Ambitious SQL

A simple experiment and even simpler query library.

I could tell you all about how awesome the internals are, or how fun it was to write, or how it’ll make you rich and famous, but instead I’m just going to show you some examples.

The goal is this: write once, run with ActiveRecord, Sequel, DataMapper, whatever. Kind of like Rack for databases.

Git It (with Git, even)

$ sudo gem install ambition -y

This will suck in Ambition and its dependencies (ParseTree & ActiveRecord). It’s fully usable outside of Rails (I use it in a Camping app or two), as long as you’re riding ActiveRecord.

To use with Rails, after installing the gem:

$ cd vendor/plugins
$ gem unpack ambition

RDoc exists: rock.errtheblog.com/ambition

Have at the Git repo: 

$ git clone git://errtheblog.com/git/ambition

Examples

Basically, you write your SQL in Ruby. No, not in Ruby. As Ruby.

User.select { |u| u.city == 'San Francisco' }.each do |user|
  puts user.name
end

And that’s it.

The key is that queries arent actually run until the data they represent is requested. Usually this is done with what I call a kicker method. You can call them that, too.

Kicker methods are guys like detect, each, each_with_index, map, entries, to_a, and first (with no argument). Methods like select, sort_by, and first (with an argument) are not kicker methods and return a Query object without running any SQL.

Our Query object has two useful methods: to_sql and to_hash. With these, we can check out what exactly we’re building. Not everyone has to_sql, though. Mostly ignore these methods and treat everything like you normally would.

See, to_sql:

>> User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.to_sql
=> "SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon'"

See, to_hash:

>> User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.to_hash
=> {:conditions=>"users.name = 'jon'"}

Equality – select { |u| u.field == ‘bob’ }

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon'"

User.select { |m| m.created_at > 2.days.ago }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.created_at > '2007-09-26 20:37:47'"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon'"

User.select { |m| m.name != 'jon' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name <> 'jon'"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' && m.age == 21 }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE (users.name = 'jon' AND users.age = 21)"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' || m.age == 21 }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE (users.name = 'jon' OR users.age = 21)"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' || m.age == 21 && m.password == 'pass' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE (users.name = 'jon' OR (users.age = 21 AND users.password = 'pass'))"

User.select { |m| (m.name == 'jon' || m.name == 'rick') && m.age == 21 }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE ((users.name = 'jon' OR users.name = 'rick') AND users.age = 21)"

Associations – select { |u| u.field == ‘bob’ && u.association.field == ‘[email protected]’ }

The to_sql method doesn’t work on associations yet, but that’s okay: they can still query through ActiveRecord just fine.

User.select { |u| u.email == '[email protected]' && u.profile.name == 'chris wanstrath' }.map(&:title)
SELECT users.id AS t0_r0, ... FROM users LEFT OUTER JOIN profiles ON profiles.user_id = users.id WHERE ((users.email = '[email protected]' AND profiles.name = 'chris wanstrath'))

Comparisons – select { |u| u.age > 21 }

User.select { |m| m.age > 21 }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.age > 21"

User.select { |m| m.age < 21 }.to_sql
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.age < 21"

User.select { |m| [1, 2, 3, 4].include? m.id }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.id IN (1, 2, 3, 4)"

LIKE and REGEXP (RLIKE) – select { |m| m.name =~ ‘chris’ }

User.select { |m| m.name =~ 'chris' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name LIKE 'chris'"

User.select { |m| m.name =~ 'chri%' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name LIKE 'chri%'"

User.select { |m| m.name !~ 'chris' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name NOT LIKE 'chris'"

User.select { |m| !(m.name =~ 'chris') }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name NOT LIKE 'chris'"

User.select { |m| m.name =~ /chris/ }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name REGEXP 'chris'"

#detect

User.detect { |m| m.name == 'chris' }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'chris' LIMIT 1"

LIMITs – first, first(x), [offset, limit], [range], slice

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.first
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' LIMIT 1"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.first(5)
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' LIMIT 5"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }[10, 20]
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' LIMIT 10, 20"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }[10..20]
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' LIMIT 10, 10"

ORDER – sort_by { |u| u.field }

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { |m| m.name }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' ORDER BY users.name"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { |m| [ m.name,  m.age ] }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' ORDER BY users.name, users.age"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { |m| [ m.name,  -m.age ] }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' ORDER BY users.name, users.age DESC"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { |m| [ -m.name,  -m.age ] }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' ORDER BY users.name DESC, users.age DESC"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { |m| -m.age }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' ORDER BY users.age DESC"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { |m| -m.profiles.title }
"SELECT users.id AS t0_r0, ... FROM users LEFT OUTER JOIN profiles ON profiles.user_id = users.id 
 WHERE (users.name = 'jon') ORDER BY profiles.title DESC"

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.sort_by { rand }
"SELECT * FROM users WHERE users.name = 'jon' ORDER BY RAND()"

COUNT – select { |u| u.name == ‘jon’ }.size

User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.size
SELECT count(*) AS count_all FROM users WHERE (users.name = 'jon') 

>> User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.size
=> 21

Other Enumerables

These methods perform COUNT() operations rather than loading your array into memory. They’re all kickers.

User.any? { |m| m.name == 'jon' }
User.all? { |m| m.name == 'jon' }
User.select { |m| m.name == 'jon' }.empty?

More Sugar

The downcase and upcase methods will map to LOWER() and UPPER(), respectively.

>> User.select { |m| m.name.downcase =~ 'jon%' }.to_sql
=> "SELECT * FROM users WHERE LOWER(users.name) LIKE 'jon%'"

Quoting

Columns and values will be quoted using ActiveRecord’s quote_column_name and quote methods, if possible.

SELECT * FROM bugs

Found a bug? Sweet. Add it at the Lighthouse: 

http://err.lighthouseapp.com/projects/466-plugins/tickets/new

Feature requests are welcome.

And hey, join our mailing list!

http://groups.google.com/group/ambition-rb