I have created a Python module that creates and populates several SQLite tables. Now, I want to use it in a program but I don’t really know how to call it properly. All the tutorials I’ve found are essentially ‘inline’, i.e. they walk through using SQLite in a linear fashion rather than how to actually use it in production.
What I’m trying to do is have a method check to see if the database is already created. If so, then I can use it. If not, an exception is raised and the program will create the database. (Or use if/else statements, whichever is better).
I created a test script to see if my logic is correct but it’s not working. When I create the try statement, it just creates a new database rather than checking if one already exists. The next time I run the script, I get an error that the table already exists, even if I tried catching the exception. (I haven’t used try/except before but figured this is a good time to learn).
Are there any good tutorials for using SQLite operationally or any suggestions on how to code this? I’ve looked through the pysqlite tutorial and others I found but they don’t address this.
AFAIK an SQLITE database is just a file. To check if the database exists, check for file existence.
When you open a SQLITE database it will automatically create one if the file that backs it up is not in place.
If you try and open a file as a sqlite3 database that is NOT a database, you will get this:
‘sqlite3.DatabaseError: file is encrypted or is not a database’
so check to see if the file exists and also make sure to try and catch the exception in case the file is not a sqlite3 database