sqlite3 boolean field stored as 't', 'f', not compatible with postgresql - postgresql

Question

I have a User table in sqlite3 with schema:
CREATE TABLE "users" (
"id" INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL,
"email" varchar(255) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
"encrypted_password" varchar(255) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
"admin" boolean,);
Which has a boolean field admin.
I add a user record from rails console:
User.create!({email: "example#example.com", encrypted_password: "sample string", admin:1})
Then when I query user record by the admin field
select * from users where admin=1;
It returns empty result set.
I had a look at sqlite users table, the admin field is saved as string 't' and 'f'.
This cause a problem, when I use custom query in rails, the admin filter is not compatible with sqlite3, which is my test database, and postgresql, which is my dev and production database.
How could I overcome this problem?

Answer 1

If you must use raw SQL, then you should use the same dbms in development, testing, and production. PostgreSQL will run fine on Windows, Linux, and OSX.
This is especially important when it comes to SQLite, which doesn't support data types at all in the way SQL databases do. SQLite allows this kind of literal nonsense.
sqlite> create table test (n integer not null);
sqlite> insert into test values ('wibble');
sqlite> select n from test;
wibble
But the query that's giving you trouble won't run in PostgreSQL anyway. This query
select * from users where admin=1;
will raise an error in PostgreSQL, because the integer 1 isn't a value in the domain of Boolean values. The string '1' is a valid value, though. So this will work.
select * from users where admin='1';
As will this.
select * from users where admin='t';