Just to get this into the searchable domain in case anyone else runs into the same errors...

sqlalchemy docs indicate that sqlite "parses foreign key constraints, but does not enforce them". So far, so good. But it doesn't mention (nor could I find any reference to this in sqlite3's own docs) that although *named* foreign key constraints do get passed on through, they will also cause sqlite errors if ill-formed.

test Table definition:

widget_table = Table('widgets', metadata, Column('foo', Integer, primary_key=True), Column('bar', Integer), Column('mergatroid', Integer), ForeignKeyConstraint( ['bar', 'mergatroid'], ['othertable.bar', 'othertable.mergatroid'], name='constraint name of several words'))

^ this will bring Syntax Errors from sqlite. At first I thought it was just the length of the name, but it turns out to be the presence of spaces in the name. Remove the spaces or replace them with underscores, and sqlite lets it through. Of course it's still not enforcing the constraints; but at least it doesn't complain.

I didn't test much farther than that, but I also found that forward- slash characters were not accepted in constraint names.

Obviously a minor concern, and why am I even bothering? Because i'm stuck in sqlite until I can get psycopg2 working in order to migrate to postgresql so I can actually USE these constraints.