/ 
App-DBBrowser-2.324
River stage zero No dependents
/ db-browser

NAME

db-browser - Browse SQL databases and their tables interactively.

VERSION

Version 2.324

SYNOPSIS

SQLite/MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/Firebird/DB2/Informix

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 is called without arguments, the user can choose from the databases offered by the database plugin.

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

SQLite/Firebird

db-browser -s|--search

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

DESCRIPTION

Before using db-browser, make sure you backed up your databases.

Search and read in SQL databases: one can browse databases and their tables interactively.

App::DBBrowser provides and supports plugins for the DBI drivers DBD::SQLite, DBD::mysql, DBD::MariaDB, DBD::Pg, DBD::Firebird, DBD::DB2 and DBD::Informix. See App::DBBrowser::DB how to write a database plugin.

NAVIGATION

  • 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-P) to go to the previous page, the PageDown key (or Ctrl-N) to go to the next 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 (e.g. the input filters Choose Rows and Choose Cols); in such sub-menus the list of items marked with the SpaceBar 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. A Ctrl-SpaceBar inverts the made choices - so for example to select all but one select the one with the SpaceBar and then press Ctrl-SpaceBar.

Read-line

  • BackSpace or Strg-H to delete the character behind the cursor, Delete to delete the character at point.

  • Strg-U to delete the text backward from the cursor to the beginning of the line, Strg-K to delete the text from the cursor to the end of the line.

  • Right-Arrow to move forward a character, Left-Arrow to move back a character.

  • Page-Up to move back 10 characters, Page-Down to move forward 10 characters.

  • Home or Strg-A to move to the start of the line, End or Strg-E to move to the end of the line.

To leave a read-line without returning anything press Ctrl-X. When the input puffer is empty and an Enter is pressed, read-line returns an empty string.

OUTPUT

The elements are right-justified if they look like a number else they are left-justified.

If the option squash_spaces is enabled, leading and trailing spaces are removed from the elements and spaces are squashed to a single white-space.

Tab characters (\t) are replaces with a space.

Vertical spaces (\v) are squashed to two spaces

Control characters, code points of the surrogate ranges and non-characters are removed.

See also the option group "Output".

Ctrl-F opens a prompt. A regular expression is expected as input. This enables one to only display rows where at least one column matches the entered pattern. See option "Search".

MENUS

Plugins Menu

Choosing a plugin leads to the Databases Menu.

(If there is only one plugin, the plugins menu is not shown but the plugin is chosen automatically.)

Databases Menu

Choosing a database leads to the Schemas Menu.

(If there is only one database, the databases menu is not shown but the database is chosen automatically.)

Schemas Menu

Choosing a schema leads to the Tables Menu.

(If there is not more than one schema, the schemas menu is not shown but the schema is chosen automatically.)

Tables Menu

The menu entries of the tables menu:

Prompt Line

Selecting the prompt line (the database name) opens a menu with these entries:

  • Create Table

  • Drop Table

  • Create View

  • Drop View

  • Attach DB

  • Detach DB

For Create Table, Drop Table, Create View and Drop View see "WRITE ACCESS". These entries are available if enabled in "Extensions".

Attache DB is available for SQLite databases. Attach DB can be used to attach databases to the current database.

By selecting the prompt line of this menu (the database name) one can change the Source type settings.

Tables Entries

Choosing one of the tables leads to the SQL Menu.

Derived

Choosing this entry allows one to enter a subquery and use it as a table.

This entry is available if enabled in "Extensions".

Join

Join tables.

This entry is available if enabled in "Extensions".

Union

Combine the result from multiple SELECT statements.

This entry is available if enabled in "Extensions".

Settings

See "DB Settings".

This entry is available if enabled in "Extensions".

SQL Menu

In this menu it can be formed the SQL query.

The SQL Menu has the following menu entries:

Prompt Line

Selecting this prompt line (Customize:) opens a menu with these entries:

  • Insert Into

  • Update

  • Delete

See "WRITE ACCESS". These entries are available if enabled in "Extensions".

By selecting the prompt line of this menu (Choose SQL type:) one can change the Source type settings.

Select Print TABLE to show the result of the formed statement on the screen.

The Sub-Statements Entries

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

See also "Extensions" and "Operators"

SELECT

Choose the required columns for the SELECT sub-statement.

It is possible to ad many columns at once by marking them with the SpaceBar key. If columns are marked with the SpaceBar, the highlighted column is not added to the chosen when Return is pressed.

If an AGGREGATE function or a GROUP BY columns is selected, the available choices of this sub-statement are the selected aggregate functions and the selected group-by columns.

AGGREGATE

AVG, COUNT, COUNT(*), GROUP_CONCAT, MAX, MIN, SUM

DISTINCT

WHERE

GROUP BY

It is possible to ad many columns at once by marking them with the SpaceBar key. If columns are marked with the SpaceBar, the highlighted column is not added to the chosen when Return is pressed.

HAVING

ORDER BY

LIMIT

Export

Export the result of the chosen SQL statement to a CSV-file. See options "Export data".

WRITE ACCESS

Create/Drop Table/View

Create/Drop Table/View can be reached by selecting the prompt-line in the "Tables Menu" if the respective option is activated.

Selecting the prompt line of the Create/Drop Table/View sub-menu allows one to set the parse settings described in "Import data".

Create Table

If the option Source type is set to menu, selecting Create Table opens a sub-menu where one can choose the type of the data source. If Source type is set to plain or file, the set data source type is used automatically without showing a menu.

For the meaning of the different data source types see "Source type".

If the data has been read from a file, the user can apply different input filters (See "Input filters").

The user is then asked

  • for the table name

  • if the first data row should be used as header

  • if an auto increment column should be added (if the option "Auto increment" is enabled)

  • to edit the column names

  • to edit the column data types

  • to confirm the creating of the table

Drop table

Drop a table. The whole table is shown before the user confirms to drop the table.

Create View

Before creating a view: print the required select-statement to make it available in the subquery menu.

Drop View

Drop a view. The whole view is shown before the user confirms to drop the view.

Insert Into/Update/Delete

Insert Into, Update and Delete can be reached by selecting the prompt-line in the "SQL Menu" if the respective option is activated.

Delete, Update or Insert Into may not be available with JOIN and UNION statements.

Selecting the prompt line of the Insert Into/Update/Delete sub-menu allows one to set the parse settings described in "Import data".

Insert Into

If the option Source type is set to menu, selecting Insert Into opens a sub-menu where one can choose the type of the data source. If Source type is set to plain or file, the set data source type is used without showing a menu.

For the meaning of the different data source types see "Source type".

After the data has been read the user can apply different input filters (See "Input filters").

If the first column of a table is an auto-increment column, the INSERT INTO statement is build without this first column. This feature is available if supported by the database plugin.

Update

Update records. The affected (and not yet updated) records are shown shown before the user confirms the update.

See also Subqueries in "Extensions"

Delete

Delete records. The affected records are shown before the user confirms the deletion.

Data Input

Data source

Plain

Insert the data cell by cell.

From File

The data is read from a chosen file.

Supported file formats: text files and file formats supported by Spreadsheet::Read. Spreadsheet::Read uses different parser modules for the different file formats - see "SEE-ALSO" in Spreadsheet::Read. The parser modules are not installed automatically. It is up to the user to install the required parser modules.

Selecting From File opens the Source directory sub-menu where one can choose the directory which should be searched for files.

If the "Directory history" is set to 1, the Source directory sub-menu is skipped and the directory is chosen automatically.

After a directory has been chosen a sub-menu is opened where one can choose the source file.

If the previous sub-menu Source directory is not shown due to the settings described before, it is possible to change the source directory in this sub-menu by selecting Change dir.

Input filters

Choose Cols

Use only selected columns of the imported data.

If the data has empty columns (--), the non-empty columns are preselected. Columns are regarded as empty if the values of all fields in the column - including the column header - have no length.

Columns added with the filter Append Col are empty and therefore not preselected.

If a column is not empty, but has no header name the header is named temporarily tmp.

Choose Rows

Use only selected rows of the imported data.

If the data has empty rows, the non-empty rows are preselected. Rows are regarded as empty if the values of all fields in the row have no length.

Range Rows

Use only a range of rows.

Row Groups

If the input has rows with different numbers of columns, Row Groups sorts rows with the same number of columns in a group. The user can then choose one or more groups of rows. There is only one group, if all rows have the same column count.

Remove Cell

Remove a cell from a chosen row.

Insert Cell

Insert a cell in a chosen row. The new cell is inserted in front of a chosen cell.

Append Col

Append an empty column. Appends a header element to the header row and adjusts the remaining rows to the length of the header row. If the input has rows with different numbers of cells, use the Row Group filter first to select the right row-group.

Split Column
 Item | length/width/height             Item | length | width | height
------|---------------------            -----|--------|-------|------
  423 |            40/30/25              423 |     40 |    30 |    25
------|---------------------              64 |     80 |    60 |    30
   64 |            80/60/30              705 |     50 |    50 |    40
------|---------------------
  705 |            50/50/40
Search & Replace
 y  | factor                            y  | factor
----|---------                          ---|-------
 62 | 8,975.1                           62 | 8975.1
----|---------                          63 | 9745.8
 63 | 9,745.8                           64 | 9818.2
----|---------
 64 | 9,818.2

In the replacement it can be used the variable $c as a counter. $c is set to 0 before each s///.

Available modifiers: g, i, e.

By selecting the prompt line (Your choice:) one can save search & replace-instructions for later use.

If a search & replace has altered the first row of the input data, a menu entry named RESTORE header row is offered.

Split Table
 y  | factor  | y  | factor             y  | factor
----|---------|----|---------           ---|--------
 62 | 8,975.1 | 64 | 9,986.5            62 | 8,975.1
----|---------|----|---------           63 | 9,745.8
 63 | 9,745.8 | 65 | 9,782.7            y  | factor
                                        64 | 9,818.2
                                        65 | 9,986.5
Merge Rows
 Month | Average | Average              Month | Average MinTemp | Average MaxTemp
-------|---------|---------             ------|-----------------|----------------
       | MinTemp | MaxTemp              Jan   |               9 |              22
-------|---------|---------             Feb   |              10 |              23
 Jan   |       9 |      22
-------|---------|---------
 Feb   |      10 |      23

Merge Rows can be used to edit a row by selecting only one row.

Join Columns
 Item | length | width | height          Item | length/width/height
------|--------|-------|--------         -----|-------------------
  423 |     40 |    30 |     25           423 | 40/30/25
------|--------|-------|--------           64 | 80/60/30
   64 |     80 |    60 |     30           705 | 50/50/40
------|--------|-------|--------
  705 |     50 |    50 |     40

Join Columns can be used to edit a column by selecting only one column.

Fill up Rows

If the input table rows have different numbers of cells, this filter appends empty cells to the rows until the cell count of the rows are equal to the cell count of the row with highest cell count.

One can enter in the Row Group filter to see if the table has rows with different length. If Row Group shows only one group, all rows have the same length.

Cols to Rows

Transpose columns to rows.

 Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002              Year | Max | Min
------|------|------|------             -----|-----|----
 Max  |   14 |   22 |   17              2000 |  14 |  11
------|------|------|------             2001 |  22 |  10
 Min  |   11 |   10 |    9              2002 |  17 |   9
Empty to NULL

Convert fields containing an empty string to NULL (undefined).

The default values for this filter can be set with the option "Empty to Null".

Reset

Reset the filters to the default values.

Reparse

Change the parse settings and reparse the data with the new settings.

OPTIONS

The options menu is called with db-browser -h.

HELP

Show this documentation.

Path

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

DB Plugins

Choose the required database plugins.

DB Settings

These driver specific DB Settings are used as the default database settings.

There is also in each "Tables Menu" the entry DB Settings (if enabled in "Extensions") to make database specific settings. If no database specific settings are set, these global (to the database plugin) DB Settings are used.

User defined database plugins: it depends on the plugin which items are offered to be set in each option and whether the selections made by the user are considered.

Fields

Set which fields are required to connect to a database.

Login Data

The entered login data is saved in a configuration file and used to connect to the database (the password can not be saved).

ENV Variables

The user can choose environment variables form a list of environment variables that should be used - if set - to connect to the database.

Attributes

For the meaning of these driver specific attributes check the appropriate driver documentation.

Reset DB

Reset database specific parameter to the global DB Settings.

Extensions

Add menu entries to menus:

Tables menu

  • Derived (table)

  • Join

  • Union

  • DB settings

Join menu

  • Derived (table)

Union menu

  • Derived (table)

  • Union All

Substatements

Enable substatement additions for:

  • SELECT

  • WHERE

  • GROUP BY

  • ORDER BY

  • SET

If enabled, %% is shown as additionally menu entry. Selecting %% lets one choose between the available extensions:

Functions

Selecting f() opens the "Functions" menu.

Subqueries

Selecting SQ opens the "Subqueries" menu.

Set column to NULL

Available after the SET in an UPDATE statement. Selecting =N sets the column to NULL.

If these menu entries are prefixed with =, it is required to select the wanted operator after the extended menu entry has been chosen.

Functions

  • String functions

    Bit_Length, Char_Length, Concat, Lower, LTrim, Replace, RTrim, Trim, Upper

  • Mathematical functions

    Round, Truncate

  • Type casting functions

    Cast

  • Date and time funcions

    Epoch_to_Date, Epoch_to_DateTime

Subqueries

Selecting a subquery menu entry (or a Derived menu entry) opens a subquery sub-menu which allows one the enter a subquery (Read-Line).

If stored or temporarily stored subqueries are available, it is also possible to select one of those subqueries instead of entering a subquery.

The subqueries are automatically enclosed in parentheses.

A subquery can be saved or removed in the sub-menu which opens by selecting the prompt line of a subquery menu (Choose SQ:).

The last subqueries entered in the subquery menu and the last statements printed with Print TABLE are stored temporarily.

Parentheses

Enable parentheses in WHERE and/or HAVING clauses.

Write access

Enable write access - use with care.

  • Insert Records

  • Update Records

  • Delete Records

  • Create Table

  • Drop Table

  • Create View

  • Drop View

SQL Settings

System data

If System data 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.

With Firebird, SIMILAR TO is used instead of REGEXP.

Aliases

Enable user defined alias for

  • Functions/Subqueries in SELECT

  • Derived tables

  • JOIN

  • UNION

Identifiers

Qualified table names

If set to YES, qualified table names are used in SQL statements.

Quote identifiers

If set to YES, SQL identifiers are quoted.

Informix: set the DELIMIDENT environmet variable to allow quoted identifier.

SQLite:

- database names in SQL statements (ATTACH DATABASE) are always quoted.

- if the current database has attached databases, the use of qualified table names is enabled automatically.

View prefix

Enter a string which should be automatically put in front of all view names.

Auto increment

Setting Auto increment to a value which is not the empty string enables the option to set an auto increment column when creating a table. The value set here is then used as the default name for the auto increment column.

Col data types

If this option is enabled and a table is created, SQL::Type::Guess is used to detect the data types. These data types are then used as default values when the user is asked for the data types.

Output

Truncate column threshold

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

Truncate fractions first

If the terminal width is not wide enough and Trunc fract first is enabled, the first step to reduce the width of the columns is to truncate the fraction part of numbers to 2 decimal places.

Progress bar

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.

Tab width

Set the number of spaces between columns.

Color

Enables the support for color and text formatting escape sequences (SGR) if set to Enable. Before the output it is added a reset (\e[0m) at the end of each row.

Binary filter

Set Binary filter to NO, BNRY or Hexadecimal.

NO - print the binary data as it is

BNRY - "BNRY" is printed instead of the binary data

Hexadecimal - the binary data is printed in hexadecimal format

If the first 100 characters of the data match the repexp /[\x00-\x08\x0B-\x0C\x0E-\x1F]/, the data is considered arbitrary binary data.

Printing unfiltered arbitrary binary data could break the output.

Squash spaces

If squash_spaces is enabled, consecutive spaces are squashed to one space and leading and trailing spaces are removed.

Indentation

Set the indentation width for the SQL substatements.

Undef string

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 entering the setting Undef string, user, host or port with the db-browsers readline. But it is possible to edit the entry in configuration files directly after the entry was created with this options menu.

Warnings

Enable/disable

  • File::Find warnings when searching for SQLite databases.

  • warnings - e.g. utf8 warnings - when printing a table.

Import data

Parse tool

Set how to parse text files. 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

    To decode the files it is used the "File encoding in".

    Advantages:

    • Allows to set different csv-related options.

  • split

    Reads to whole input at once and splits the input with the input record separator (IRS) to get the records (rows). Then it splits the records with the input field separator (IFS) to get the fields (columns) of each record.

    To decode the files it is used the "File encoding in".

    Advantages:

    • The values assigned to the IRS and the IFS are treated as regexps.

  • Template

    Uses unpack with the A character to break up input lines.

    • If the row length is greater than the screen width, make notes of the number of columns and the length of each column before using Template.

    • Choose the input record separator.

    • Set the number of columns (Col count) and the width of the column separator (Sep width). Col count expects an integer of 1 or greater; Sep width expects an integer of 0 or greater.

    • Set the widths of the columns (1 or greater). For the last column one can also enter an asterisk (*). The last column with an asterisk means: Use the remaining part of the row for the last column.

    • Decide whether leading spaces should be removed. Trailing whitespaces are removed automatically.

    Advantages:

    • Good for fixed column length inputs containing only single width characters.

  • 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.

    Spreadsheet::Read::rows fills up uneven rows automatically so the filter "Fill up Rows" and "Row Groups" have no meaning if Spreadsheet::Read is used.

    Advantages:

    • Auto-detects the separation character for csv-files

CSV options in a

Set sep_char, quote_char, escape_char, eol and comment_str.

If entered nothing, default values are used.

For the meaning of the different options see Text::CSV_XS.

CSV options in b

Set allow_loose_escapes, allow_loose_quotes, allow_whitespace, blank_is_undef, binary, decode_utf8, empty_is_undef and skip_empty_rows.

For the meaning of the different options see Text::CSV_XS.

Settings 'split'

  • Record separator

    Set the input record separator (regexp).

  • Trim record left

    Expects a regex pattern. If set, removes leading characters matching regexp from each record.

  • Trim record right

    Expects a regex pattern. If set, removes trailing characters matching regexp from each record.

  • Field separator

    Set the input field separator (regexp).

  • Trim field left

    Expects a regex pattern. If set, removes leading characters matching regexp from each field.

  • Trim field right

    Expects a regex pattern. If set, removes trailing characters matching regexp from each field.

Input filter

Enable the input filter menu.

Enabling input filter will cause a second copy of the data to be kept in memory.

Empty to Null

Set the empty_to_null defaults for the different data source types.

File encoding in

How to decode text files.

Directory history

Set how many searched directories should be saved in the directory history.

A value of 0 disables the history.

If Directory history is set to 1 and a directory has been saved, the directory is chosen automatically without showing the history menu.

File filter

This option expects as its value a string. The string is used as a glob pattern.

If file is selected as the data source type, only files matching this glob pattern are part of the available files.

Hidden files

If file is selected as the data source type, this setting determines if hidden files are part of the available files or not.

Source type

Set the data source type to plain, file or menu for Insert Into and for Create Table.

If this option is set to menu, a menu is offered where the user can choose the type of the data source. If this option is set to plain or file, the respective setting is used directly without any menu.

Export data

Destination folder

Set the folder where the data to be exported will be saved as a CSV file.

File name

File extension csv

If this option is enabled, the file extension csv is added automatically to the file name.

Default file name

If enabled, the table name will be used as the default file name.

CSV options out a

Set sep_char, quote_char, escape_char, eol and undef_str.

If entered nothing, default values are used except for eol which is then set to $/ (input record separator).

For the meaning of the different options see Text::CSV_XS.

CSV options out b

Set always_quote, binary, escape_null, quote_binary, quote_empty and quote_space.

For the meaning of the different options see Text::CSV_XS.

File encoding out

The encoding of the exported CSV file.

Misc

Set the behavior of

If enabled: saves the menu position while entering in a sub menu.

Expand table

Expand table rows:

YES

if Return is pressed, the selected table row is printed with each column in its own line. The first row is not expanded if the cursor auto-jumped to the first row.

NO

don't expand table rows.

Set the search behavior (Ctrl-F).

disabled

Mouse mode

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

DB2 encoding

DB2 databases only: set the application code set.

Data comming from a DB2 database is decoded with this encoding.

CONFIGURATION FILES

To find out the location of the configuration files call db-browser -h and choose Path. The data is saved in JSON format.

REQUIREMENTS

Perl version

Requires Perl version 5.14.0 or greater.

Decoded strings

db-browser expects decoded strings.

Non mappable characters will break the output.

Terminal

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

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.

Permissions

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.

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 2012-2023 Matthäus Kiem.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

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.