SQLite3 Terminal Output Formatting .width

Question

This is just purely for eye candy while working with SQLite in the terminal, but is there a way to format column width with headers so that each header is resized appropriately (and independently of the other columns)? In other words, here's the output with

.width auto

for a simple table

Id          Name        Price     
----------  ----------  ----------
1           Audi        52642     
2           Mercedes    57127     
3           Skoda       9000      
4           Volvo       29000     
5           Bentley     350000    
6           Citroen     21000     
7           Hummer      41400     
8           Volkswagen  21600 

It does what I'd expect. It resizes each column so that the longest item in any one column can be displayed. However, I'd like to automatically have the output formatted such that each column is wide enough for the longest item in only its column. In other words, I don't want to have to type in

.width 2 10 5

after the fact to get this output

Id  Name        Price
--  ----------  -----
1   Audi        52642
2   Mercedes    57127
3   Skoda       9000 
4   Volvo       29000
5   Bentley     35000
6   Citroen     21000
7   Hummer      41400
8   Volkswagen  21600

Is there something I can do to automate column sizing correctly?

Answer 1

The sqlite3 tool has no such function.

You would have to compute the column widths by hand (SELECT max(length(col1)) ...).

Answer 2

For "human readable" output, you can use column mode, and turn header output on. That will get you something similar to the sqlplus output in your examples:

sqlite> select * from foo;
234|kshitiz|dba.se

sqlite> .mode column
sqlite> select * from foo;
234         kshitiz     dba.se

sqlite> .headers on
sqlite> select * from foo;
bar         baz         baf
----------  ----------  ----------
234         kshitiz     dba.se