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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-22T18:14:19+00:00

What is the most reliable way to determine what statements are querying versus modifying?

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What is the most reliable way to determine what statements are “querying” versus “modifying”? For example, SELECT versus UPDATE / INSERT / CREATE.

Parsing the statement myself seems the obvious first attempt, but I can’t help but think that this would be a flaky solution. Just looking for SELECT at the beginning doesn’t work, as PRAGMA can also return results, and I’m sure there are a multitude of ways that strategy could fail. Testing for zero rows returned from the cursor doesn’t work either, as a SELECT can obviously return zero results.

I’m working with SQLite via the Python sqlite3 module.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Use the sqlite3_changes API call, which is also available from SQL using the changes function.

    As TokenMacGuy mentioned, you can rollback the transaction containing the statement that caused the changes; the sqlite3_changes function will let you know if that is necessary.

    There is also the update_hook callback if you need more fine grained information abouth the tables and rows affected.

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