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authorHans-Christoph Steiner <hans@eds.org>2012-03-30 20:42:12 -0400
committerHans-Christoph Steiner <hans@eds.org>2012-03-30 20:42:12 -0400
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+
+This directory contains source code for the SQLite "ICU" extension, an
+integration of the "International Components for Unicode" library with
+SQLite. Documentation follows.
+
+ 1. Features
+
+ 1.1 SQL Scalars upper() and lower()
+ 1.2 Unicode Aware LIKE Operator
+ 1.3 ICU Collation Sequences
+ 1.4 SQL REGEXP Operator
+
+ 2. Compilation and Usage
+
+ 3. Bugs, Problems and Security Issues
+
+ 3.1 The "case_sensitive_like" Pragma
+ 3.2 The SQLITE_MAX_LIKE_PATTERN_LENGTH Macro
+ 3.3 Collation Sequence Security Issue
+
+
+1. FEATURES
+
+ 1.1 SQL Scalars upper() and lower()
+
+ SQLite's built-in implementations of these two functions only
+ provide case mapping for the 26 letters used in the English
+ language. The ICU based functions provided by this extension
+ provide case mapping, where defined, for the full range of
+ unicode characters.
+
+ ICU provides two types of case mapping, "general" case mapping and
+ "language specific". Refer to ICU documentation for the differences
+ between the two. Specifically:
+
+ http://www.icu-project.org/userguide/caseMappings.html
+ http://www.icu-project.org/userguide/posix.html#case_mappings
+
+ To utilise "general" case mapping, the upper() or lower() scalar
+ functions are invoked with one argument:
+
+ upper('ABC') -> 'abc'
+ lower('abc') -> 'ABC'
+
+ To access ICU "language specific" case mapping, upper() or lower()
+ should be invoked with two arguments. The second argument is the name
+ of the locale to use. Passing an empty string ("") or SQL NULL value
+ as the second argument is the same as invoking the 1 argument version
+ of upper() or lower():
+
+ lower('I', 'en_us') -> 'i'
+ lower('I', 'tr_tr') -> 'ı' (small dotless i)
+
+ 1.2 Unicode Aware LIKE Operator
+
+ Similarly to the upper() and lower() functions, the built-in SQLite LIKE
+ operator understands case equivalence for the 26 letters of the English
+ language alphabet. The implementation of LIKE included in this
+ extension uses the ICU function u_foldCase() to provide case
+ independent comparisons for the full range of unicode characters.
+
+ The U_FOLD_CASE_DEFAULT flag is passed to u_foldCase(), meaning the
+ dotless 'I' character used in the Turkish language is considered
+ to be in the same equivalence class as the dotted 'I' character
+ used by many languages (including English).
+
+ 1.3 ICU Collation Sequences
+
+ A special SQL scalar function, icu_load_collation() is provided that
+ may be used to register ICU collation sequences with SQLite. It
+ is always called with exactly two arguments, the ICU locale
+ identifying the collation sequence to ICU, and the name of the
+ SQLite collation sequence to create. For example, to create an
+ SQLite collation sequence named "turkish" using Turkish language
+ sorting rules, the SQL statement:
+
+ SELECT icu_load_collation('tr_TR', 'turkish');
+
+ Or, for Australian English:
+
+ SELECT icu_load_collation('en_AU', 'australian');
+
+ The identifiers "turkish" and "australian" may then be used
+ as collation sequence identifiers in SQL statements:
+
+ CREATE TABLE aust_turkish_penpals(
+ australian_penpal_name TEXT COLLATE australian,
+ turkish_penpal_name TEXT COLLATE turkish
+ );
+
+ 1.4 SQL REGEXP Operator
+
+ This extension provides an implementation of the SQL binary
+ comparision operator "REGEXP", based on the regular expression functions
+ provided by the ICU library. The syntax of the operator is as described
+ in SQLite documentation:
+
+ <string> REGEXP <re-pattern>
+
+ This extension uses the ICU defaults for regular expression matching
+ behaviour. Specifically, this means that:
+
+ * Matching is case-sensitive,
+ * Regular expression comments are not allowed within patterns, and
+ * The '^' and '$' characters match the beginning and end of the
+ <string> argument, not the beginning and end of lines within
+ the <string> argument.
+
+ Even more specifically, the value passed to the "flags" parameter
+ of ICU C function uregex_open() is 0.
+
+
+2 COMPILATION AND USAGE
+
+ The easiest way to compile and use the ICU extension is to build
+ and use it as a dynamically loadable SQLite extension. To do this
+ using gcc on *nix:
+
+ gcc -shared icu.c `icu-config --ldflags` -o libSqliteIcu.so
+
+ You may need to add "-I" flags so that gcc can find sqlite3ext.h
+ and sqlite3.h. The resulting shared lib, libSqliteIcu.so, may be
+ loaded into sqlite in the same way as any other dynamically loadable
+ extension.
+
+
+3 BUGS, PROBLEMS AND SECURITY ISSUES
+
+ 3.1 The "case_sensitive_like" Pragma
+
+ This extension does not work well with the "case_sensitive_like"
+ pragma. If this pragma is used before the ICU extension is loaded,
+ then the pragma has no effect. If the pragma is used after the ICU
+ extension is loaded, then SQLite ignores the ICU implementation and
+ always uses the built-in LIKE operator.
+
+ The ICU extension LIKE operator is always case insensitive.
+
+ 3.2 The SQLITE_MAX_LIKE_PATTERN_LENGTH Macro
+
+ Passing very long patterns to the built-in SQLite LIKE operator can
+ cause excessive CPU usage. To curb this problem, SQLite defines the
+ SQLITE_MAX_LIKE_PATTERN_LENGTH macro as the maximum length of a
+ pattern in bytes (irrespective of encoding). The default value is
+ defined in internal header file "limits.h".
+
+ The ICU extension LIKE implementation suffers from the same
+ problem and uses the same solution. However, since the ICU extension
+ code does not include the SQLite file "limits.h", modifying
+ the default value therein does not affect the ICU extension.
+ The default value of SQLITE_MAX_LIKE_PATTERN_LENGTH used by
+ the ICU extension LIKE operator is 50000, defined in source
+ file "icu.c".
+
+ 3.3 Collation Sequence Security Issue
+
+ Internally, SQLite assumes that indices stored in database files
+ are sorted according to the collation sequence indicated by the
+ SQL schema. Changing the definition of a collation sequence after
+ an index has been built is therefore equivalent to database
+ corruption. The SQLite library is not very well tested under
+ these conditions, and may contain potential buffer overruns
+ or other programming errors that could be exploited by a malicious
+ programmer.
+
+ If the ICU extension is used in an environment where potentially
+ malicious users may execute arbitrary SQL (i.e. gears), they
+ should be prevented from invoking the icu_load_collation() function,
+ possibly using the authorisation callback.