Inline SQL

A simple embedded language for running inline SQL in Python programs.

from inline_sql import sql, sql_val

assert sql_val^ "SELECT 1 + 1" == 2

x = 5
assert sql_val^ "SELECT $x * 2" == 10

df = sql^ "SELECT * FROM (VALUES (1, 10), (2, 20)) df (x, y)"
assert sql_val^ "SELECT SUM(x) + SUM(y) FROM df" == 33

Operations in the inline_sql library run directly inside your process. You can query local datasets (pandas frames), CSV files, and even interpolate variables seamlessly. This is implemented as a small wrapper around DuckDB, so it is extremely fast.

Installation

Supports Python 3.7+, tested on all major operating systems.

pip install inline-sql

Usage

The exported sql and sql_val variables are magic objects that can be used to run queries. Queries can read from local dataframes by name, and they can embed parameters using dollar-sign notation.

>>> from inline_sql import sql, sql_val

>>> sql_val^ "SELECT 1 + 1"
2

>>> x = 5

>>> sql_val^ "SELECT 2 * $x"
10

>>> sql^ "SELECT * FROM 'disasters.csv' LIMIT 5"
                  Entity  Year   Deaths
0  All natural disasters  1900  1267360
1  All natural disasters  1901   200018
2  All natural disasters  1902    46037
3  All natural disasters  1903     6506
4  All natural disasters  1905    22758

>>> disasters = sql^ "SELECT * FROM 'disasters.csv'"

>>> def total_deaths(entity: str) -> float:
...     return sql_val^ "SELECT SUM(deaths) FROM disasters WHERE Entity = $entity"
...

>>> total_deaths("Drought")
11731294.0

>>> total_deaths("Earthquake")
2576801.0

You can run any SQL query as described in the DuckDB documentation.

Library Use

You can use inline_sql as a library. Since results from queries are ordinary pandas.DataFrame objects, they work in functions and application code. Here's a longer example:

import pandas as pd
from inline_sql import sql, sql_val


def head_data(count: int) -> pd.DataFrame:
    return sql^ "SELECT * FROM 'cars.csv' LIMIT $count"


cars = head_data(50)

origin_counts = sql^ """
    SELECT origin, COUNT() FROM cars
    GROUP BY origin
    ORDER BY count DESC
"""
print(origin_counts)

most_common = origin_counts.origin[0]
print(sql_val^ """
    SELECT AVG(horsepower) FROM cars
    WHERE origin = $most_common
""")

In general, sql_val is used to run scalar queries, while sql is used to run queries that return tables.

Acknowledgements

Created by Eric Zhang (@ekzhang1). Licensed under the MIT license.