API Reference

SQLFluff exposes a public api for other python applications to use. A basic example of this usage is given here, with the documentation for each of the methods below.

"""This is an example of how to use the simple sqlfluff api."""

from typing import Any, Dict, Iterator, List, Union
import sqlfluff

#  -------- LINTING ----------

my_bad_query = "SeLEct  *, 1, blah as  fOO  from mySchema.myTable"

# Lint the given string and return an array of violations in JSON representation.
lint_result = sqlfluff.lint(my_bad_query, dialect="bigquery")
# lint_result =
# [
#     {
#         "code": "L010",
#         "line_no": 1,
#         "line_pos": 1,
#         "description": "Keywords must be consistently upper case.",
#     }
#     ...
# ]

#  -------- FIXING ----------

# Fix the given string and get a string back which has been fixed.
fix_result_1 = sqlfluff.fix(my_bad_query, dialect="bigquery")
# fix_result_1 = 'SELECT  *, 1, blah AS  foo  FROM myschema.mytable\n'

# We can also fix just specific rules.
fix_result_2 = sqlfluff.fix(my_bad_query, rules=["L010"])
# fix_result_2 = 'SELECT  *, 1, blah AS  fOO  FROM mySchema.myTable'

# Or a subset of rules...
fix_result_3 = sqlfluff.fix(my_bad_query, rules=["L010", "L014"])
# fix_result_3 = 'SELECT  *, 1, blah AS  fOO  FROM myschema.mytable'

#  -------- PARSING ----------

# Parse the given string and return a JSON representation of the parsed tree.
parse_result = sqlfluff.parse(my_bad_query)
# parse_result = {'file': {'statement': {...}, 'newline': '\n'}}

# This JSON structure can then be parsed as required.
# An example usage is shown below:


def get_json_segment(
    parse_result: Dict[str, Any], segment_type: str
) -> Iterator[Union[str, Dict[str, Any], List[Dict[str, Any]]]]:
    """Recursively search JSON parse result for specified segment type.

    Args:
        parse_result (Dict[str, Any]): JSON parse result from `sqlfluff.fix`.
        segment_type (str): The segment type to search for.

    Yields:
        Iterator[Union[str, Dict[str, Any], List[Dict[str, Any]]]]:
        Retrieves children of specified segment type as either a string for a raw
        segment or as JSON or an array of JSON for non-raw segments.
    """
    for k, v in parse_result.items():
        if k == segment_type:
            yield v
        elif isinstance(v, dict):
            yield from get_json_segment(v, segment_type)
        elif isinstance(v, list):
            for s in v:
                yield from get_json_segment(s, segment_type)


# e.g. Retrieve array of JSON for table references.
table_references = list(get_json_segment(parse_result, "table_reference"))
print(table_references)
# [[{'identifier': 'mySchema'}, {'dot': '.'}, {'identifier': 'myTable'}]]

# Retrieve raw table name from last identifier in the table reference.
for table_reference in table_references:
    table_name = list(get_json_segment(parse_result, "naked_identifier"))[-1]
    print(f"table_name: {table_name}")
# table_name: myTable

Simple API commands

Advanced API usage

The simple API presents only a fraction of the functionality present within the core SQLFluff library. For more advanced use cases, users can import the Linter() and FluffConfig() classes from sqlfluff.core. As of version 0.4.0 this is considered as experimental only as the internals may change without warning in any future release. If you come to rely on the internals of SQLFluff, please post an issue on GitHub to share what you’re up to. This will help shape a more reliable, tidy and well documented public API for use.