SQL::Statement::Structure - parse & examine structure of SQL queries

 use SQL::Statement;
 my $sql    = "
    SELECT a FROM b JOIN c WHERE c=? AND e=7 ORDER BY f DESC LIMIT 5,2
 ";
 my $parser = SQL::Parser->new();
 $parser->{RaiseError}=1;
 $parser->{PrintError}=0;
 $parser->parse("LOAD 'MyLib::MySyntax' ");
 my $stmt = SQL::Statement->new($sql,$parser);
 printf "Command             %s\n",$stmt->command;
 printf "Num of Placeholders %s\n",scalar $stmt->params;
 printf "Columns             %s\n",join',',map{$_->name}$stmt->columns;
 printf "Tables              %s\n",join',',$stmt->tables;
 printf "Where operator      %s\n",join',',$stmt->where->op;
 printf "Limit               %s\n",$stmt->limit;
 printf "Offset              %s\n",$stmt->offset;
 printf "Order Columns       %s\n",join',',map{$_->column}$stmt->order;
 __END__

The SQL::Statement module can be used by itself, without DBI and without a subclass to parse SQL statements and allow you to examine the structure of the statement (table names, column names, where clause predicates, etc.). It will also execute statements using in-memory tables. That means that you can create and populate some tables, then query them and fetch the results of the queries as well as examine the differences between statement metadata during different phases of prepare, execute, fetch. See the remainder of this document for a description of how to create and modify a parser object, how to use it to parse and examine SQL statements. See SQL::Statement for other usages of the module.

The parser object only needs to be created once per script. It can then be reused to parse any number of SQL statements. The basic creation of a parser is this:

    my $parser = SQL::Parser->new();

You can set the error-reporting for the parser the same way you do in DBI:

    $parser->{RaiseError}=1;   # turn on die-on-error behaviour
    $parser->{PrinteError}=1;  # turn on warnings-on-error behaviour

As with DBI, RaiseError defaults to 0 (off) and PrintError defaults to 1 (on).

For many purposes, the built-in SQL syntax should be sufficient. However, if you need to, you can change the behaviour of the parser by extending the supported SQL syntax either by loading a file containing definitions; or by issuing SQL commands that modify the way the parser treats types, keywords, functions, and operators.

    $parser->parse("LOAD MyLib::MySyntax");
    $parser->parse("CREATE TYPE myDataType");

See SQL::Statement::Syntax for details of the supported SQL syntax and for methods of extending the syntax.

While you only need to define a new SQL::Parser object once per script, you need to define a new SQL::Statment object once for each statement you want to parse.

    my $stmt = SQL::Statement->new($sql, $parser);

The call to new() takes two arguments - the SQL string you want to parse, and the SQL::Parser object you previously created. The call to new is the equivalent of a DBI call to prepare() - it parses the SQL into a structure but doesn't attempt to execute the SQL unless you explicitly call execute().

The following methods can be used to obtain information about a query:

Returns the SQL command. See SQL::Statement::Syntax for supported command. Example:

    my $command = $stmt->command();

    my $numColumns = $stmt->columns();  # Scalar context
    my @columnList = $stmt->columns();  # Array context
    my($col1, $col2) = ($stmt->columns(0), $stmt->columns(1));

This method is used to retrieve column lists. The meaning depends on the query command:

    SELECT $col1, $col2, ... $colN FROM $table WHERE ...
    UPDATE $table SET $col1 = $val1, $col2 = $val2, ...
        $colN = $valN WHERE ...
    INSERT INTO $table ($col1, $col2, ..., $colN) VALUES (...)

When used without arguments, the method returns a list of the columns CW$col1, CW$col2, ..., CW$colN, you may alternatively use a column number as argument. Note that the column list may be empty, like in

    INSERT INTO $table VALUES (...)

and in CREATE or DROP statements.

But what does returning a column mean? It is returning an SQL::Statement::Column instance, a class that implements the methods CWtable and CWname, both returning the respective scalar. For example, consider the following statements:

    INSERT INTO foo (bar) VALUES (1)
    SELECT bar FROM foo WHERE ...
    SELECT foo.bar FROM foo WHERE ...

In all these cases exactly one column instance would be returned with

    $col->name() eq 'bar'
    $col->table() eq 'foo'

    my $tableNum = $stmt->tables();  # Scalar context
    my @tables = $stmt->tables();    # Array context
    my($table1, $table2) = ($stmt->tables(0), $stmt->tables(1));

Similar to CWcolumns, this method returns instances of CWSQL::Statement::Table. For UPDATE, DELETE, INSERT, CREATE and DROP, a single table will always be returned. SELECT statements can return more than one table, in case of joins. Table objects offer a single method, CWname which

returns the table name.

    my $paramNum = $stmt->params();  # Scalar context
    my @params = $stmt->params();    # Array context
    my($p1, $p2) = ($stmt->params(0), $stmt->params(1));

The CWparams method returns information about the input parameters used in a statement. For example, consider the following:

    INSERT INTO foo VALUES (?, ?)

This would return two instances of SQL::Statement::Param. Param objects implement a single method, CW$param-num()>, which retrieves the parameter number. (0 and 1, in the above example). As of now, not very usefull ... :-)

    my $rowValueNum = $stmt->row_values(); # Scalar context
    my @rowValues = $stmt->row_values();   # Array context
    my($rval1, $rval2) = ($stmt->row_values(0),
                          $stmt->row_values(1));

This method is used for statements like

    UPDATE $table SET $col1 = $val1, $col2 = $val2, ...
        $colN = $valN WHERE ...
    INSERT INTO $table (...) VALUES ($val1, $val2, ..., $valN)

to read the values CW$val1, CW$val2, ... CW$valN. It returns scalar values or SQL::Statement::Param instances.

    my $orderNum = $stmt->order();   # Scalar context
    my @order = $stmt->order();      # Array context
    my($o1, $o2) = ($stmt->order(0), $stmt->order(1));

In SELECT statements you can use this for looking at the ORDER clause. Example:

    SELECT * FROM FOO ORDER BY id DESC, name

In this case, CWorder could return 2 instances of SQL::Statement::Order. You can use the methods CW$o->table(), CW$o->column() and CW$o->desc() to examine the order object.

    my $limit = $stmt->limit();

In a SELECT statement you can use a CWLIMIT clause to implement cursoring:

    SELECT * FROM FOO LIMIT 5
    SELECT * FROM FOO LIMIT 5, 5
    SELECT * FROM FOO LIMIT 10, 5

These three statements would retrieve the rows 0..4, 5..9, 10..14 of the table FOO, respectively. If no CWLIMIT clause is used, then the method CW$stmt->limit returns undef. Otherwise it returns the limit number (the maximum number of rows) from the statement (5 or 10 for the statements above).

    my $offset = $stmt->offset();

If no CWLIMIT clause is used, then the method CW$stmt->limit returns undef. Otherwise it returns the offset number (the index of the first row to be inlcuded in the limit clause).

    my $where = $stmt->where();

This method is used to examine the syntax tree of the CWWHERE clause. It returns undef (if no WHERE clause was used) or an instance of SQL::Statement::Op. The Op instance offers 4 methods:

op

returns the operator, one of CWAND, CWOR, CW=, CW<>, CW>=, CW>, CW<=, CW<, CWLIKE, CWCLIKE or CWIS.

arg1

arg2

returns the left-hand and right-hand sides of the operator. This can be a scalar value, an SQL::Statement::Param object or yet another SQL::Statement::Op instance.

neg

returns a TRUE value, if the operation result must be negated after evalution.

To evaluate the WHERE clause, fetch the topmost Op instance with the CWwhere method. Then evaluate the left-hand and right-hand side of the operation, perhaps recursively. Once that is done, apply the operator and finally negate the result, if required.

To illustrate the above, consider the following WHERE clause:

    WHERE NOT (id > 2 AND name = 'joe') OR name IS NULL

We can represent this clause by the following tree:

              (id > 2)   (name = 'joe')
                     \   /
          NOT         AND
                         \      (name IS NULL)
                          \    /
                            OR

Thus the WHERE clause would return an SQL::Statement::Op instance with the op() field set to 'OR'. The arg2() field would return another SQL::Statement::Op instance with arg1() being the SQL::Statement::Column instance representing id, the arg2() field containing the value undef (NULL) and the op() field being 'IS'.

The arg1() field of the topmost Op instance would return an Op instance with op() eq 'AND' and neg() returning TRUE. The arg1() and arg2() fields would be Op's representing id > 2 and name = 'joe'.

Of course there's a ready-for-use method for WHERE clause evaluation:

The WHERE clause evaluation depends on an object being used for fetching parameter and column values. Usually this can be an SQL::Statement::RAM::Table object or SQL::Eval object, but in fact it can be any object that supplies the methods

    $val = $eval->param($paramNum);
    $val = $eval->column($table, $column);

Once you have such an object, you can call eval_where;

    $match = $stmt->eval_where($eval);

When called from a DBD or other subclass of SQL::Statement, the execute() method will be executed against whatever datasource (persistant storage) is supplied by the DBD or the subclass (e.g. CSV files for DBD::CSV, or BerkeleyDB for DBD::DBM). If you are using SQL::Statement directly rather than as a subclass, you can call the execute() method and the statements will be executed() using temporary in-memory tables. When used directly, like that, you need to create a cache hashref and pass it as the first argument to execute:

  my $cache  = {};
  my $parser = SQL::Parser->new();
  my $stmt   = SQL::Statement->new('CREATE TABLE x (id INT)',$parser);
  $stmt->execute( $cache );

If you are using a statement with placeholders, those can be passed to execute after the CW$cache:

  $stmt      = SQL::Statement->new('INSERT INTO y VALUES(?,?)',$parser);
  $stmt->execute( $cache, 7, 'foo' );

Only a single fetch() method is provided - it returns a single row of data as an arrayref. Use a loop to fetch all rows:

 while (my $row = $stmt->fetch) {
     # ...
 }

 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
 use strict;
 use SQL::Statement;

 my $cache={};
 my $parser = SQL::Parser->new();
 for my $sql(split /\n/,
 "  CREATE TABLE a (b INT)
    INSERT INTO a VALUES(1)
    INSERT INTO a VALUES(2)
    SELECT MAX(b) FROM a  "
 ){
    $stmt = SQL::Statement->new($sql,$parser);
    $stmt->execute($cache);
    next unless $stmt->command eq 'SELECT';
    while (my $row=$stmt->fetch) {
        print "@$row\n";
    }
 }
 __END__

Copyright (c) 2005, Jeff Zucker <jzuckerATcpan.org>, all rights reserved.

This document may be freely modified and distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.