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NAME
SQL::Steno - Short hand for SQL and compact output

SYNOPSIS
Type some short-hand, see the corresponding SQL and its output:

steno> TABLE1;somecolumn > 2 -- ; after tables means where
select * from TABLE1 where somecolumn > 2;
prepare: 0.000s execute: 0.073s rows: 14
id|column1 |column2
| | |column3
| | | |somecolumn
----|-------------------------------------------|----|-|-|
27|foo | |a|7|
49|bar |abcd|a|3|
81|baz\nbazinga\nbazurka |jk |b|9|
1984|bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla|xyz |c|5|
...
steno> /abc|foo/#TBL1;.socol > 2 -- /regexp/ grep, #tableabbrev, .columnabbrev
select * from TABLE1 where somecolumn > 2;
prepare: 0.000s execute: 0.039s rows: 14
id|column1
| |column2
| | |[column3=a]
| | |somecolumn
--|---|----|-|
27|foo| |7|
49|bar|abcd|3|
steno> .c1,.c2,.some;#TE1#:ob2d3 -- ; before tables means from, 2nd # alias, :macro
select column1,column2,somecolumn from TABLE1 TE1 order by 2 desc, 3;
...
steno> n(), yr(), cw(,1,2,3) -- functionabbrev before (, can have initial default arg
select count(*), year(now()), concat_ws(',',1,2,3);
...
steno> .col1,.clm2,.sn;#TBL1:jTBL2 u(id);mydate :b :m+3d and :d-w -- :jTABLEABBREV and :+/- family
select column1,column2,somecolumn from TABLE1 join TABLE2 using(id) where mydate
between date_format(now(),"%Y-%m-01")+interval 3 day and curdate()-interval 1 week;
...

DESCRIPTION
You're the command-line type, but are tired of typing "select * from
TABLE where CONDITION", always forgetting the final ";"? Output always
seems far too wide and at least mysql cli messes up the format when it
includes newlines?

This module consists of the function "convert" which implements a
configurable ultra-compact language that maps to SQL. Then there is
"run" which performs normal SQL queries but has various tricks for
narrowing the output. It can also grep on whole rows, rather than having
to list all fields that you expect to match. They get combined by the
function "shell" which converts and runs in an endless loop.

This is work in progress, only recently isolated from a monolithic
script. Language elements and API may change as the need arises, e.g.
":macro" used to be @macro, till the day I wanted to use an SQL-variable
and noticed the collision. In this early stage, you are more than
welcome to propose ammendments, especially if they make the language
more powerful and/or more consistent. Defaults are for MariaDB/MySQL,
though the mechanism also works with other DBs.

convert
This function takes a short-hand query in $_ and transforms it to SQL.
See "shell" for more run time oriented features.

":\*namespec*(*strings*)" or ":\*namespec*%*join*(*strings*)"
This is a special macro that transforms odd lists to SQL syntax. It
takes a list of unquoted strings and quotes each one of them in various
ways. The syntax is inspired by the Shell single character quote and
Perl's "\(...)" syntax. The *namespec* is a combination of an optional
*name* (set up with the Perl function "Quote"), followed by an optional
*spec* that extends the named spec. The *strings* can get split on a
variety of one or even simultaneously various characters, which you can
give in any order in the *spec*:

"\" (backslash)
This one isn't a character to split on, but rather prevents trimming
the whitespace of both ends of the resulting strings.

"," (comma), the default
You only need to specify it, if you want to split on commas, as well
as other characters, at the same time.

" " (space)
This one stands for any single whitespace. Since strings are
normally trimmed, it's the equivalent of what the Shell does. But,
if you combine it with "\", which prevents trimming, you will get an
empty string between each of multiple whitespaces.

"-" (minus)
":" (colon)
";" (semicolon)
"." (period)
"/" (slash)

The *spec* can also contain several of these characters to prevent
certain strings from being quoted:

"#" (hash)
All numbers, including signed, floats, binary and hexadecimal stay
literal. If you use "-" as a separator, there can be no negative
numbers.

"?" (question mark)
The boolean values "true" and "false" stay literal.

"ω" (omega) or "^" (caret)
The value "null" stays literal. Note that "ω" is also a word
character, that would be part of a name at the beginning of
*namespec*. It is only the "null"-symbol following some non-word
character, e.g. "," (comma).

"@" (at sign)
Variables @name stay literal.

"!" (exclamation mark)
Everything, presumed valid sql syntax, stays literal.

And you can give at most one *spec* for the quotes to use:

"'" (quote), the default
""" (double quote)
"`" (backquote)
"[]" (brackets)
"{}" (braces)
In the latter two cases, the closing quotes are optional, for
decoration only, or if code completion adds them.

The results are joined by comma, unless *join* is given. E.g. ":\(a,b,
c,NULL,true,-1.2)" gives 'a','b','c','NULL','true','-1.2', while
":\:"/\#?0(a:b/ c:NULL:true/-1.2)" gives ""a","b"," c",NULL,true,-1.2"
and ":\ !%&&(a b c)" gives "a&&b&&c".

":*macro*"
These are mostly simple text-replacements stored in %Macros. Unlike ":\"
these do not take arguments. There are also some dynamic macros. Those
starting with ":j" (join) or ":lj" (left join) may continue into a table
spec without the leading "#". E.g. ":ljtbl#t" might expand to "left join
table t".

Those starting with ":gb" (group by) or ":ob" (order by) may be followed
by result columns numbers from 1-9, each optionally followed by a or d
for asc or desc. E.g. ":ob2d3" gives "order by 2 desc, 3".

":+*interval*" or ":*time*+*interval*" or ":-*interval*" or ":*time*-*interval*"
These are time calculation macros, where an optional leading letter
indicates a base time, and an optional trailing letter with an optional
count means the offset. The letters are:

y (this) year(start). E.g. ":y+2m" is march this year.

q (this) quarter(start). E.g. ":q+0" is this quarter, ":q+q" is next
quarter.

m (this) month(start). E.g. ":-3m" is whatever precedes, minus 3
months.

w (this) week(start). E.g. ":w+3d" is this week thursday (or wednesday
if you set $weekstart to not follow ISO 8601 and the bible).

d (this) day(start). E.g. ":d-w" is midnight one week ago.

h (this) hour(start). E.g. ":h+30M" is half past current hour.

M (this) minute(start). E.g. ":+10M" is whatever precedes, plus 10min.

s (this) second. E.g. ":s-2h" is exactly 2h ago.

":{*Perl code*}"
This gets replaced by what it returns.

"#*tbl*" or "#*tbl*#" or "#*tbl*#*alias*"
Here *tbl* is a key of %Tables or any abbreviation of known tables in
@Tables. If followed by "#", the abbreviation is used as an alias,
unless an *alias* directly follows, in which case that is used.

".*col*" or ".*col*." or ".*col*.*alias*"
Here *col* is a key of %Columns or any abbreviation of columns of any
table recognized in the query. If followed by ".", the abbreviation is
used as an alias, unless an *alias* directly follows, in which case that
is used. It tries to be clever about whether the 1st "." needs to be
preserved, i.e. following a table name.

"*func*(" or "*func*\*namespec*(*strings*)"
or "*func*\*namespec*%*join*(*strings*)"
Here *func* is a key of %Functions or any abbreviation of known
functions in @Functions, which includes words typically followed by an
opening parenthesis, such as "u(" for "using(". "i(" becomes "in(",
whereas "in(" becomes "ifnull(".

If the 2nd or 3rd form is used, the *strings* inside of the parentheses
are treated just like ":\*namespec*(*strings*)", but in this case
preserving the parentheses.

If the 1st argument of a function is empty and the abbrev or function is
found in %DefaultArguments the value becomes the 1st argument. E.g.
"cw(,'a','b','c')" or "cw(,:\(a,b,c))" both become
"concat_ws(',','a','b','c')".

Abbreviated Keyword
Finally it picks on the structure of the statement: These keywords can
be abbreviated: "se(lect)", "ins(ert)", "upd(ate)" or "del(ete)". If
none of these or "set" is present, "select" is assumed as default (more
keywords need to be recognized in the future).

For "select", semicolons are alternately replaced by "from" (the 1st
being optional if it starts with a table name) and "where". If no result
columns are given, they default to "*", see "SYNOPSIS". For "update",
semicolons are frst replaced by "set" and then "where".

shell
This function reads, converts and (if $dbh is set) runs in an end-less
loop (i.e. till end of file or "^D"). Reading is a single line affair,
unless you request otherwise. This can happen either, as in Unix Shell,
by using continuation lines as long as you put a backslash at the end of
your lines. Or there is a special case, if the 1st line starts with
"\\", then everything up to "\\" at the end of one of the next lines,
constitutes one entry.

In addition to converting, it offers a few extra features, performed in
this order (i.e. "&*xyz*" can return "/*regexp*/=*literal sql*" etc.):

"&{*Perl code*} *following text*"
Run *Perl code*. It sees the optional *following text* in $_ and may
modify it. If it returns "undef", this statement is skipped. If it
returns a DBI statement handle, run that instead of this statement. Else
replace with what it returns.

Reprocess result as a shell entry (i.e. it may return another
"&*query*").

"&*query arg*; ..." or "&*query*( *arg*; ... ) *following text*"
These allow canned entries and are more complex than macros, in that
they take arguments and replacement can depend on the argument.

Reprocess result as a shell entry (i.e. it may return another
"&*query*").

You can define your own canned queries with:

" &{ Query *name* => '*doc*', '*query*' }"

Here "query" becomes the replacement string for &name. It may contain
arguments a bit like the Shell: $0 (*name*), $* (all arguments), "$1,
$2, ..., $10, ..." (individual arguments) and $> (all arguments not
adressed individually). They can become quoted like ":\" as
"$\*namespec**arg*" or "$\*namespec*%*join**arg*". Here *arg* is "*",
">" or a number directly tacked on to *spec* or *join*. E.g.: "$\-"1"
splits the 1st (semi-colon separated from the 2nd) argument itself on
"-" (minus), quotes the pieces with """ (double quote) and joins them
with "," (comma). Putting the quotes inside the argument like this,
eliminates them, if no argument is given.

"/*regexp*/ *statement*" or "/*regexp*/i *statement*" or "!/*regexp*/ *statement*" or "!/*regexp*/i *statement*"
This will treat the *statement* normally, but will join each output row
into a "~" (tilde) separated string for matching. NULL fields are
rendered as that string. E.g. to return only rows starting with a number
1-5, followed by a NULL field, you could write: "/^[1-5]~NULL~/".

With a suffix "i", matching becomes case insensitive. This is why the
mostly optional space before *statement* is shown above. Without an "i",
but if the statement starts with the word "i" (e.g. your first column
name), you must separate it with a space. With an "i", if the statement
starts with an alphanumeric caracter, you must separate it with a space.

Only matching rows are considered unless there is a preceding "!"
(exclamation mark), in which case only non-matching rows are considered.

You can provide your own formatting of the row by setting $regexp_fail
to a Perl sub that returns a Perl expression as a string. That
expression takes the row in @_ and shall be true if the row fails to
match.

Caveat: the whole result set of the *statement* gets generated and
transferred to the client. This is definitely much more expensive than
doing the equivalent filtering in the where clause. But it is not a big
deal for tens or maybe hundreds of thousands or rows, probably still
faster than writing the corresponding SQL. And Perl's regexps are so
much more powerful.

"{*Perl code*}*statement*"
Call *Perl code* for every output row returned by the *statement* with
the array of column names as zeroth argument and the values after that
(i.e. numbered from 1 like in SQL). It may modify individual values. If
it returns false, the row is skipped.

You may combine "/*regexp*/{*Perl code*}" in any order and as many of
them as you want.

The same caveat as for regexps applies here. But again Perl is far more
powerful than any SQL functions.

"=*literal sql*"
A preceding "=" prevents conversion, useful for hitherto untreated
keywords or where the conversion doesn't play well with your intention.

"?"
Help prefix. Alone it will give an overview. You can follow up with any
of the special syntaxes, with or without an abbreviation. E.g. "?(" will
show all function abbreviations, whereas "?*abbrev*(" will show only
those functions matching abbrev or "?#*abbrev*" only those tables
matching abbrev.

"??*statement*"
Will convert and show, but not perform *statement*. If $dbh is not set,
this is the default behaviour.

"!*System Shell code*"
Run *System Shell code*.

">*filename*" or ">>*filename*"
Redirect or append next statement's output to *filename*. For known
suffixes and options, see the next section.

"|*System Shell code*"
Pipe next statement's output through *System Shell code*.

Output Formats
The output format for the next SQL statement that is run, is chosen from
the suffix of a redirection or a special suffix query. In both cases
comma-separated options may be passed:

>*filename*.*suffix*
>*filename*.*suffix*( *opt*; ... )
>>*filename*.*suffix*
>>*filename*.*suffix*( *opt*; ... )
&.*suffix opt*; ...
&.*suffix*( *opt*; ... ) following text

The known suffixes and their respective options are:

".csv"
This writes Comma Separated Values with one subtle trick: NULL and
empty strings are distinguished by quoting the latter. Some tools
like Perl's file DB DBD::CSV or rather its underlying Text::CSV_XS
can pick that up. CSV can take one of these options:

semi
Use a semicolon as a separator. This is a common format in
environments where the comma is the decimal separator. However
if you want decimal commas, you must provide such formatting
yourself.

tab Use tabulators as column separators. Apart from that you get the
full CSV formatting, so this is not the primitive .tsv format
some tools may have.

".table"
This is the default table format. But you need to name it, if you
want to set options.

all This is a shorthand for outputting everything in the long form,
equivalent to "( NULL, crlf, date )".

crlf
Do not shorten "\r\n" to "\R".

date
Output ISO dates fully instead of shortening 0000-00-00 to 0000-
and yyyy-01-01 to yyyy- or yyyy-mm-01 to yyyy-mm-.

time
Output times fully instead of shortening 23:59(:59) to 24: and
hh:00(:00) to hh: or hh:mm(:00) to hh:mm.

NULL
null
Output this keyword instead of the shorter "ω" from DB theory
(or whatever you assigned to $NULL).

".yaml"
".yml"
Format output as YAML. This format has no options. Because its every
value on a new line format can be more readable, there is a
shorthand query "&-" for it.

YOUR SCRIPT
package SQL::Steno; # doesn't export yet, so get the functions easily
use SQL::Steno;
use DBI;
our $dbh = DBI->connect( ... ); # preferably mysql, but other DBs should work (with limitations).
# If you want #tbl and .col to work, (only) one of:
init_from_query; # fast, defaults to mysql information_schema, for which you need read permission
init; # slow, using DBI dbh methods.
# Set any of the variables mentioned above to get you favourite abbreviations.
shell;

LICENSE
This program is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO
DBI, SQL::Interp, SQL::Preproc, SQL::Yapp, Jade <http://jade-lang.com/>

AUTHOR
(C) 2015, 2016 by Daniel Pfeiffer <[email protected]>.