[Discussion] - Should we retire the backwards compatibility to versions < 3.35 of SQLite
Versions of SQLite prior to 3.35 do not support the RETURNING
statement which we often use to return a newly created ID during an INSERT
statement. We have accommodated earlier versions in exposure-lib by inserting a dataset and then retrieving the ID separately if the SQLite installation doesn’t support the RETURNING
statement.
This works nicely when the inserted dataset can easily be identified using integer values. However, I see three reasons to retire this backwards compatibility:
- Versions prior to 3.35 are really old and I doubt that many people still use them.
- We can simplify the codes that rely on the
RETURNING
statement. - A new function in exposure-lib is inserting geographic points into a table and retrieving the ID would require identifying the dataset by the geometry. I am afraid that this may not work properly as floating-point values are used to define geometries. This can cause rounding problems that would cause problems in finding the respective dataset to retrieve the ID.