sqlite3 is chopping/cutting/truncating my text columns

There doesn't appear to be a way to make it automatic, but you can use the .width command to manually specify the column widths.

See here (search the section for .width).

you could just use column (the unix command) like this:

sqlite3 -list -separator "|" -header db.dbs "Select ...." | column -t -s "|"

-list and -separator can be omitted, as they are defaults

Expanding on the answer by zuloo, it is possible to use the interactive prompt and have automatic column widths too.

Apart from column you will also need rlwrap (sudo apt-get install rlwrap if you're on Ubuntu). You run it like this:

rlwrap -a -N -c -z pipeto sqlite3 -header locations.dbs

Or you can put an alias in your .bashrc or similar:

alias sqlite="rlwrap -a -N -c -z pipeto sqlite3 -header"

In the sqlite console, you can run your query like this:

select * from names; | column -n -t -s '|'

Or, to make it nicer, put a script somewhere in your $PATH:

#!/bin/bash
column -n -t -s '|'

Let's say it's called pp, don't forget to make it executable with chmod u+x pp. Then you can use the interactive prompt like this:

select * from names; | pp