Finding the SQLite version used by Web SQL in Chrome#

Google Chrome still includes support for Web SQL, the long since abandoned proposed standard for shipping a SQL engine in browser JavaScript. I was reminded of its existence today while reading about the new official sqlite3 wasm build.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see what version of SQLite was bundled with Chrome. I assumed it would be a very old version, since Web SQL is an idea from a long time ago now.

I used GitHub Copilot to write the code, so I wouldn’t have to look up the APIs myself. I typed these two comments:

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// Instantiate a new WebSQL database
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...
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// Execute a SQL query returning sqlite_version()

Copilot completed the following:

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// Instantiate a new WebSQL database
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var db = openDatabase('mydb', '1.0', 'Test DB', 2 * 1024 * 1024);
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// Execute a SQL query returning sqlite_version()
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db.transaction(function (tx) {
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  tx.executeSql(
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    'SELECT sqlite_version()',
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    [],
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    function (tx, results) {
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      console.log(results.rows.item(0));
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    }
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  );
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});

I pasted that into my Chrome DevTools console… and got the following result:

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{sqlite_version(): '3.39.4'}

This surprised my greatly, because SQLite 3.39.4 is the most recent release, and only came out a month ago on the 29th of September 2022!

I had a look on GitHub and found this commit from the 30th of September which bumps the version of SQLite included in Chromium.

My Chrome is version 107.0.5304.62 - I found the SQLite 3.39.4 upgrade mentioned in this log of commits between v106 and v107, which was linked to from this release post.