/ 
App-DBBrowser-1.005
River stage zero No dependents
/ db-browser

NAME

db-browser - Browse SQLite/MySQL/PostgreSQL databases and their tables interactively.

VERSION

Version 1.005

SYNOPSIS

SQLite/MySQL/PostgreSQL

db-browser -h|--help

db-browser

db-browser [database-name, ...]

When the db-browser is called with the argument -h|--help, it shows a menu. The menu entry HELP shows this documentation - see "OPTIONS".

If db-browser called without arguments, the user can choose from the databases offered by the database plugin. The database is chosen automatically if it is available only one database. With the SQLite driver is in use, the option Search directories tells the database plugin where to search for SQLite databases (defaults to the home directory).

If db-browser is called with arguments, the arguments are used as the available databases.

SQLite

db-browser [-s|--search]

db-browser called with -s|--search causes a new search of SQLite databases instead of using the cached data.

DESCRIPTION

Search and read in SQL databases. With the db-browser one can browse databases and their tables interactively.

The database plugins bundled with App::DBBrowser provide support for the DBI drivers DBD::SQLite, DBD::mysql and DBD::Pg. See App::DBBrowser::DB how to write a database plugin.

To be able to browse the database-, schema- and table-lists and the content of tables the user must have the database privileges required for fetching the requested data.

The db-browser expects an existing home directory with read and write permissions for the user of the db-browser.

Before the output leading and trailing spaces are removed from the elements and spaces are squashed to a single white-space.

The elements in a column are right-justified if one or more elements of that column do not look like a number, else they are left-justified.

See Term::TablePrint for more details.

Legacy encodings

Non mappable characters will break the output.

USAGE

The best way to find out how db-browser works is calling db-browser.

To be able to use all the features of the db-browser some basic SQL knowledge is required.

Keys to move around

  • the Arrow keys (or h,j,k,l) to move up and down and to move to the right and to the left.

  • the PageUp key (or Ctrl-B) to go back one page, the PageDown key (or Ctrl-F) to go forward one page.

  • the Home key (or Ctrl-A) to jump to the beginning of the menu, the End key (or Ctrl-E) to jump to the end of the menu.

With the option mouse enabled it can be used the mouse with the left mouse key to navigate through the menus.

To confirm a chosen menu item use the Return key.

In some sub-menus it is possible to select more then one item before Return is pressed; in such sub-menus the list of items marked with the SpaceBar key including the highlighted item are added to the chosen items when Return is pressed. If a mouse mode is enabled, it can be used the right mouse key instead of the SpaceBar. Ctrl-SpaceBar (or Ctrl-@) inverts the made choices - marked items are unmarked and unmarked items are marked.

To move backwards in the menu hierarchy one can press the q key. When prompted for a string, try Ctrl-D instead of q.

SQL menu

The SQL menu is the menu which opens after a table was selected.

If AGGREGATE or GROUP BY is set, the SELECT statement is automatically formed; a previous user defined SELECT statement is reset. A user defined SELECT resets a previous set AGGREGATE or GROUP BY statement.

To reset a SQL "sub-statement" (e.g WHERE) re-enter into the respective menu entry and choose '- OK -'.

Changing the lock mode (Lk0,Lk1) resets the entire SQL.

Delete, Update and Insert

To get to the DELETE, UPDATE or INSERT INTO statements select the prompt "Customize:" in the SQL menu and then select the prompt "Your choice:".

Scalar functions

The scalar functions can be reached in the main SQL menu and also in the DELETE and UPDATE SQL sub-menus by selecting the prompt "Customize:".

The available functions are:

Epoch_to_DateTime

Epoch_to_Date

Truncate

With SQLite the function TRUNCATE is a user-defined function which returns stringified values.

return sprintf "%.*f", $places, int( $number * 10 ** $places ) / 10 ** $places;

When comparing in WHERE or HAVING TO clauses with numbers, take the non-truncated (original) value for the comparison if sqlite_see_if_its_a_number is enabled (default).

Also to get a numeric comparison in an ORDER BY clause use the non-truncated (original) values for the ordering.

Bit_Length

With SQLite the function Bit_Length is a user-defined function which uses the Perl builtin length. To make length return the number of bytes the bytes pragma is used.

Char_Length

With SQLite the function Char_Length is a user-defined function which uses the Perl builtin length to get the number of characters.

To remove a chosen scalar function from a column select the column with the function a second time.

OPTIONS

HELP

Show this Info.

Path

Shows the version and the path of the running db-browser and the path of the application directory.

Database

DB Plugins

Choose the required database plugins.

DB Settings

DB Settings are used as default database settings.

There is also in each database sub-menu the menu entry "Database settings". If these database specific parameter are not set, the global (to the database plugin) DB Settings are use instead.

Login Mode

Determine how to gather the login data:

  • Ask

    Ask for the data of a field when connecting to a database.

  • Use DBI_....

    Use the environment variable to connect if available else ask the user for the required data.

    The name of the environment variable:

    $environment_variable = 'DBI_' . uc($name_of_the_field);

  • Don't set

    If a field is not required for a database connection one can select the entry Don't set for that field. The field is then not used for the database connection. For example if the field is "port" Don't set could mean: form the DBI DSN without the "port" entry.

Possible fields could be "host", "port", "user", "password" and others.

It depends on the database plugin which fields are offered to set and whether the selections made by the user a considered.

Login Data

The entered data for a field is saved with the field in a configuration file. If the configuration file contains a field with a defined value, the value is used for that field to connect instead to ask the user for the value.

It depends on the database plugin which fields are offered to set and whether the user given data is considered.

DB Options

All options in this sub-menu - apart the last one - are connection attributes. For the meaning of the different attributes see the documentation of the DBI database driver.

Setting binary_filter (the last item in the sub-menu) to 1 means: print "BNRY" instead of arbitrary binary data. If data matches the repexp /[\x00-\x08\x0B-\x0C\x0E-\x1F]/, it is considered arbitrary binary data. Printing arbitrary binary data could break the output.

It depends on the database plugin which connection attributes are offered to set and whether the selections made by the user a considered.

SQLite directories

This is a SQLite-only option.

Sets the directories where db-browser searches for SQLite databases. Defaults to the home directory.

To move around in the directory tree select a directory and press Return to enter in the selected directory or choose " .. " to move upwards. To add the current working-directory to the list of chosen directories use the " . " menu entry. To confirm the made choices select " = ". The ( " < " ) menu entry resets the list of chosen directories if any. If the list of chosen directories is empty, " < " goes back without changing anything.

This setting can not be overwritten in a single database.

It depends on the database plugin if this setting is considered.

Reset DB

Reset database specific parameter to the global DB Settings.

Set the behavior of the interactive menus:

- setting Config Menus to "Memory" means: save the selected configuration menu position while entering in a config sub menu.

- setting SQL Menu to "Memory" means: save the selected SQL menu position while entering in a SQL sub menu.

- setting DB Menus to "Memory" means: save the selected menu position in the database/schema/table menus while entering in a sub menu.

Table expand

- setting Print Table to "Expand" means: if Return is pressed, the selected table row is printed with each column in its own line.

- setting Table Header to "Each page" means: print the table header on top of each page.

Lock

Set the default lock value:

- Lk0: Reset the SQL-statement after each "PrintTable".

- Lk1: Reset the SQL-statement only when a table is selected.

Mouse Mode

Set the mouse mode (see "mouse" in Term::Choose).

SQL

Metadata

If Metadata is enabled, system tables/schemas/databases are appended to the respective list.

Operators

Choose the required operators.

There are two REGEXP entries: "REGEXP" matches case sensitive while "REGEXP_i" matches case insensitive.

With MySQL the sensitive match is achieved by enabling the BINARY operator.

Parentheses

Enable parentheses in WHERE and/or HAVING TO clauses.

Output

Max Rows

Set the maximum number of fetched table rows. This can be overwritten by setting a SQL LIMIT statement.

The fetched table rows are kept in memory.

To disable the automatic limit set Max Rows to 0.

Colwidth

Columns with a width below or equal Colwidth are only trimmed if it is still required to lower the row width despite all columns wider than Colwidth have been trimmed to Colwidth.

ProgressBar

Set the progress bar threshold. If the number of fields (rows x columns) is higher than the threshold, a progress bar is shown while preparing the data for the output.

Tabwidth

Set the number of spaces between columns.

Undef

Set the string that will be shown on the screen instead of an undefined field.

On MSWin32 only single-byte character sets are supported when setting Undef, user, host or port with the db-browser. Edit the configuration files directly if multi-byte encoded characters are required for these settings on a machine with 'MSWin32' OS.

Insert

These Insert settings can also be set temporarily in the INSERT INTO sub-menu by selecting the prompt "Customize:".

Input modes

INSERTing data into a tables - select the input modes:

  • Cols

    It is prompted for each column.

  • Rows

    Enter a row at a time.

    To parse the rows it is used Text::CSV.

  • Multirow

    Enter all rows at once.

  • File

    Read the input from am file.

    Supported file formats: CSV files and the spreadsheet formats supported by Spreadsheet::Read.

CSV parse module

Set which module to use for parsing text files and the "Multirow" input.

Files where -T $filename returns true are considered text files.

If a file is not a text file, then it is always used Spreadsheet::Read to parse the file regardless of this setting.

  • Text::CSV

    Use Text::CSV to parse text files and the "Multirow" input. To decode the files it is used the CSV file encoding.

  • Text::ParseWords

    With Text::ParseWords it is possible to use a regexp as delimiter - see the option T::PW: $delim.

    To decode the file it is used the CSV file encoding

  • Spreadsheet::Read

    If Spreadsheet::Read is chosen, the default settings from Spreadsheet::Read are used.

    Spreadsheet::Read will use the first line of the file to auto-detect the separation character if the file is a CSV file.

    The following csv settings have no meaning when Spreadsheet::Read is in use.

CSV file encoding

How to decode csv files.

Text::CSV

Set Text::CSV options.

Text::ParseWords

Set Text::ParseWords options.

File history

Set how many input file names should be saved. A value of 0 disables the file history.

CONFIGURATION FILES

The syntax of the configuration file names is "conf_${db_plugin_name}.json". To find out the location of the configuration files call db-browser -h and choose Path.

The data is saved in JSON format.

The global database settings are placed in the member called "*$db_plugin". Database specific settings have its own member named like the database itself. With the SQLite driver "database name" means the absolute path to the database file.

Sub-members (keys):

SQLite:                                    mysql:                             Pg:
    sqlite_unicode              (0,1)           user                              user
    sqlite_see_if_its_a_number  (0,1)           host                              host
    binary_filter               (0,1)           port                              port
    directories_sqlite¹                         mysql_enable_utf8  (0,1)          pg_enable_utf8  (0,1,-1)
                                                binary_filter      (0,1)          binary_filter   (0,1)

¹ only with the SQLite driver: expects an array-reference as its value. db-browser searches for SQLite databases in the directories passed with this array-reference.

Examples

conf_SQLite.json:                                           conf_mysql.json:

{                                                           {
    "*SQLite" : {                                               "*mysql" : {
        "binary_filter" : 0,                                        "binary_filter" : 0,
        "directories_sqlite" : [                                    "host" : "localhost",
            "/home/my/Documents",                                   "mysql_enable_utf8" : 1,
            "/home/my/databases"                                    "port" : null,
        ],                                                          "user" : "name"
        "sqlite_see_if_its_a_number" : 1,                       },
        "sqlite_unicode" : 1                                    "database1" : {
    },                                                              "mysql_enable_utf8" : 0,
    "/home/my/databases/db1.sqlite" : {                             "host" : "my_host",
        "binary_filter" : 1,                                        "user" : "user_5"
        "sqlite_unicode" : 0                                    },
    }                                                           "database2" : {
}                                                                   "binary_filter" : 1
                                                                }
                                                            }

REQUIREMENTS

See "REQUIREMENTS" in Term::TablePrint.

Perl version

Requires Perl version 5.8.3 or greater.

Decoded strings

db-browser expects decoded strings.

Encoding layer for STDOUT

For a correct output it is required an appropriate encoding layer for STDOUT matching the terminal's character set.

Terminal

It is required a terminal that uses a monospaced font which supports the printed characters.

Also the terminal has to understand ANSI escape sequences. If the OS is MSWin32 App::DBBrowser uses Win32::Console::ANSI which emulates an ANSI console for the db-browser.

The terminal should have a width of at least 40 print columns.

SEE ALSO

DBI, DBD::SQLite, DBD::mysql, DBD::Pg.

CREDITS

Thanks to the Perl-Community.de and the people form stackoverflow for the help.

AUTHOR

Matthäus Kiem <cuer2s@gmail.com>

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2012-2015 Matthäus Kiem.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl 5.10.0. For details, see the full text of the licenses in the file LICENSE.