Compiling Sqlite3 Shell with Embarcadero/Borland C.

I wanted to compile the sqlite3 shell on Windows, using my Free Embarcadero C compiler, but it didn’t work. It was quite easy to fix, but if you are affected, read on.

First Attempt

After unzipping the amalgamated source files a default compilation was attempted with the following command line. The -tCM option simply says to create a console based non-windows application.

bcc32c -o sqlite3.exe shell.c sqlite3.c -tCM

Which results in the following compiler warnings and linker errors:

shell.c:158:3: warning: implicit declaration of function '_setmode' is invalid in C99...
shell.c:7018:26: warning: implicit declaration of function '_isatty' is invalid in C99...
...
Error: Unresolved external '__isatty' referenced from C:\\SQLITE3\\SHELL-264807.O
Error: Unresolved external '__setmode' referenced from C:\\SQLITE3\\SHELL-264807.O

The compiler warnings gave me the impression that something called _isatty and _setmode do not exist, or something is not setting up their function definitions correctly. That’s usually the case with the warnings shown anyway.

Because all the warnings are in the file shell.c, that’s what we need to look at.

Fixing the shell.c Source File

Open shell.c in your favourite text editor. Alternatively, use Notepad!

Search for _isatty. You should find it around line 104.

Replace this code:

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# define isatty(h) _isatty(h)
...

With the following:

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# if !defined (__BORLANDC__)
# define isatty(h) _isatty(h)
# endif
...

Embarcadero aka Borland C doesn’t have anything named _isatty but it does have isatty and it is the function we need to be calling. Moving on…

Search for _setmode. You should find it around line 158.

Replace this code:

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_setmode(_fileno(file), _O_BINARY);
...
_setmode(_fileno(file), _O_TEXT);
...

With the following:

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...
#if defined (__BORLANDC__)
setmode(_fileno(file), _O_BINARY);
#else
_setmode(_fileno(file), _O_BINARY);
#endif
...
#if defined (__BORLANDC__)
setmode(_fileno(file), _O_TEXT);
#else
_setmode(_fileno(file), _O_TEXT);
#endif
...

Again, Embarcadero C doesn’t have _setmode as it has setmode instead, so that’s what we need to be calling here, twice.

Once the changes have been saved, exit from the editor and recompile.

Second Attempt

The same command line is used:

bcc32c -o sqlite3.exe shell.c sqlite3.c -tCM

Which results in the following:

Embarcadero C++ 7.20 for Win32 Copyright (c) 2012-2016 Embarcadero Technologies, Inc.
shell.c:
sqlite3.c:
Turbo Incremental Link 6.75 Copyright (c) 1997-2016 Embarcadero Technologies, Inc.

No errors, no warnings. Job done, we have a shell!

Testing, Testing

It. Just. Works!

Databases can be created, deleted, opened closed, attached and so on, tables and indexes etc can be created and used. Life is good!