batch update SQLite table TEXT data from files
• Batch insert SQLite table TEXT data from files

SQLite CLOB - type family and size limits

Type in SQLite	Maximum size
TEXT	storage class, subject to the same SQLITE_MAX_LENGTH
VARCHAR(n) / CLOB	only "type affinity" spellings - SQLite does not enforce a length

CLOB versus BLOB in SQLite

SQLite is dynamically typed: declaring a column BLOB or TEXT only sets its type affinity, and what is actually stored is decided by the value written. Declaring a column CLOB does not give you CLOB semantics.

What limits you first

SQLITE_MAX_LENGTH, a compile-time constant defaulting to one billion bytes. That figure is more accurate than "1 GB", and the only way to change it is to rebuild SQLite - there is no runtime setting.

CLOB from the command line

• Export: .dump (text SQL, BLOBs become X'...' literals) or VACUUM INTO 'new.db'
• Import: .import, or the readfile() function

Things that bite with CLOB in SQLite

• .dump emits BLOBs as X'...' hex literals, so a database with large objects produces a dump more than twice the size - use VACUUM INTO or sqlite3_backup to move a whole file
• SQLITE_MAX_LENGTH is fixed at build time and cannot be raised at runtime
• Declaring VARCHAR(n) does not enforce the length - SQLite happily stores longer values