Capturing data in an SQLite database

Databases are a perfect way to store lots of structured data while maintaining the ability to access and search for specific data. Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standardized set of commands to update and query databases. For this example, we will use SQLite (a lightweight, self-contained implementation of an SQL database system).

In this chapter, we will gather raw data from our ADC (or local data source) and build our own database. We can then use a Python library called sqlite3 to add data to a database and then query it:

   ##            Timestamp  0:Light  1:Temperature   2:External  3:Potentiometer 
    0 2015-06-16 21:30:51      225            212          122              216 
    1  2015-06-16 21:30:52      225            212          148              216 
    2  2015-06-16 21:30:53      225            212          113              216 
    3  2015-06-16 21:30:54      225            212          137              216 
    4  2015-06-16 21:30:55      225            212          142              216 
    5  2015-06-16 21:30:56      225            212          115              216 
    6  2015-06-16 21:30:57      225            212          149              216 
    7  2015-06-16 21:30:58      225            212          128              216 
    8  2015-06-16 21:30:59      225            212          123              216 
    9  2015-06-16 21:31:02      225            212          147              216