Comment 5 for bug 178906

Ok Brian, you're right for some parts. Upstream PHP DOES support SQLite3, through PDO indeed and I think the same way about the unsupported "classic" interface to SQLite3.

Although you're right about the PDO driver not being installed unless SQLite2 package is installed, it must be noted that this PDO driver is only valid for old SQLite2 databases. You _WON'T_ open any SQLite3 database with this PDO driver.

In fact, we have the same problem, our inability to use SQLite3 databases in a way natively supported by PHP (PDO::SQLite3).

Currently, the only way to manipulate SQLite3 databases is to install package "php5-sqlite3" which comes from a different project, not from PHP itself.

Debian/Ubuntu PHP packages should provide SQLite3 support using PDO and I don't know why this isn't the case currently.

PS: I have the same problem with Gentoo distribution. There's a USE flag named "sqlite" which builds a "pdo_sqlite.so" but can only handle SQLite2 databases. Strangely enough, building (emerging) PHP on Gentoo with "sqlite" USE flag imposes a dependency on both "sqlite-2.x" and "sqlite-3.x"
 packages (ebuilds).