SQLite and MySQL are two of the most popular open-source Relational Database Management Systems used worldwide. Both use Structured Query Language (SQL) to manage databases. However, each system has its unique benefits and use-cases. Depending on the project requirements, it may be necessary to transfer data from SQLite to MySQL for further analysis.
SQLite is well-suited for smaller databases, but lacks user management functionality, making collaboration difficult. It is not scalable and cannot be customized as much as MySQL. In contrast, MySQL can support multiple users and can store large amounts of data in tables. As a business grows and data volumes increase, SQLite may no longer be an effective solution. Therefore, it is recommended to migrate from SQLite to MySQL if you need to manage large amounts of data.
This article provides a quick guide on how to transfer data from SQLite to MySQL databases.
First and most straight forward method of SQLite to MySQL database migration is export data via .dump Command. Following this way, SQLite database is exported into dump file using the following command line:
sqlite3 sample.db .dump > dump.sql
Then the resulting dump file can be imported into MySQL database via the following command line:
mysql -p -u root -h 127.0.0.1 test < dump.sql
The bottleneck of this method is difference between SQLite and MySQL syntax that leads to necessary post-processing of the dump file before loading into the target database.
Second method of database migration from SQLite to MySQL is suitable for database specialists having skills in Perl or Python. Both languages allow to compose a script to automate the migration procedure with relatively small efforts. For example, this is a Pyhton code for SQLite to MySQL database migration:
objects = ModelObject.objects.using(‘sqlite’).all()
for obj in objects: obj.save(using=’mysql’)
Obviously, this is a very basic Python code just to illustrate the concept and it is most like not enough for real life database migration. It must include some pre- and post-processing steps and necessary transformations to make SQLite data compatible with PostgreSQL format.
For those who expect easy and smooth transfer from SQLite to PostgreSQL, it may require a third-party solution to accomplish the database migration. One of the tools that completely automates migration between the two DBMS mentioned above is SQLIte to MySQL converter offered by Intelligent Converters software vendor.
The product provides wide range of advanced features that may be required for the database migration task:
- Schemas, data, indexes and constraints are migrated with all necessary attributes
- Option to migrate database into MySQL script file for those cases when the target database server does not allow direct connection
- Option to change name, type, default value and other properties of every table column during the migration
- Merging and synchronization of existing MySQL database with SQLite data. Synchronization is implemented as combination of inserting missing data and updating existing data (primary key or unique index is required)
SQLIte to MySQL converter does not convert views and triggers. Free demo version is available with limited features for evaluation purposes: it does not migrate more than 50 rows per table as well as foreign keys.
