Home › Formats › .SQLite-WALID
What is a .SQLite-WAL file?
A .sqlite-wal file is the write-ahead log SQLite keeps beside a database in WAL journalling mode, holding committed changes that have not yet been folded back into the main file. Written by SQLite and anything built on it.
- Did you know
- In WAL mode a writer and several readers can work at once, because new changes land in the -wal sidecar first and are only checkpointed into the database later.
- WAL journalling, added in SQLite 3.7.0 in 2010, is often faster than the older rollback journal because a commit simply appends to the log.
- A checkpoint copies the logged pages back into the main database, after which the -wal file can be reset and reused.
- Two random salt values in the header tag every frame of a log, so leftover frames from a previous run are easy to tell apart from current ones.
- What Analyser reads
- Open SQLite databases (.sqlite/.db/.sqlite3) and read their full schema in-browser - every table with its columns and row counts, views, indexes, triggers, the CREATE-statement DDL, and a sample of the largest table. Reads the WAL-mode sidecars too: the Write-Ahead Log (-wal) - page size, salts, frame and committed-transaction counts, and the pages it changed - and the shared-memory index (-shm) - valid frame count, database size and checkpoint progress. Also parses .sql dumps (dialect, tables, columns, INSERT counts) and identifies Microsoft Access (MDB, ACCDB).
- Depth of analysis
- .SQLite-WAL is an identification-grade format: Analyser recognises it from its bytes and decodes the header metadata it carries, rather than opening it in a full viewer. Formats that do get a full viewer are marked "Full" on the formats page.
- Open a .SQLite-WAL file
- Drag a .SQLite-WAL file onto the Analyser home page (or tap to pick one). It is identified entirely in your browser - nothing is uploaded, there is no account, and it works offline once installed.