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I have a file that contains text. The file is not a text file, it is a SQL file.

I want to open this file with the UTF-8 encoding in order to copy and paste the texts. So far, I'm trying to do it with TeXShop but this app refuses to use the encoding I'm selecting.

Do you know any other software that I could try and use?

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  • TextEdit maybe?
    – nohillside ♦
    Sep 30, 2016 at 11:22
  • Nope it does not work, I guess because the file is not a text file...
    – Colas
    Sep 30, 2016 at 11:27
  • What exactly is a SQL file for you, how was it created in the first place? What is the result of running file FILENAME in Terminal?
    – nohillside ♦
    Sep 30, 2016 at 11:34
  • It is SQLite 3.x database. The file is created by Core Data...
    – Colas
    Sep 30, 2016 at 11:36
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    This is the kind of thing that BBEdit was made for. barebones.com/products/bbedit
    – Ɱark Ƭ
    Sep 30, 2016 at 11:55

2 Answers 2

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This is the kind of thing that BBEdit was made for. BBEdit will open any file and generally do an excellent job of displaying any embedded text. There is even a menu in the bottom control area for every file that allows you to force a particular text encoding. When I first bought BBEdit it was about $130. At its current price of $50 its a steal. I have no affiliation with Barebones Software, except as a satisfied customer.

http://barebones.com/products/bbedit

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    TextWrangler can normally do the same thing for free.
    – Tom Gewecke
    Sep 30, 2016 at 12:58
  • (it worked but not through the menu in the bottom bar)
    – Colas
    Sep 30, 2016 at 13:05
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    @Colas, there is usually more than one way to do it in BBEdit. Glad it worked for you.
    – Ɱark Ƭ
    Sep 30, 2016 at 13:11
  • @TomGewecke, BBEdit has a new business model. It will be fully functional for 30 days and after that will support a reduced feature set. I expect TextWrangler to go away like "BBEdit Lite" did. See the BBEdit 11.6 release notes, sixth paragraph down. barebones.com/company/press/bbedit116_pr.html
    – Ɱark Ƭ
    Sep 30, 2016 at 13:15
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emacs has a hex editor if you are hardcore enough to edit database like that. are you sure you want to do that?

UPD: are you looking for https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18259692/how-to-recover-a-corrupt-sqlite3-database ?

A radical answer addressing the root cause (the database corruption) involves running the database backend in a different address space than the client app. But that would be an expensive revamp.

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  • Anyway, the file is corrupted and has 0 record now... But I can still see the data if I open it in a text editor.
    – Colas
    Sep 30, 2016 at 12:04
  • Ok, are you sure an editor, hex, utf-8 or whatever is the right tool for the job? Ain't there a band aid such as an fsck equivalent for sqlite databases?
    – Anton Tropashko
    Sep 30, 2016 at 12:07
  • I'm not sure of anything but the best I've found so far is BBedit. Thanks for your help!
    – Colas
    Sep 30, 2016 at 12:18
  • if you are doing web why not. it seems to be geared towards that.
    – Anton Tropashko
    Sep 30, 2016 at 12:28

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