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Comment by quinthar | Hacker News Reader

In the FAQ it just says "Come on" for SQLite included in the list. Can you provide a bit more detail? This feels like a pretty great option to include here.

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My theory: everybody knows sqlite can be distributed as a single-file library that you can happily embed. However, it's a pretty complex beast compared to the rest of the list and maybe it's outside the vision of the list altogether, which features much simpler projects.

Edit: to be even clearer, sqlite is 100+ .c files. Yes, you can make it one "amalgamated" .c file, but no developer works on that file; they work on the 100+ smaller .c files.

No developer working on SQLite uses the amalgamated file, but developers using SQLite often do use the amalgamated file.

I guess you mean SQLite developers don't use the amalgamation. It is used by users.

The amalgamation is used for instance in the most popular Golang library to provide SQLite engine.

For the record: https://github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3

I was puzzled by that too. I've used the SQLite amalgamation and thought it was a very clever way of avoiding the complexities of libraries. I took inspiration from it in my chess program and amalgamated all my chess primitives into a single file to avoid the pain of a library dependency. It's an inspired idea and deserves better than "come on".

It is a 6MB file produced from several source files.. Does any library count if I concatenate all the source files to a single file?

Well if the rules are:

- Libraries must be usable from C or C++, ideally both

- Libraries should be usable from more than one platform (ideally, all major desktops and/or all major mobile)

- Libraries should compile and work on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms

- Libraries should use at most two files

Then ya, I think it'd fit. I'm not sure why size matters here: the goal is to have libraries that are easily embedded. Anyway, I was mainly curious for the reason. If size is the reason, then that's that. Thanks!

Sure, why not? It's just another distribution method of a library and it seems to fit the criteria.

Why would it matter if the original developer coded everything in a single, huge file or multiple small ones that get distributed as one? Seems arbitrary.

I believe the "any library" should count if it just builds when concatenated. Many won't though.

They also say shame on you if you're using XML, so I suspect some adolescent. Ain't no shame in using XML kiddo

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

On your part, that is.

https://github.com/nothings/single_file_libs/blame/master/RE...

Clearly, I meant evidence for saying that there's no shame in using XML.

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