SQLite

SQLite is a lightweight, serverless database engine often used for small-scale applications and embedded systems.

Setup

GNU/Linux

To connect to the database Gretl uses the ODBC driver . The process for setting it up is described by Andrew B. Collier in an article on his blog. The article describes how to set it up on a computer running Ubuntu but it also works for other distributions.

Packages download

You need to download and install the unixODBC and SQLiteODBC packages depending on the distribution you use.

Setup files

If it is not already present you need to create an odbcinst.ini file in the /etc folder as shown below

; /etc/odbcinst.ini file content

[SQLite]
Description=SQLite ODBC Driver
Driver=libsqliteodbc.so
Setup=libsqliteodbc.so
UsageCount=1

[SQLite3]
Description=SQLite3 ODBC Driver
Driver=libsqlite3odbc.so
Setup=libsqlite3odbc.so
UsageCount=1

and an .odbc.ini file in the home directory that specifies the name and path to the database file.

; ~/.odbc.ini file content

[databaseFileName]
Description = Database description
Driver = SQLite3
Database = /path/to/database/file
Timeout = 2000

As a final step, you need to create an environment variable that points to the /etc folder. In the example, a global environment variable is created by adding a line to the /etc/environment file.

#
# Content of /etc/environment
#

ODBCSYSINI=/etc

Connecting via Gretl

Once everything is set up to create a connection via Gretl and be able to retrieve data, simply use the open command with the --odbc flag specifying the database name given in the .odbc.ini file.

open dsn=databaseFileName --odbc

At this point you can use the open and data commands as specified in the command reference.