Using sqlite extensions with sqlite3 gem

[cboulanger]

Hi, I am interested in using the spellfix extension with the sqlite3 gem.

https://www.sqlite.org/spellfix1.html
https://github.com/sqlite/sqlite/blob/master/ext/misc/spellfix.c

is this possible? Of course, it would be great if no compilation step was needed (via the OS sqlite?).

Thank you.

[flavorjones]

Hi! Thanks for asking this question.

You can load sqlite3 extensions using the SQLite3::Database#load_extension method. It's not terribly well documented, but the general idea is:

db = SQLite3::Database.new(':memory:')
db.enable_load_extension(true)
db.load_extension(path_to_shared_object)

where path_to_shared_object is the path to the .so or .dll or what-have-you.

Does this answer help?

[cboulanger]

Hi, thanks for your response! I assume that the native sqlite binary that comes with the default gem or bundle install (I am on Ubuntu) doesn't have that (or any other) extension bundled - so I would need to compile it myself as documented here, I guess.

[flavorjones]

@cboulanger Yep, I was able to do this on my linux machine (after cloning sqlite/sqlite)

# in sqlite directory
gcc -g -fPIC -shared ./ext/misc/spellfix.c -o spellfix.o

then, in ruby:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby

require "sqlite3"

db = SQLite3::Database.new(':memory:')
db.enable_load_extension(true)
db.load_extension("/path/to/sqlite/spellfix.o")
db.execute("CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE demo USING spellfix1;")

I'm going to close this, but please do comment if you have any other questions!

[cboulanger]

It works! Thanks so much. I've created a small gist for future reference: https://gist.github.com/cboulanger/f9c57fe2258e3b95c2f59ae10096a1f3

[flavorjones]

Note: I've extracted some of what we talked about here into INSTALLATION.md in #390