Overview

sq is the missing tool for wrangling data. A swiss-army knife for data.

sq provides a jq-style syntax to query, join, migrate, and export data from a variety of data sources, such as Postgres, SQLite, SQL Server, MySQL, Excel or CSV, with the ability to fall back to actual SQL for trickier work. In essence, sq treats every data source as if it were a SQL database. sq also provides several handy commands such as inspect, ping, or tbl copy.

Key Concepts

  • sq is the command-line utility itself.
  • A source is a specific data source such as a database instance, or Excel or CSV file etc. Each source has a:
    • driver: such as postgres, sqlserver, csv, or xlsx.
    • location: URI or filepath of the source, such as postgres://sakila:****@localhost/sakila or /Users/neilotoole/sq/xl_demo.xlsx.
    • handle: this is how sq refers to that particular source, e.g. @sakila_pg, @prod/customer or @xl_demo. The handle must begin with @.
  • Active Source is the default source upon which sq acts if no other source is specified.
  • sq inspect returns metadata about your source, such as table names or number of rows.

Read more in Concepts.

Quick start

  1. Install sq.
  2. Add a data source. We’ll download and use a sample SQLite database file.
    # Download the sample db
$ wget https://sq.io/testdata/sakila.db

# Add the source
$ sq add ./sakila.db --handle @demo
@demo  sqlite3  sakila.db
  3. Inspect the source:
    $ sq inspect @demo
SOURCE  DRIVER   NAME       FQ NAME         SIZE   TABLES  VIEWS  LOCATION
@demo   sqlite3  sakila.db  sakila.db/main  5.6MB  16      5      sqlite3:///Users/neilotoole/work/sq/sq/sakila.db

NAME                    TYPE   ROWS   COLS
actor                   table  200    actor_id, first_name, last_name, last_update
address                 table  603    address_id, address, address2, district, city_id, postal_code, phone, last_update
category                table  16     category_id, name, last_update
[...]
  4. Run a query, getting the first three rows of the actor table:
    $ sq '@demo.actor | .[0:3]'
actor_id  first_name  last_name  last_update
1         PENELOPE    GUINESS    2020-02-15T06:59:28Z
2         NICK        WAHLBERG   2020-02-15T06:59:28Z
3         ED          CHASE      2020-02-15T06:59:28Z
  5. Run the query again, but output in a different format:
    $ sq '@demo.actor | .[0:3]' --jsonl
{"actor_id": "1", "first_name": "PENELOPE", "last_name": "GUINESS", "last_update": "2020-02-15T06:59:28Z"}
{"actor_id": "2", "first_name": "NICK", "last_name": "WAHLBERG", "last_update": "2020-02-15T06:59:28Z"}
{"actor_id": "3", "first_name": "ED", "last_name": "CHASE", "last_update": "2020-02-15T06:59:28Z"}

Next, read the tutorial.

Commands

Use sq help to list the available commands, or consult the reference for each command.

Available Commands:
  add         Add data source
  src         Get or set active data source
  group       Get or set active group
  ls          List sources and groups
  mv          Move/rename sources and groups
  rm          Remove data source or group
  inspect     Inspect data source schema and stats
  ping        Ping data sources
  sql         Execute DB-native SQL query or statement
  tbl         Useful table actions (copy, truncate, drop)
  diff        BETA: Compare sources, or tables
  driver      Manage drivers
  config      Manage config
  completion  Generate shell completion script
  version     Show version info
  help        Show help

Flags:
  -f, --format string                  Specify output format (default "text")
  -t, --text                           Output text
  -h, --header                         Print header row (default true)
  -H, --no-header                      Don't print header row
      --help                           Show help
  -j, --json                           Output JSON
  -A, --jsona                          Output LF-delimited JSON arrays
  -J, --jsonl                          Output LF-delimited JSON objects
  -C, --csv                            Output CSV
      --tsv                            Output TSV
      --html                           Output HTML table
      --markdown                       Output Markdown
  -r, --raw                            Output each record field in raw format without any encoding or delimiter
  -x, --xlsx                           Output Excel XLSX
      --xml                            Output XML
  -y, --yaml                           Output YAML
  -c, --compact                        Compact instead of pretty-printed output
      --format.datetime string         Timestamp format: constant such as RFC3339 or a strftime format (default "RFC3339")
      --format.datetime.number         Render numeric datetime value as number instead of string (default true)
      --format.date string             Date format: constant such as DateOnly or a strftime format (default "DateOnly")
      --format.date.number             Render numeric date value as number instead of string (default true)
      --format.time string             Time format: constant such as TimeOnly or a strftime format (default "TimeOnly")
      --format.time.number             Render numeric time value as number instead of string (default true)
      --format.excel.datetime string   Timestamp format string for Excel datetime values (default "yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm")
      --format.excel.date string       Date format string for Excel date-only values (default "yyyy-mm-dd")
      --format.excel.time string       Time format string for Excel time-only values (default "hh:mm:ss")
  -o, --output string                  Write output to <file> instead of stdout
      --insert string                  Insert query results into @HANDLE.TABLE. If not existing, TABLE will be created.
      --src string                     Override the active source for this query
      --ingest.driver string           Explicitly specify the driver to use for ingesting data
      --ingest.header                  Treat first row of ingest data as header
      --driver.csv.empty-as-null       Treat empty CSV fields as null (default true)
      --driver.csv.delim string        CSV delimiter: one of comma, space, pipe, tab, colon, semi, period (default "comma")
      --version                        Print version info
  -M, --monochrome                     Don't colorize output
  -v, --verbose                        Verbose output
      --config string                  Load config from here
      --log                            Enable logging
      --log.file string                Path to log file; empty disables logging
      --log.level string               Log level: one of DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR

Issues

File any bug reports or other issues here. When filing a bug report, submit a log file.

Config

sq is highly configurable. See the config section.

Logging

By default, sq logging is disabled. See the logging section to learn how to enable logging.

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