> Of course SQLite imposes a file format... That format is a SQLite database

Well this is in a context that rejects zip as being a format. Do you do that? If the answer is no then skip the rest of my post and just note that they're talking about a different definition of 'format'.

-

But in that context:

The amount of structure imposed on you by the sqlite database format is not much more than the structure imposed on you by a zip. I think it's fair to rate them similarly as formats. A zip file is basically a key-value store.

"Zip full of csvs", while awful to use, would impose about the same amount of structure as sqlite does: not much. And zip+csv is not much more elaborate than zip on its own.

In SQLite, I can have a table with a row which is `flag INTEGER NOT NULL CHECK flag == 0 or flag == 1 DEFAULT 0`

Surely this is more structure than a ZIP file, which is merely a way of compressing a directory of files into a single entity, can provide?

Sure the INTEGER part doesn't really do anything...

That's a feature of the database engine, not the file format. You could attach a similar database engine to a zip backend.

This is an asinine objection.

I have a better one, if you want it.

A configuration like that comes from the program using sqlite. Just adding sqlite into a system doesn't set up any data formatting like that. Sqlite itself gives you a blank canvas. And a blank canvas is not much of a data format.

You're wrong about this.

The SQLite data format includes the schema, in plain ASCII. This self-documenting nature makes it an excellent data format, I've taken advantage of it numerous times in making use of SQLite-based application file formats.

SQLite is put forth as a basis for an application file format, and by definition it must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate any application. But by including the schema, it is self-documenting as to what the structure is, which ZIP isn't and can't be. QED.

I hope to make the modest point that, if you package your data in a SQLite file or a zip file, then you have both packaging and data problems.

MyCoolSQLApp may read and write a SQLite file with its own schema, but it can't handle an arbitrary SQLite file. Likewise MyCoolZipApp can't handle an arbitrary zip file.

I'm not clear on the point here. You can make an application that handles arbitrary SQLite files, (for example: the SQLite shell, or a GUI database broswer), or you can make an application that only uses SQLite files with certain content/schema. Does this mean that SQLite does or does not define a file format?

If not, what do you call the specification of how data is stored in a SQLite file besides a 'file format'?