sqlite-utils VS textql

Sounds like your problem is with SQLAlchemy, not with SQLite.

My https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io library might be a better fit for you. It's a much thinner abstraction than SQLAlchemy.

There are a few things you can do here.

SQLite is great at JSON - so I often dump JSON structures in a TEXT column and query them using https://www.sqlite.org/json1.html

I also have plugins for running jq() functions directly in SQL queries - https://datasette.io/plugins/datasette-jq and https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils-jq

I've been trying to drive the cost of turning semi-structured data into structured SQL queries down as much as possible with https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io - see this tutorial for more: https://datasette.io/tutorials/clean-data

This is also an area that I'm starting to explore with LLMs. I love the idea that you could take a bunch of messy data, tell Datasette Cloud "I want this imported into a table with this schema"... and it does that.

I have a prototype of this working now, I hope to turn it into an open source plugin (and Datasette Cloud feature) pretty soon. It's using this trick: https://til.simonwillison.net/gpt3/openai-python-functions-d...

I've baked a ton of different SQLite tricks - including things like full-text indexing support and advanced alter table methods - into my sqlite-utils CLI tool and Python library: https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io

My Datasette project provides tools for exploring, analyzing and publishing SQLite databases, plus ways to expose them via a JSON API: https://datasette.io

I've also written a ton of stuff about SQLite on my two blogs:

- https://simonwillison.net/tags/sqlite/

- https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite

This is really fun. I have an experimental branch of my sqlite-utils CLI tool (which has dozens of sub-commands) running with this now and it really did only take 4 lines of code - I'm treating Trogon as an optional dependency because people using my package as a Python library rather than a CLI tool may not want the extra installed components:

https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/commit/ec12b780d5dcd6...

There's an animated GIF demo of the result here: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/issues/545#issuecomme...

My project https://datasette.io/ is ideal for this kind of thing. You can use https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/ to load JSON data into a SQLite database, then publish it with Datasette.

I've been using this for about six months now and I absolutely love it.

Make never stuck for me - I couldn't quite get it to fit inside my head.

Just has the exact set of features I want.

Here's one example of one of my Justfiles: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/blob/fc221f9b62ed8624... - documented here: https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/en/stable/contributing.htm...

I also wrote about using Just with Django in this TIL: https://til.simonwillison.net/django/just-with-django

SQLite with the open source toolchain I've been building over the past five years:

https://datasette.io as the interface for running queries against (and visualizing) my data.

https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/ as a set of tools for creating and modifying my databases (inserting JSON or CSV data, enabling full text search text)

https://dogsheep.github.io as a suite of tools for importing my personal data - see also this talk I gave about that project: https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehous...

Here's an example: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/pull/468

> After identifying about 7 commits (with pretty basic/useless messages, and no PR link!), I then had to find the corresponding PRs based on timestamps, and search the PR history for PRs merged around those timestamps.

Not sure if this would save any time, but it is possible to search PRs by commit. For example, say git blame led me to this commit: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/commit/129141572f249e...

I could have found PR #373 via this search: https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/pulls?q=bb16f52681b6d...

> I thus treat PRs as ephemeral

I think I see what you're saying but as others have pointed out, sometimes you want to add screenshots etc to the context, and you can't capture this kind of info in commit messages. So then you have two choices: issues or PRs.

> Then any review comments are preferably not addressed directly in the PR

I would think that sometimes you really do want to have a back and forth conversation in the PR, rather than just a "make this change" -> "ok done" type of feedback loop.

I view the PR as an decent place for all of this because it's basically a commit of commits, capturing the related changes/conversation/context all in a single place at the point of merge.

You can use https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/ to load data into SQLite. It's also possible to import CSVs directly using the `sqlite3` command line tool - I wrote about that here: https://til.simonwillison.net/sqlite/import-csv

I like textql [0] better for this use case, as it's simpler in my mind.

[0] https://github.com/dinedal/textql

Primarily, you are right. SQL is for working with structured data and that largely covers RDBs. However, there are tools (like textql) that allow you to query CSV files and the effort works with most other text files that have some kind of structure.

As the author of textql ( https://github.com/dinedal/textql ) - thanks for the shoutout!

Looks great, I love more options in the space for CLI based data analysis tools! Fantastic work!

Apparently, there were many who thought the same thing; Tools to execute SQL against CSV were trdsql, q, csvq, TextQL. They were highly functional, hoewver, had many options and no input completion. I found it just a little difficult to use.

Reminds me of the textQL extension that's available in Asciidoc.

Point it to an external CSV file, enable TextQL, and bam, there's your query returned as a table. Handy for parts lists, inventory, that kind of crap.

https://github.com/dinedal/textql

https://gist.github.com/mojavelinux/8856117

Through more magic, you COULD of course use stuff like Spark, or easier with programs like TextQL, sq, OctoSQL.

Somewhat-kinda related, the textql extension for Asciidoctor is so dang useful it should be in core.

https://gist.github.com/mojavelinux/8856117

I use this as a "centralized parts repository" for big ol' maintenance manuals. Refresh from PDM/PLM/LSA/Whatever. Rebuild for new parts data.

Built on TextQL, natch

https://github.com/dinedal/textql