Sony Arouje

I was experimenting with the FTS3/FTS4 feature of SQlite in a WinRT app. The default tokenizer ‘simple’ wont tokenize special character like $, @, etc. The solution is to use ‘unicode61’ tokenizer. Unfortunately the SQLite installer for WinRT8.1 comes without unicode61 tokenizer. I searched a lot to get a SQlite WinRT build that supports unicode61 but I was not lucky enough to get one, so I decided to build one myself.

Tim Heuer have a great post explaining about creating a build of SQLite for WinRT, I went through that and acquired all the tools to build, including the SQLite source code. I did exactly the same way Tim explained in the video, finally I got my build. But again it has the same issue, not supporting unicode61 tokenizer. I tried several builds and all these time I build with DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4_UNICODE61=1 and other flags I mentioned below.

After several attempt with so many permutations and combinations, I got it working. Tim’s video is a very good reference for building SQLite for WinRT. But if you want unicode61 support then follow the below steps, it’s same as Tim’s explained with some exclusion.

1. mkdir c:\sqlite
2. cd sqlite
3. fossil clone http://www.sqlite.org/cgi/src sqlite3.fossil
4. fossil open sqlite3.fossil
5. fossil checkout winrt, never issue this command, it will never include unicode61
6. Added this step to enable unicode61 tokenizer. Append the below config to Makefile.msc, you can see some config already existing append the below config to it.

   OPT_FEATURE_FLAGS = $(OPT_FEATURE_FLAGS) -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4=1

   OPT_FEATURE_FLAGS = $(OPT_FEATURE_FLAGS) -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS3_PARENTHESIS=1

   OPT_FEATURE_FLAGS = $(OPT_FEATURE_FLAGS) -DSQLITE_ENABLE_FTS4_UNICODE61=1

7. Compile the code by issuing nmake -f Makefile.msc sqlite3.dll FOR_WINRT=1

I could build X86 and X64 using VS2012 command prompt for X86 and X64. But when I tried to compile for ARM I was getting some errors, I was fortunate enough to find a solution in StackOverflow. Followed that solution and I got the SQLite builds for X86, X64 and ARM.

I don’t want to spend time in creating a vsix package and install it in my machine, instead I took the backup of SQLite for WinRT version 3.8.5, in my machine the installed path is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.1\ExtensionSDKs\SQLite.WinRT81. Then went into each folder and replaced the lib and sqlite dll with the respective builds I created.

Leave your comments if you have any questions.

Happy coding…