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Overview
Installation To use the DuckDB C API, download the
libduckdbarchive for your platform.The latest stable version of the DuckDB C API is 1.5.6.
DuckDB implements a custom C API modeled somewhat following the SQLite C API. The API is contained in the duckdb.h header. Continue to Startup & Shutdown to get started, or check out the Full API overview.
We also provide a SQLite API wrapper which means that if your application is programmed against the SQLite C API, you can re-link to DuckDB and it should continue working. See the shell_helpers.cpp file in our source repository for more information.
Stable C API and C++ API
New DuckDB 2.0 introduces a reworked C API with a stable, versioned ABI, together with a C++ API layered on top of it.
The C API now has a stable, versioned ABI: an extension built against a given DuckDB version keeps working with later releases without recompilation. DuckDB 2.0 also adds a C++ API layered on top of the C API for extension development.
If you maintain an extension built against the previous, unstable C++ API, you must rebuild it for DuckDB 2.0. For details, see the migration guide and Versioning of Extensions.
Installation
The DuckDB C API can be installed as part of the libduckdb packages. Please see the installation page for details.
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