sqlite-viz

A Rust CLI tool that parses SQLite database files and generates interactive HTML visualizations of the B-tree structure.

Features

• Direct SQLite parsing - No libsqlite3 dependency, parses the file format directly
• Interactive B-tree visualization - Tree and force-directed graph views using D3.js
• Page structure inspector - Byte-level view of page contents with clickable cells
• Cell content views - Pretty, Hex dump, and ASCII representations
• Filter by table/index - Select specific B-trees to visualize
• Overflow chain tracking - Visual indication of overflow pages

Installation

cargo build --release

The binary will be at target/release/sqlite-viz.

Usage

Generate visualization

sqlite-viz viz <DATABASE> [-o output.html]

Options:

• -o, --output <FILE> - Output HTML file (default: <database>_viz.html)

Example:

sqlite-viz viz mydb.sqlite -o visualization.html

Show database info

sqlite-viz info <DATABASE> [-v]

Options:

• -v, --verbose - Show detailed information including all tables and indexes

Dump to text file

Dump database structure to a human-readable text file for debugging:

sqlite-viz dump <DATABASE> [-o output.txt] [-t tree_name] [-p page_num]

Options:

• -o, --output <FILE> - Output file (default: <database>.dump.txt)
• -t, --tree <NAME> - Dump specific B-tree(s) by name (repeatable)
• -p, --page <NUM> - Dump specific page(s) by number (repeatable)

Examples:

# Dump entire database
sqlite-viz dump mydb.sqlite

# Dump only the users table
sqlite-viz dump mydb.sqlite -t users

# Dump specific pages
sqlite-viz dump mydb.sqlite -p 1 -p 2

The dump includes:

• Database header (page size, encoding, SQLite version, etc.)
• Schema overview with SQL definitions
• B-tree structure showing pages at each level
• Page details (header, cell pointers, free space)
• Cell contents with column types and values
• Hex+ASCII view of raw page bytes

Visualization Features

Main View

• Sidebar - Database info and schema list (tables/indexes)
• Tree/Force view - Toggle between hierarchical tree and force-directed graph
• Page details panel - Click any node to see page info and cells
• Zoom controls - Zoom in/out and reset

Page Structure View

Click "View Page Structure" on any page to see:

• Byte grid - Visual representation of the entire page
  • Yellow: Page header
  • Orange: Cell pointers
  • Blue: Cell content
  • Red: Overflow cells
  • Gray: Free space
• Cell labels - Shows pointer order (P#) and physical order (→#)
• Selection info - Click cells or pointers for detailed info
• Content tabs - Pretty (parsed), Hex dump, ASCII views

Color Legend

Color	Page Type
Blue	Interior Table
Green	Leaf Table
Purple	Interior Index
Teal	Leaf Index
Red	Overflow

SQLite Format Support

• Page sizes from 512 to 65536 bytes
• All B-tree page types (interior/leaf, table/index)
• Overflow page chains
• All serial types (NULL, integers, floats, blobs, text)
• UTF-8, UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE text encodings

Other

This was built using Claude Code, and in part inspired by https://sqlite-internal.pages.dev/.

License

MIT