DQL — Data Query Language

A declarative query language for Go. You describe what you want as a document; DQL plans it, pushes down what the database can do, and finishes the rest in memory.

from:
  dataset: spaces
where:
  field: parent_id
  op: "=="
  value: "$parentId"
orderBy:
  - field: sort_order
    dir: asc

Plus a pipe mode — an ordered chain of operators applied to a stream of rows:

from:
  dataset: events
pipe:
  - op: filter
    where: { field: status, op: "==", value: "open" }
  - op: groupBy
    keys: [assignee]
  - op: aggregate
    aggs: [{ fn: count, as: total }]
  - op: sort
    by: [{ field: total, dir: desc }]
  - op: limit
    n: 10

On the name. DQL is Data Query Language. It queries whatever data a host exposes and assumes no domain of its own.

Install

go get github.com/xraph/dql

What's in the box

Package	Purpose
dsl	The document types — QueryDSL, clauses, plan types
parser	Parse and validate a document, classic or pipe mode
planner	Decide what pushes down to SQL and what does not
sqlgen	Emit SQL and its arguments from a plan
processor	Finish in memory: computed columns, expression filters, sort
pipe	The operator library — reshape, textual, quality, time, set ops
exec	Run a plan against a database/sql-shaped connection
expand	Turn id columns into display fields
scope	Partition/tenant scoping (see below)

Operators

The pipe catalog defines 39 operators — filter, project, aggregate, window, joins, time bucketing, reshaping, quality checks, set operations. They ship with the language rather than being left to the host: the operator set is the language, and a query that runs against one host should mean the same thing against another.

Operator reference → — every operator with its config schema, examples, and requirements. Generated from the catalog, so it cannot drift from the code.

Most operators are self-contained. A few need something from the host, and say so rather than leaving you to find out at query time:

octx := &pipe.OpContext{Eval: myEvaluator}

for name, needs := range pipe.MissingRequirements(octx) {
	log.Printf("operator %s unavailable: needs %v", name, needs)
}

Pass the same OpContext to a completion request and stages the deployment cannot run are left out — an editor should not suggest callApp to a host with no app caller:

items := pipe.CompleteText(text, cursor, pipe.CompletionContext{Services: octx})

Leaving Services nil means "not known", not "nothing wired", so an editor working on a file with no host attached still sees the whole language.

Bring your own database

exec.SQLQuerier is deliberately the shape database/sql already has, so anything you already use satisfies it — including a pooled or instrumented wrapper:

type SQLQuerier interface {
	Query(ctx context.Context, sql string, args ...any) (SQLRows, error)
}

Partition scoping

Multi-tenant callers need every query confined to a tenant, and getting that wrong is a data leak rather than a bug. DQL does not guess what partitions your data — you declare it, and the planner and generator apply it to base tables and joins:

sc := scope.Scope{
	{Name: "tenant_id", Value: tenantID, Required: true, ScopeJoins: true},
	{Name: "project_id", Value: projectID},
}

Required emits the predicate even when a table does not declare the column. ScopeJoins also scopes joined tables, in the ON clause rather than WHERE, so an out-of-scope row fails the join instead of NULL-padding through a LEFT join.

A nil scope is refused. An explicitly empty one — scope.Scope{} — is honoured. Those are different intentions, and only one of them is safe to guess at: a caller who forgot would otherwise get SQL spanning every tenant, quietly.

Expressions

Computed columns and expression filters are evaluated through an interface, so the expression language is yours to choose:

type ExprEvaluator interface {
	Eval(ctx context.Context, expr string, row map[string]any) (any, error)
}

github.com/xraph/dtl satisfies it directly.

Status

DQL has been in production use as an embedded query engine before being published here as a standalone project. The document format is stable.

Editor support

Highlighting and language intelligence both ship with the language, so an editor needs no bespoke client code:

Want	Use
Syntax highlighting	syntaxes/ — TextMate grammar, scope source.dql
Completion, hover, diagnostics	cmd/dql-lsp — a Language Server Protocol server
To build your own	lang — the same features as plain functions

go install github.com/xraph/dql/cmd/dql-lsp@latest

The server works on a file on disk with nothing else running. A host that knows more — which datasets exist, which functions are registered — passes that in and gets richer completions; without it, the language itself is still there.

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE, NOTICE, and TRADEMARKS.