PRQL compiler CLI — prqlc

prqlc serves as a CLI for the PRQL compiler. It is a single, dependency-free binary that compiles PRQL into SQL.

Usage

prqlc compile

This command works as a filter that compiles a PRQL string into an SQL string.

$ echo "from employees | filter has_dog | select salary" | prqlc compile

SELECT
  salary
FROM
  employees
WHERE
  has_dog

A PRQL query can be executed with CLI tools compatible with SQL,, such as DuckDB CLI.

$ curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PRQL/prql/0.8.1/prql-compiler/tests/integration/data/chinook/albums.csv -o albums.csv
$ echo "from `albums.csv` | take 3" | prqlc compile | duckdb
┌──────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┬───────────┐
│ album_id │                 title                 │ artist_id │
│  int64   │                varchar                │   int64   │
├──────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│        1 │ For Those About To Rock We Salute You │         1 │
│        2 │ Balls to the Wall                     │         2 │
│        3 │ Restless and Wild                     │         2 │
└──────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┴───────────┘

Executing this command without any argument will start interactive mode, allowing a PRQL query to be written interactively. In this mode, after writing PRQL and press Ctrl-d (Linux, macOS) or Ctrl-z (Windows) to display the compiled SQL.

prqlc compile

Just like when using it as a filter, SQL string output can be passed to the DuckDB CLI and similar tools.

$ prqlc compile | duckdb
Enter PRQL, then press ctrl-d to compile:

from `albums.csv`
take 3
┌──────────┬───────────────────────────────────────┬───────────┐
│ album_id │                 title                 │ artist_id │
│  int64   │                varchar                │   int64   │
├──────────┼───────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┤
│        1 │ For Those About To Rock We Salute You │         1 │
│        2 │ Balls to the Wall                     │         2 │
│        3 │ Restless and Wild                     │         2 │
└──────────┴───────────────────────────────────────┴───────────┘

Installation

via Homebrew (macOS, Linux)

brew install prqlc

From GitHub release page

Precompiled binaries are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows on the PRQL release page.

From source

# From crates.io
cargo install prqlc

# From a local PRQL repository
cargo install --path crates/prqlc

Shell completions

The prqlc shell-completion command prints a shell completion script for supported shells, and saving the printed scripts to files makes for shells to load completions for each session.

Bash

For Linux:

prqlc shell-completion bash >/etc/bash_completion.d/prqlc

For macOS:

prqlc shell-completion bash >/usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/prqlc

fish

prqlc shell-completion fish >~/.config/fish/completions/prqlc.fish

PowerShell

mkdir -Path (Split-Path -Parent $profile) -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
prqlc shell-completion powershell >path/to/prqlc.ps1
echo 'Invoke-Expression -Command path/to/prqlc.ps1' >>$profile

zsh

prqlc shell-completion zsh >"${fpath[1]}/_prqlc"

Ensure that the following lines are present in ~/.zshrc:

autoload -U compinit
compinit -i

Helpers

Cheat sheets for prqlc are available on various websites and with various tools.

• tldr (on the web)
• eg