alasql
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AlaSQL
AlaSQL - ( [à la](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0la) SQL ) [ælæ ɛskju:ɛl]_ - is an open source SQL database for JavaScript with a strong focus on query speed and data source flexibility for both relational data and schemaless data. It works in the web browser, Node.js, and mobile apps.
This library is perfect for:
- Fast in-memory SQL data processing for BI and ERP applications on fat clients
- Easy ETL and options for persistence by data import / manipulation / export of several formats
- All major browsers, Node.js, and mobile applications
We focus on speed by taking advantage of the dynamic nature of JavaScript when building up queries. Real-world solutions demand flexibility regarding where data comes from and where it is to be stored. We focus on flexibility by making sure you can import/export and query directly on data stored in Excel (both .xls and .xlsx), CSV, JSON, TAB, IndexedDB, LocalStorage, and SQLite files.
The library adds the comfort of a full database engine to your JavaScript app. No, really - it's working towards a full database engine complying with most of the SQL-99 language, spiced up with additional syntax for NoSQL (schema-less) data and graph networks.
Traditional SQL Table
/* create SQL Table and add data */
alasql("CREATE TABLE cities (city string, pop number)");
alasql("INSERT INTO cities VALUES ('Paris',2249975),('Berlin',3517424),('Madrid',3041579)");
/* execute query */
var res = alasql("SELECT * FROM cities WHERE pop < 3500000 ORDER BY pop DESC");
// res = [ { "city": "Madrid", "pop": 3041579 }, { "city": "Paris", "pop": 2249975 } ]Array of Objects
var data = [ {a: 1, b: 10}, {a: 2, b: 20}, {a: 1, b: 30} ];
var res = alasql('SELECT a, SUM(b) AS b FROM ? GROUP BY a',[data]);
// res = [ { "a": 1, "b": 40},{ "a": 2, "b": 20 } ]Spreadsheet
// file is read asynchronously (Promise returned when SQL given as array)
alasql(['SELECT * FROM XLS("./data/mydata") WHERE lastname LIKE "A%" and city = "London" GROUP BY name '])
.then(function(res){
console.log(res); // output depends on mydata.xls
}).catch(function(err){
console.log('Does the file exist? There was an error:', err);
});Bulk Data Load
alasql("CREATE TABLE example1 (a INT, b INT)");
// alasql's data store for a table can be assigned directly
alasql.tables.example1.data = [
{a:2,b:6},
{a:3,b:4}
];
// ... or manipulated with normal SQL
alasql("INSERT INTO example1 VALUES (1,5)");
var res = alasql("SELECT * FROM example1 ORDER BY b DESC");
console.log(res); // [{a:2,b:6},{a:1,b:5},{a:3,b:4}]If you are familiar with SQL, it should be no surprise that proper use of indexes on your tables is essential for good performance.
Options
AlaSQL has several configuration options which change the behavior. It can be set via SQL statements or via the options object before using alasql.
If you're using NOW() in queries often, setting alasql.options.dateAsString to false speed things up. It will just return a JS Date object instead of a string representation of a date.
Installation
yarn add alasql # yarn
npm install alasql # npm
npm install -g alasql # global install of command line toolFor the browsers: include alasql.min.js
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/alasql@4"></script>Getting started
See the "Getting started" section of the wiki
More advanced topics are covered in other wiki sections like "Data manipulation" and in questions on Stack Overflow
Other links:
Documentation: Github wiki
Library CDN: jsDelivr.com
Feedback: Open an issue
Try online: Playground
Website: alasql.org
Please note
All contributions are extremely welcome and greatly appreciated(!) - The project has never received any funding and is based on unpaid voluntary work: We really (really) love pull requests
The AlaSQL project depends on your contribution of code and may have bugs. So please, submit any bugs and suggestions as an issue.
Please check out the limitations of the library.
Performance
AlaSQL is designed for speed and includes some of the classic SQL engine optimizations:
- Queries are cached as compiled functions
- Joined tables are pre-indexed
WHEREexpressions are pre-filtered for joins
See more performance-related info on the wiki
Features you might like
Traditional SQL
Use "good old" SQL on your data with multiple levels of: JOIN, VIEW, GROUP BY, UNION, PRIMARY KEY, ANY, ALL, IN, ROLLUP(), CUBE(), GROUPING SETS(), CROSS APPLY, OUTER APPLY, WITH SELECT, and subqueries. The wiki lists supported SQL statements and keywords.
User-Defined Functions in your SQL
You can use all benefits of SQL and JavaScript together by defining your own custom functions. Just add new functions to the alasql.fn object:
alasql.fn.myfn = function(a,b) {
return a*b+1;
};
var res = alasql('SELECT myfn(a,b) FROM one');You can also define your own aggregator functions (like your own SUM(...)). See more in the wiki
Compiled statements and functions
var ins = alasql.compile('INSERT INTO one VALUES (?,?)');
ins(1,10);
ins(2,20);See more in the wiki
SELECT against your JavaScript data
Group your JavaScript array of objects by field and count number of records in each group:
var data = [{a:1,b:1,c:1},{a:1,b:2,c:1},{a:1,b:3,c:1}, {a:2,b:1,c:1}];
var res = alasql('SELECT a, COUNT(*) AS b FROM ? GROUP BY a', [data] );See more ideas for creative data manipulation in the wiki
JavaScript Sugar
AlaSQL extends "good old" SQL to make it closer to JavaScript. The "sugar" includes:
Write Json objects -
{a:'1',b:@['1','2','3']}Access object properties -
obj->property->subproperty- Access object and arrays elements -
obj->(a*1) - Access JavaScript functions -
obj->valueOf() - Format query output with
SELECT VALUE, ROW, COLUMN, MATRIX - ES5 multiline SQL with
var SQL = function(){/*SELECT 'MY MULTILINE SQL'*/}and pass instead of SQL string (will not work if you compress your code)
Read and write Excel and raw data files
You can import from and export to CSV, TAB, TXT, and JSON files. File extensions can be omitted. Calls to files will always be asynchronous so multi-file queries should be chained:
var tabFile = 'mydata.tab';
alasql.promise([
"SELECT * FROM txt('MyFile.log') WHERE [0] LIKE 'M%'", // parameter-less query
[ "SELECT * FROM tab(?) ORDER BY [1]", [tabFile] ], // [query, array of params]
"SELECT [3] AS city,[4] AS population FROM csv('./data/cities')",
"SELECT * FROM json('../config/myJsonfile')"
]).then(function(results){
console.log(results);
}).catch(console.error);Read SQLite database files
AlaSQL can read (but not write) SQLite data files using SQL.js library:
<script src="alasql.js"></script>
<script src="sql.js"></script>
<script>
alasql([
'ATTACH SQLITE DATABASE Chinook("Chinook_Sqlite.sqlite")',
'USE Chinook',
'SELECT * FROM Genre'
]).then(function(res){
console.log("Genres:",res.pop());
});
</script>sql.js calls will always be asynchronous.
AlaSQL works in the console - CLI
The node module ships with an alasql command-line tool:
$ npm install -g alasql ## install the module globally
$ alasql -h ## shows usage information
$ alasql "SET @data = @[{a:'1',b:?},{a:'2',b:?}]; SELECT a, b FROM @data;" 10 20
[ 1, [ { a: 1, b: 10 }, { a: 2, b: 20 } ] ]
$ alasql "VALUE OF SELECT COUNT(*) AS abc FROM TXT('README.md') WHERE LENGTH([0]) > ?" 140
// Number of lines with more than 140 characters in README.mdMore examples are included in the wiki
Features you might love
AlaSQL ♥ D3.js
AlaSQL plays nice with d3.js and gives you a convenient way to integrate a specific subset of your data with the visual powers of D3. See more about D3.js and AlaSQL in the wiki
AlaSQL ♥ Excel
AlaSQL can export data to both Excel 2003 (.xls) and Excel 2007 (.xlsx) formats with coloring of cells and other Excel formatting functions.
AlaSQL ♥ Meteor
Meteor is amazing. You can query directly on your Meteor collections with SQL - simple and easy. See more about Meteor and AlaSQL in the wiki
AlaSQL ♥ Angular.js
Angular is great. In addition to normal data manipulation, AlaSQL works like a charm for exporting your present scope to Excel. See more about Angular and AlaSQL in the wiki
AlaSQL ♥ Google Maps
Pinpointing data on a map should be easy. AlaSQL is great to prepare source data for Google Maps from, for example, Excel or CSV, making it one unit of work for fetching and identifying what's relevant. See more about Google Maps and AlaSQL in the wiki
AlaSQL ♥ Google Spreadsheets
AlaSQL can query data directly from a Google spreadsheet. A good "partnership" for easy editing and powerful data manipulation. See more about Google Spreadsheets and AlaSQL in the wiki
Miss a feature?
Take charge and add your idea or vote for your favorite feature to be implemented:
Limitations
Please be aware that AlaSQL has bugs. Beside having some bugs, there are a number of limitations:
AlaSQL has a (long) list of keywords that must be escaped if used for column names. When selecting a field named
keyplease writeSELECT `key` FROM ...instead. This is also the case for words like`value`,`read`,`count`,`by`,`top`,`path`,`deleted`,`work`and`offset`. Please consult the full list of keywords.It is OK to
SELECT1000000 records or toJOINtwo tables with 10000 records in each (You can use streaming functions to work with longer datasources - see test/test143.js) but be aware that the workload is multiplied soSELECTing from more than 8 tables with just 100 rows in each will show bad performance. This is one of our top priorities to make better.Limited functionality for transactions (supports only for localStorage) - Sorry, transactions are limited, because AlaSQL switched to more complex approach for handling
PRIMARY KEYs /FOREIGN KEYs. Transactions will be fully turned on again in a future version.A
(FULL) OUTER JOINandRIGHT JOINof more than 2 tables will not produce expected results.INNER JOINandLEFT JOINare OK.Please use aliases when you want fields with the same name from different tables (
SELECT a.id AS a_id, b.id AS b_id FROM ?).At the moment AlaSQL does not work with JSZip 3.0.0 - please use version 2.x.
JOINing a sub-SELECTdoes not work. Please use awithstructure (Example here) or fetch the sub-SELECTto a variable and pass it as an argument (Example here).AlaSQL uses the FileSaver.js library for saving files locally from the browser. Please be aware that it does not save files in Safari 8.0.
There are probably many others. Please help us fix them by submitting an issue. Thank you!
How To
Use AlaSQL to convert data from CSV to Excel
ETL example:
alasql([
'CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS geo.country',
'SELECT * INTO geo.country FROM CSV("country.csv",{headers:true})',
'SELECT * INTO XLSX("asia") FROM geo.country WHERE continent_name = "Asia"'
]).then(function(res){
// results from the file asia.xlsx
});Use AlaSQL as a Web Worker
AlaSQL can run in a Web Worker. Please be aware that all interaction with AlaSQL when running must be async.
From the browser thread, the browser build alasql-worker.min.js automagically uses Web Workers:
<script src="alasql-worker.min.js"></script>
<script>
var arr = [{a:1},{a:2},{a:1}];
alasql([['SELECT * FROM ?',[arr]]]).then(function(data){
console.log(data);
});
</script>The standard build alasql.min.js will use Web Workers if alasql.worker() is called:
<script src="alasql.min.js"></script>
<script>
alasql.worker();
alasql(['SELECT VALUE 10']).then(function(res){
console.log(res);
}).catch(console.error);
</script>From a Web Worker, you can import alasql.min.js with importScripts:
importScripts('alasql.min.js');Webpack, Browserify, Vue and React (Native)
When targeting the browser, several code bundlers like Webpack and Browserify will pick up modules you might not want.
Here's a list of modules that AlaSQL may require in certain environments or for certain features:
- Node.js
- fs
- net
- tls
- request
- path
- React Native
- react-native
- react-native-fs
- react-native-fetch-blob
- Vertx
- vertx
- Agonostic
- XLSX/XLS support
- cptable
- jszip
- xlsx
- cpexcel
- es6-promise
- XLSX/XLS support
Webpack
There are several ways to handle AlaSQL with Webpack:
IgnorePlugin
Ideal when you want to control which modules you want to import.
var IgnorePlugin = require("webpack").IgnorePlugin;
module.exports = {
...
// Will ignore the modules fs, path, xlsx, request, vertx, and react-native modules
plugins:[new IgnorePlugin(/(^fs$|cptable|jszip|xlsx|^es6-promise$|^net$|^tls$|^forever-agent$|^tough-cookie$|cpexcel|^path$|^request$|react-native|^vertx$)/)]
};module.noParse
As of AlaSQL 0.3.5, you can simply tell Webpack not to parse AlaSQL, which avoids all the dynamic require warnings and avoids using eval/clashing with CSP with script-loader.
Read the Webpack docs about noParse
...
//Don't parse alasql
{module:noParse:[/alasql/]}script-loader
If both of the solutions above fail to meet your requirements, you can load AlaSQL with script-loader.
//Load alasql in the global scope with script-loader
import "script!alasql"This can cause issues if you have a CSP that doesn't allow eval.
Browserify
Read up on excluding, ignoring, and shimming
Example (using excluding)
var browserify = require("browserify");
var b = browserify("./main.js").bundle();
//Will ignore the modules fs, path, xlsx
["fs","path","xlsx", ... ].forEach(ignore => { b.ignore(ignore) });Vue
For some frameworks (lige Vue) alasql cant access XLSX by it self. We recommend handling it by including AlaSQL the following way:
`import alasql from 'alasql';
import XLSX from 'xlsx';
alasql.utils.isBrowserify = false;
alasql.utils.global.XLSX = XLSX;
#### jQuery
Please remember to send the original event, and not the jQuery event, for elements. (Use `event.originalEvent` instead of `myEvent`)
### JSON-object
You can use JSON objects in your databases (do not forget use == and !== operators for deep comparison of objects):
```sql
alasql> SELECT VALUE {a:'1',b:'2'}
{a:1,b:2}
alasql> SELECT VALUE {a:'1',b:'2'} == {a:'1',b:'2'}
true
alasql> SELECT VALUE {a:'1',b:'2'}->b
2
alasql> SELECT VALUE {a:'1',b:(2*2)}->b
4
Try AlaSQL JSON objects in Console [sample](http://alasql.org/console?drop table if exists one;create table one;insert into one values {a:@[1,2,3],c:{e:23}}, {a:@[{b:@[1,2,3]}]};select * from one)
Experimental
Useful stuff, but there might be dragons
Graphs
AlaSQL is a multi-paradigm database with support for graphs that can be searched or manipulated.
// Who loves lovers of Alice?
var res = alasql('SEARCH / ANY(>> >> #Alice) name');
console.log(res) // ['Olga','Helen']See more in the wiki
localStorage and DOM-storage
You can use browser localStorage and DOM-storage as a data storage. Here is a sample:
alasql('CREATE localStorage DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS Atlas');
alasql('ATTACH localStorage DATABASE Atlas AS MyAtlas');
alasql('CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS MyAtlas.City (city string, population number)');
alasql('SELECT * INTO MyAtlas.City FROM ?',[ [
{city:'Vienna', population:1731000},
{city:'Budapest', population:1728000}
] ]);
var res = alasql('SELECT * FROM MyAtlas.City');Try this sample in jsFiddle. Run this sample two or three times, and AlaSQL store more and more data in localStorage. Here, "Atlas" is the name of localStorage database, where "MyAtlas" is a memory AlaSQL database.
You can use localStorage in two modes: SET AUTOCOMMIT ON to immediate save data
to localStorage after each statement or SET AUTOCOMMIT OFF. In this case, you need
to use COMMIT statement to save all data from in-memory mirror to localStorage.
Plugins
AlaSQL supports plugins. To install a plugin you need to use the REQUIRE statement. See more in the wiki
Alaserver - simple database server
Yes, you can even use AlaSQL as a very simple server for tests.
To run enter the command:
$ alaserverthen open http://127.0.0.1:1337/?SELECT%20VALUE%20(2*2) in your browser
Warning: Alaserver is not multi-threaded, not concurrent, and not secured.
Tests
Regression tests
AlaSQL currently has over 1200 regression tests, but they only cover
of the codebase.
AlaSQL uses mocha for regression tests. Install mocha and run
$ npm testor open test/index.html for in-browser tests (Please serve via localhost with, for example, http-server).
Tests with AlaSQL ASSERT from SQL
You can use AlaSQL's ASSERT operator to test the results of previous operation:
CREATE TABLE one (a INT); ASSERT 1;
INSERT INTO one VALUES (1),(2),(3); ASSERT 3;
SELECT * FROM one ORDER BY a DESC; ASSERT [{a:3},{a:2},{a:1}];SQLLOGICTEST
AlaSQL uses SQLLOGICTEST to test its compatibility with SQL-99. The tests include about 2 million queries and statements.
The testruns can be found in the testlog.
Rebuilding the parser
To rebuild the parser, follow these steps:
- Make changes to alasqlparser.jison
npm install -g jisonnpm run jisonnpm testto validate the changes made- Commit changes to alasqlparser.jison and alasqlparser.js
Contributing
See Contributing for details.
Thanks to all the people who already contributed!
Main contributors
AlaSQL is an OPEN Open Source Project. This means that:
Individuals making significant and valuable contributions are given commit-access to the project to contribute as they see fit. This project is more like an open wiki than a standard guarded open source project.
We appreciate any and all contributions we can get. If you feel like contributing, have a look at CONTRIBUTING.md
Sponsors
We extend our heartfelt thanks to each and every sponsor for generously supporting the AlaSQL open-source project by providing infrastructure at no cost. Their contributions enhance the development experience, and we highly recommend exploring their offerings.
Faster GitHub Actions with Blacksmith
Blacksmith significantly improves the speed of our GitHub Actions workflows by offering more powerful machines and enhanced caching mechanisms. Transitining was a one-line change and it has reduced our automated test times from 70-90 seconds to 15-17 seconds.
Browser Testing on Physical Devices with BrowserStack
BrowserStack enables us to run automated tests in real browsers on physical devices to help us identify cross-browser issues early.
Development Practice Tracking with OpenSSF
The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) provides automated tools to evaluate and monitor the development practices in our repository, ensuring we maintain high standards of security and reliability.
License
MIT - see MIT licence information
Credits
Many thanks to:
- Zach Carter for Jison parser-generator
- Andrew Kent for JS SQL Parser
- Eli Grey for FileSaver.js
- SheetJS for JS XLSX Library
and other people for useful tools, which make our work much easier.
Related projects that have inspired us
- AlaX - Export to Excel with colors and formats
- AlaMDX - JavaScript MDX OLAP library (work in progress)
- Other similar projects - list of databases on JavaScript
© 2014-2024, Andrey Gershun (agershun@gmail.com) & Mathias Rangel Wulff (m@rawu.dk)
See this article for a bit of information about the motivation and background.