How to load sqlite extension in PDO?

Question

First, I want to inform about the case to avoid the misunderstanding.

By sqlite extension, I mention Sqlite's extension like FTS, not PHP's sqlite extension.

I have been using PDO Sqlite in my application, it cannot be changed.

As I saw here, Sqlite extensions can be loaded as query seen below:

SELECT load_extension('xyz.so');
$db = new PDO ( 'sqlite:qwert.db' );
$db->query("SELECT load_extension('myextension.so');");
$db->query("SELECT myfunction(name) FROM table");
$rows = $db->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_CLASS, 'stdClass');

Note: myfunction is method of myextension

But when I test with this query from PDO, it return "not authorized" message.

For only testing purpose, I tried PHP's Sqlite3 extension to load the extension by using the code below:

$db = new SQLite3('qwer.db');
$db->loadExtension('xyz.so');

It works

As I know that PDO Sqlite hasnot a method like loadExtension for loading extensions

Any idea how can I handle this?

Answer 1

I have implemented a library with a solution for this problem for PHP 7.4+ which does not involve recompiling the PDO driver. In short, it uses PHP's FFI extension and Z-Engine (which reads PHP's internal memory structures using FFI) to make a direct call to the SQLite C API. You can find more detailed background information in this blog post. I would not recommend this solution in production yet, but it could be a feasible workaround for test or development workflows.