Skip to main content

A Pythonic DSL for SQL conditions and expressions.

Project description

# expressQL — Build complex SQL expressions in pure Python with safe, intuitive syntax

**expressQL** is a flexible, Pythonic Domain-Specific Language (DSL) for constructing complex SQL conditions and expressions safely and expressively.  
It is designed to reduce boilerplate, prevent common SQL mistakes, and allow arithmetic, logical, and chained comparisons directly in Python syntax.

---

## 🚀 Features

✅ Arithmetic expressions with automatic SQL translation  
✅ Logical composition (AND, OR, NOT) using natural Python operators  
✅ Chained inequalities (`50 < col("age") < 80`)  
✅ SQL-safe placeholder management  
✅ Null-safe operations (`is_null`, `not_null`)  
✅ Set membership (`IN`, `NOT IN`)  
✅ Supports custom SQL functions (`Func(...)`)  
✅ Fluent API for advanced condition building  
✅ **Parsing of SQL-like strings into expressions and conditions****Automatic expansion of `BETWEEN` clauses into composite comparisons**

---

## ⚡ Quick Example

```python
from expressql import col, cols, Func

age, salary, department = cols("age", "salary", "department")

condition = ((age > 30) * (department == "HR")) + (salary > 50000)

print(condition.placeholder_pair())
# ('((age > ?) AND (department = ?)) OR (salary > ?)', [30, 'HR', 50000])

🧠 Parsing SQL-Like Strings

You can parse raw strings into full SQL-safe expressions:

from expressql.parsers import parse_expression

expr = parse_expression("LOG(age, 10) + CUSTOM_FUNC(salary, bonus + 10) + 15")
print(expr.placeholder_pair())
# ('(? + LOG(age, ?) + CUSTOM_FUNC(salary, (bonus + ?)))', [15, 10, 10])

Or transform high-level condition strings:

from expressql.parsers import parse_condition

cond = parse_condition("age BETWEEN 30 AND 50 AND department = 'IT'")
print(cond.placeholder_pair())
# ('(age >= ? AND age <= ?) AND (department = ?)', [30, 50, 'IT'])

Auto-convert BETWEEN clauses:

from expressql.parsers import transform_betweens

s = "weight/POWER(height, 2) BETWEEN 18.5 AND 24.9 AND age >= 18"
print(transform_betweens(s))
# '(weight / POWER(height, 2) >= 18.5 AND weight / POWER(height, 2) <= 24.9 AND age >= 18)'

🧩 Key Concepts

1️⃣ Expressions & Comparisons

from expressql import col

age = col("age")
condition = (age + 10) > 50

SQL:

(age + 10) > 50

2️⃣ Chained Conditions

score = col("score")
cond = (50 < score) < 80  # Equivalent to 50 < score < 80

SQL:

(score > 50 AND score < 80)

3️⃣ Logical Composition

Use * or & for AND, + or | for OR, and ~ for NOT:

salary = col("salary")
dept = col("department")
cond = (salary > 40000) * (dept == "IT")

SQL:

(salary > 40000 AND department = 'IT')

4️⃣ Functions

Functions can be called directly on expressions if they are uppercase:

from expressql import col

total = col("salary") + col("bonus")
cond = total.LOG() > 10

SQL:

LOG((salary + bonus)) > 10

Custom functions:

from expressql import functions as f, cols

salary, bonus, passive_incomes = cols("salary", "bonus", "passive_incomes")
func_expr = f.CUSTOM_FUNC_FOO(salary, bonus, passive_incomes, inverted=True)

SQL:

1/CUSTOM_FUNC_FOO(salary, bonus, passive_incomes)

5️⃣ NULL and Set Operations

city = col("city")
region = col("region")

cond = city.is_null + region.isin(["North", "South"])

SQL:

(city IS NULL OR region IN ('North', 'South'))

🧪 Advanced Usage

Check the provided examples:

python simple_examples.py
python complex_examples.py

These demonstrate arithmetic, chaining, null logic, function use, and condition parsing.


FAQ

Why doesn't expressQL include full query builders?
This module focuses on expressions and conditions. For record queries with SELECT, UPDATE, etc, with joins and so on, I have made recordsQL and am working on tablesQLite

Can you make the column name validation more permissive?
In most cases, strict column validation prevents SQL injection or typos. However, I have a version that does a simpler check and allows passing forgiven characters. If it proves relevant, I will probably update it.

Every condition string comes wrapped in brackets, is there any way to avoid it? The conditions wrap themselves in brackets to pass it to other functions that might be calling it. Avoiding this could be implemented by setting a check '_first = True' into the functions, but it's just one extra pair of parenthesis on the final expression

🔥 Tip
If you're using this in a larger query builder or ORM, let me know —
I might have an expressQL-querybuilder in the works 👀.


Contributing

Contributions are welcome!
If you have suggestions for improvements, new features, or find any bugs, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.
I'm especially interested in ideas for better query builders and integrations with ORMs.

Roadmap

  • 📌 More built-in SQL functions (expressQL.functions)
  • 📌 Chain-aware logical optimizations
  • 📌 Full Query Builder integration (maybe expressQL-querybuilder)
  • 📌 Async support and better placeholder systems (for more DB engines)
  • 📌 Better error tracing and SQL preview options

License

MIT License — free for personal and commercial use.

Project details


Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

expressql-0.3.6.tar.gz (50.7 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

expressql-0.3.6-py3-none-any.whl (44.4 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file expressql-0.3.6.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: expressql-0.3.6.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 50.7 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.11.0

File hashes

Hashes for expressql-0.3.6.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 2567620592f1f4bad985cd52c296abb839ebc9161337b7b102cf57179f2b4386
MD5 75b516374f5f5c5ea9dc36efa14feff5
BLAKE2b-256 08346058b7f04d40af22bf6a17f2d0144077b451414acd2f38d4953f473d5612

See more details on using hashes here.

File details

Details for the file expressql-0.3.6-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: expressql-0.3.6-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 44.4 kB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.11.0

File hashes

Hashes for expressql-0.3.6-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 cd4b7992ab32f0f58c866dacbce837bcef33baa0a342fcbe5f0d4c76026f84b2
MD5 608499c9cf355f684f3def4777eb4953
BLAKE2b-256 cde4385d39ae9b4d1419b3e994571d59440242cfb1287fda321fe1fcf16dac97

See more details on using hashes here.

Supported by

AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Depot Continuous Integration Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Pingdom Monitoring Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page