sqlc: A SQL Compiler
And lo, the Great One looked down upon the people and proclaimed:
"SQL is actually pretty great"
sqlc generates fully-type safe idiomatic Go code from SQL. Here's how it
works:
- You write SQL queries
- You run sqlc to generate Go code that presents type-safe interfaces to those
queries
- You write application code that calls the methods sqlc generated.
Seriously, it's that easy. You don't have to write any boilerplate SQL querying
code ever again.
Preventing Errors
But sqlc doesn't just make you more productive by generating boilerplate for
you. sqlc also prevents entire classes of common errors in SQL code. Have
you ever:
- Mixed up the order of the arguments when invoking the query so they didn't
match up with the SQL text
- Updated the name of a column in one query both not another
- Mistyped the name of a column in a query
- Changed the number of arguments in a query but forgot to pass the additional
values
- Changed the type of a column but forgot to change the type in your code?
All of these errors are impossible with sqlc. Wait, what? How?
sqlc parses all of your queries and the DDL (e.g. CREATE TABLE
)
statements during the code generation processes so that it knows the names and
types of every column in your tables and every expression in your queries. If
any of them do not match, sqlc will fail to compile your queries, preventing
entire classes of runtime problems at compile time.
Likewise, the methods that sqlc generates for you have a strict arity and
correct Go type definitions that match your columns. So if you change a query's
arguments or a column's type but don't update your code, it will fail to
compile.
Getting Started
Okay, enough hype, let's see it in action.
First you pass the following SQL to sqlc generate
:
CREATE TABLE authors (
id BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
name text NOT NULL,
bio text
);
-- name: GetAuthor :one
SELECT * FROM authors
WHERE id = $1 LIMIT 1;
-- name: ListAuthors :many
SELECT * FROM authors
ORDER BY name;
-- name: CreateAuthor :one
INSERT INTO authors (
name, bio
) VALUES (
$1, $2
)
RETURNING *;
-- name: DeleteAuthor :exec
DELETE FROM authors
WHERE id = $1;
And then in your application code you'd write:
// list all authors
authors, err := db.ListAuthors(ctx)
if err != nil {
return err
}
fmt.Println(authors)
// create an author
insertedAuthor, err := db.CreateAuthor(ctx, db.CreateAuthorParams{
Name: "Brian Kernighan",
Bio: sql.NullString{String: "Co-author of The C Programming Language and The Go Programming Language", Valid: true},
})
if err != nil {
return err
}
fmt.Println(insertedAuthor)
// get the author we just inserted
fetchedAuthor, err := db.GetAuthor(ctx, insertedAuthor.ID)
if err != nil {
return err
}
// prints true
fmt.Println(reflect.DeepEqual(insertedAuthor, fetchedAuthor))
To make that possible, sqlc generates readable, idiomatic Go code that you
otherwise would have had to write yourself. Take a look:
package db
import (
"context"
"database/sql"
)
type Author struct {
ID int64
Name string
Bio sql.NullString
}
const createAuthor = `-- name: CreateAuthor :one
INSERT INTO authors (
name, bio
) VALUES (
$1, $2
)
RETURNING id, name, bio
`
type CreateAuthorParams struct {
Name string
Bio sql.NullString
}
func (q *Queries) CreateAuthor(ctx context.Context, arg CreateAuthorParams) (Author, error) {
row := q.db.QueryRowContext(ctx, createAuthor, arg.Name, arg.Bio)
var i Author
err := row.Scan(&i.ID, &i.Name, &i.Bio)
return i, err
}
const deleteAuthor = `-- name: DeleteAuthor :exec
DELETE FROM authors
WHERE id = $1
`
func (q *Queries) DeleteAuthor(ctx context.Context, id int64) error {
_, err := q.db.ExecContext(ctx, deleteAuthor, id)
return err
}
const getAuthor = `-- name: GetAuthor :one
SELECT id, name, bio FROM authors
WHERE id = $1 LIMIT 1
`
func (q *Queries) GetAuthor(ctx context.Context, id int64) (Author, error) {
row := q.db.QueryRowContext(ctx, getAuthor, id)
var i Author
err := row.Scan(&i.ID, &i.Name, &i.Bio)
return i, err
}
const listAuthors = `-- name: ListAuthors :many
SELECT id, name, bio FROM authors
ORDER BY name
`
func (q *Queries) ListAuthors(ctx context.Context) ([]Author, error) {
rows, err := q.db.QueryContext(ctx, listAuthors)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
defer rows.Close()
var items []Author
for rows.Next() {
var i Author
if err := rows.Scan(&i.ID, &i.Name, &i.Bio); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
items = append(items, i)
}
if err := rows.Close(); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
if err := rows.Err(); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return items, nil
}
type DBTX interface {
ExecContext(context.Context, string, ...interface{}) (sql.Result, error)
PrepareContext(context.Context, string) (*sql.Stmt, error)
QueryContext(context.Context, string, ...interface{}) (*sql.Rows, error)
QueryRowContext(context.Context, string, ...interface{}) *sql.Row
}
func New(db DBTX) *Queries {
return &Queries{db: db}
}
type Queries struct {
db DBTX
}
func (q *Queries) WithTx(tx *sql.Tx) *Queries {
return &Queries{
db: tx,
}
}
Examples
Your favorite PostgreSQL / Go features are supported:
- SQL
- PostgreSQL Types
- DDL
- Go
A full, end-to-end example can be found in the sample
ondeck
package.
Usage
Usage:
sqlc [command]
Available Commands:
compile Statically check SQL for syntax and type errors
generate Generate Go code from SQL
help Help about any command
init Create an empty sqlc.yaml settings file
version Print the sqlc version number
Flags:
-h, --help help for sqlc
Use "sqlc [command] --help" for more information about a command.
Settings
The sqlc
tool is configured via a sqlc.yaml
file. This file must be
in the directory where the sqlc
command is run.
version: "1"
packages:
- name: "db"
emit_json_tags: true
emit_prepared_queries: false
emit_interface: true
path: "internal/db"
queries: "./sql/query/"
schema: "./sql/schema/"
Each package document has the following keys:
name
:
- The package name to use for the generated code. Defaults to
path
basename
emit_json_tags
:
- If true, add JSON tags to generated structs. Defaults to
false
.
emit_prepared_queries
:
- If true, include support for prepared queries. Defaults to
false
.
emit_interface
:
- If true, output a
Querier
interface in the generated package. Defaults to false
.
path
:
- Output directory for generated code
queries
:
- Directory of SQL queries or path to single SQL file
schema
:
- Directory of SQL migrations or path to single SQL file
engine
:
- Either
postgresql
or mysql
. Defaults to postgresql
. MySQL support is experimental
Type Overrides
The default mapping of PostgreSQL types to Go types only uses packages outside
the standard library when it must.
For example, the uuid
PostgreSQL type is mapped to github.com/google/uuid
.
If a different Go package for UUIDs is required, specify the package in the
overrides
array. In this case, I'm going to use the github.com/gofrs/uuid
instead.
version: "1"
packages: [...]
overrides:
- go_type: "github.com/gofrs/uuid.UUID"
db_type: "uuid"
Each override document has the following keys:
db_type
:
- The PostgreSQL type to override. Find the full list of supported types in gen.go.
go_type
:
- A fully qualified name to a Go type to use in the generated code.
null
:
- If true, use this type when a column is nullable. Defaults to
false
.
Per-Column Type Overrides
Sometimes you would like to override the Go type used in model or query generation for
a specific field of a table and not on a type basis as described in the previous section.
This may be configured by specifying the column
property in the override definition. column
should be of the form table.column
buy you may be even more specify by specifying schema.table.column
or catalog.schema.table.column
.
version: "1"
packages: [...]
overrides:
- column: "authors.id"
go_type: "github.com/segmentio/ksuid.KSUID"
Package Level Overrides
Overrides can be configured globally, as demonstrated in the previous sections, or they can be configured on a per-package which
scopes the override behavior to just a single package:
version: "1"
packages:
- overrides: [...]
Renaming Struct Fields
Struct field names are generated from column names using a simple algorithm:
split the column name on underscores and capitalize the first letter of each
part.
account -> Account
spotify_url -> SpotifyUrl
app_id -> AppID
If you're not happy with a field's generated name, use the rename
dictionary
to pick a new name. The keys are column names and the values are the struct
field name to use.
version: "1"
packages: [...]
rename:
spotify_url: "SpotifyURL"
Installation
macOS
brew install kyleconroy/sqlc/sqlc
Ubuntu
sudo snap install sqlc
go get
go get github.com/kyleconroy/sqlc/cmd/sqlc
Downloads
Binaries for a given release can be downloaded from the stable channel on
Equinox or the latest GitHub
release.
Tip Releases
Each commit is deployed to the devel
channel on Equinox:
Other Databases and Languages
sqlc currently only supports PostgreSQL / Go. MySQL and Kotlin support have
been merged, but both are marked as experimental. SQLite and TypeScript support
are planned.
Language |
PostgreSQL |
MySQL |
SQLite |
Go |
✅ |
⚠ |
⏲ |
Kotlin |
⚠ |
⏲ |
⏲ |
TypeScript |
⏲ |
⏲ |
⏲ |
If you'd like to add another database or language, we'd welcome a contribution.
sqlc development is funded by our generous sponsors.
If you use sqlc at your company, please consider becoming a
sponsor today.
Sponsors receive priority support via the sqlc Slack organization.
Development
Building
For local development, install sqlc
under an alias. We suggest sqlc-dev
.
go build -o ~/go/bin/sqlc-dev ./cmd/sqlc
Running Tests
To run the tests, include the exp
tag. Without this tag, a few tests will
fail.
go test --tags=exp ./...
To run the tests in the examples folder, a running PostgreSQL instance is
required. The tests use the following environment variables to connect to the
database:
Variable Default Value
-------------------------
PG_HOST 127.0.0.1
PG_PORT 5432
PG_USER postgres
PG_PASSWORD mysecretpassword
PG_DATABASE dinotest
go test --tags=examples,exp ./...
Regenerate exepected test output
If you need to update a large number of expexted test output in the
internal/endtoend/testdata
directory, run the regenerate.sh
script.
./scripts/regenerate.sh
Acknowledgements
sqlc was inspired by PugSQL and
HugSQL.