The sqlite3 library implicitly creates the database if the requested file doesn't exist.  I would like to be able to avoid that implicit creation.  (Actually, it would be enough to know whether I had created the database, but the underlying SQLite library doesn't seem to indicate that.)

The C code currently hard-codes the SQLite flag to create the database if it doesn't exist:

    rc = sqlite3_open_v2(database, &db,
                         SQLITE_OPEN_READWRITE | SQLITE_OPEN_CREATE |
                         (uri ? SQLITE_OPEN_URI : 0), NULL);

Could we make this an option, so the Python code could avoid implicit creation?

I agree that would be a useful option.

FYI, you can already do this using the URI option:

    cx = sqlite3.connect("file:test.db?mode=rw", uri=True)

See also bpo-24887.

IMO, the URI "API" is not very pythonic; I have to look up the format every time I'm using it.

OTOH, introducing flags, or keywords, for every option will add a lot of code.

OTOH, implementing an API similar to apsw (adding a flags keyword) would make it easier for users to switch between that and the stdlib sqlite3.

@Erlend: thanks for the URI tip, I missed that as a possibility in the SQLite docs.

I guess we could do more to promote that trick in the docs. It’s quite useful.

I created GH-30660 in order to try to enhance the docs. Ned and Eric, would you mind taking a look at the PR?

New changeset bdf2ab1887a2edfb089a3c2a1590cf1e84ea0048 by Erlend Egeberg Aasland in branch 'main':
bpo-46402: Promote SQLite URI tricks in `sqlite3` docs (GH-30660)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/bdf2ab1887a2edfb089a3c2a1590cf1e84ea0048

BTW, I'm fine with this being closed, since the functionality I wanted is available and documented.

> BTW, I'm fine with this being closed, since the functionality I wanted is available and documented.

Great. I was considering closing it as soon as the backports have landed (I had to manually fix them bco. make suspicious failures).

New changeset 01e6cbefd3d0f60c942ed711131f5d638dde1227 by Erlend Egeberg Aasland in branch '3.10':
[3.10] bpo-46402: Promote SQLite URI tricks in sqlite3 docs (GH-30660) (GH-30671)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/01e6cbefd3d0f60c942ed711131f5d638dde1227

New changeset 0ae22577606f1b52e3b6c2de6c5b307518044605 by Erlend Egeberg Aasland in branch '3.9':
[3.9] bpo-46402: Promote SQLite URI tricks in sqlite3 docs (GH-30660) (#30672)
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/0ae22577606f1b52e3b6c2de6c5b307518044605

Closing this. Thanks, Ned and Eric!