Keep only N last records in SQLite database, sorted by date

Question

I have an SQLite database that I need to do the following: Keep only last N records, sorted by date. How do you do that?

Answer 1

According to the SQLite documentation:

If SQLite is compiled with the SQLITE_ENABLE_UPDATE_DELETE_LIMIT compile-time option, then the syntax of the DELETE statement is extended by the addition of optional ORDER BY and LIMIT clauses.

(...)

If the DELETE statement has an ORDER BY clause, then all rows that would be deleted in the absence of the LIMIT clause are sorted according to the ORDER BY. The first M rows, where M is the value found by evaluating the OFFSET clause expression, are skipped, and the following N, where N is the value of the LIMIT expression, are deleted. If there are less than N rows remaining after taking the OFFSET clause into account, or if the LIMIT clause evaluated to a negative value, then all remaining rows are deleted.

This would allow you to write:

DELETE FROM table WHERE expr ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT -1 OFFSET 10