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PRAGMA schema.synchronous; PRAGMA schema.synchronous = 0 | OFF | 1 | NORMAL | 2 | FULL | 3 | EXTRA;
Query or change the setting of the “synchronous” flag
EXTRA
EXTRA synchronous is like FULL with the addition that the directory containing a rollback journal is synced after that journal is unlinked to commit a transaction in DELETE mode. EXTRA provides additional durability if the commit is followed closely by a power loss.
FULL
When synchronous is FULL (2), the SQLite database engine will use the xSync method of the VFS to ensure that all content is safely written to the disk surface prior to continuing. This ensures that an operating system crash or power failure will not corrupt the database. FULL synchronous is very safe, but it is also slower. FULL is the most commonly used synchronous setting when not in WAL mode.
NORMAL
When synchronous is NORMAL (1), the SQLite database engine will still sync at the most critical moments, but less often than in FULL mode. There is a very small (though non-zero) chance that a power failure at just the wrong time could corrupt the database in journal_mode=DELETE on an older filesystem.
OFF
With synchronous OFF (0), SQLite continues without syncing as soon as it has handed data off to the operating system. If the application running SQLite crashes, the data will be safe, but the database might become corrupted if the operating system crashes or the computer loses power before that data has been written to the disk surface. On the other hand, commits can be orders of magnitude faster with synchronous OFF.
In WAL mode when synchronous is NORMAL (1), the WAL file is synchronized before each checkpoint and the database file is synchronized after each completed checkpoint and the WAL file header is synchronized when a WAL file begins to be reused after a checkpoint, but no sync operations occur during most transactions. With synchronous=FULL in WAL mode, an additional sync operation of the WAL file happens after each transaction commit. The extra WAL sync following each transaction help ensure that transactions are durable across a power loss. Transactions are consistent with or without the extra syncs provided by synchronous=FULL. If durability is not a concern, then synchronous=NORMAL is normally all one needs in WAL mode.
The TEMP schema always has synchronous=OFF since the content of of TEMP is ephemeral and is not expected to survive a power outage. Attempts to change the synchronous setting for TEMP are silently ignored.