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Extensions overview

The ext/ tree adds loadable SQL features as independent Go sub-packages — pick what you need and leave the rest off your import graph. Every ext/ package is tracked (status / upstream reference / test pin) in dev/coverage/ext.md.

Two registration shapes per extension:

// Explicit — register on a specific *sqlite.Conn (the per-conn idiom).
import "gosqlite.org/ext/regexp"
regexp.Register(conn)


// Implicit — blank-import the /auto variant; every conn the driver opens
// picks the extension up via Driver.ConnectHook.
import _ "gosqlite.org/ext/regexp/auto"

Beyond that, extensions fall into three usage patterns:

  • Scalars, aggregates & collations — SQL functions you call from any Where / Order / Select. Blank-import /auto and go.
  • Virtual tables — data exposed through CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE … USING module(…), some accepting Go data via sqlite.Pointer. Includes the fs.FS-sandboxed readers (csv, lines, fileio, blobio).
  • Stores — persistent specialised stores (Bloom filter, spellfix1 fuzzy vocabulary) that survive db.Close.

Several vtab extensions also expose a typed Go handle (csv.Table, lines.Table, closure.Graph, bloom.Filter, spellfix1.Vocab, rtree.Table) mirroring vec.Table / fts.Index, so you can skip the DDL and query SQL. Runnable demos: examples/features/extensions/.

For writing your own SQL functions in Go instead of using a packaged one, see Window functions & custom UDFs.