SQLite

Scythe supports SQLite with its simplified type affinity system across all 10 languages. SQLite support operates at the parser and analyzer level – SQL parsing, type inference, and nullability analysis are fully SQLite-aware. The code generation backends work the same regardless of the source database.

Backend support

Every language has at least one SQLite backend. Multi-engine backends (like java-jdbc, php-pdo, rust-sqlx) load engine-specific manifests automatically.

Language	Backend	Library
Rust	rust-sqlx	sqlx
Python	python-aiosqlite	aiosqlite
TypeScript	typescript-better-sqlite3	better-sqlite3
Go	go-database-sql	database/sql
Java	java-jdbc	JDBC
Kotlin	kotlin-jdbc	JDBC
C#	csharp-microsoft-sqlite	Microsoft.Data.Sqlite
Elixir	elixir-exqlite	Exqlite
Ruby	ruby-sqlite3	sqlite3 gem
PHP	php-pdo	PDO

Type affinity system

SQLite uses type affinity rather than strict types. Any column can hold any type at runtime. Scythe maps declared types to neutral types based on the declared column type name.

CREATE TABLE users (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    name TEXT NOT NULL,
    score REAL,
    data BLOB
);

Affinity	Declared Types	Neutral Type
INTEGER	INTEGER, INT, BIGINT	int64
INTEGER	SMALLINT, TINYINT	int16
INTEGER	MEDIUMINT	int32
REAL	REAL, FLOAT, DOUBLE, DOUBLE PRECISION	float64
TEXT	TEXT, VARCHAR, CHAR, CLOB	string
BLOB	BLOB	bytes
NUMERIC	NUMERIC, DECIMAL, BOOLEAN, DATE, DATETIME	varies

AUTOINCREMENT handling

CREATE TABLE users (
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
    name TEXT NOT NULL
);

INTEGER PRIMARY KEY is the SQLite auto-increment rowid. The AUTOINCREMENT keyword adds monotonicity. These columns are treated as NOT NULL int64 – SQLite’s INTEGER storage class always holds up to 8 bytes, so there is no narrower 4-byte integer type to map to.

Limitations

SQLite does not support:

• Enums – no CREATE TYPE ... AS ENUM. Use TEXT with CHECK constraints, or declare an inline ENUM(...) column type (SQLite’s type affinity system accepts arbitrary type names). Scythe registers an inline ENUM(...) column the same way it does for MySQL: as a catalog enum named {table}_{column}, resolving to enum::{table}_{column} rather than a bare string.
• Arrays – no array types. Use JSON arrays or separate tables.
• Schemas – no schema.table syntax. Single namespace per database.
• Composite types – no CREATE TYPE ... AS (...).
• Range types – not available.
• Network types – no INET, CIDR. Use TEXT.
• RETURNING – only available in SQLite 3.35+ (2021).

Type mapping table

SQLite Type	Neutral Type
INTEGER / INT / BIGINT	int64
SMALLINT / TINYINT	int16
MEDIUMINT	int32
REAL / FLOAT	float64
DOUBLE / DOUBLE PRECISION	float64
TEXT / VARCHAR / CHAR / CLOB	string
BLOB	bytes
BOOLEAN / BOOL	bool
NUMERIC / DECIMAL	decimal
DATE	date
DATETIME	datetime
JSON	json

Placeholder syntax

Write positional $N placeholders in your SQL, same as PostgreSQL. SQLite backends translate these to ? in the generated code:

-- Written as:
SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE id = $1;

-- Generated as:
SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE id = ?;