Module for substituting complex criteria into hand-written SQL queries

Dallaylaen has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello dear esteemed monks,

Sometimes I wish I could do something along the lines of

my $sth = $dbh->prepare("SELECT f.bar, f.baz FROM foo f WHERE f.???");
$sth->execute({ bar => 42});
[download]

I.e. pass a hash instead of individual values (thus ??? instead of just ? for 1 value). Also I want to be able to write

{ var => (value > 5) & (value <= 10) }
[download]

instead of a single value, specifying a complex criteria that would unfold into a proper WHERE statement (or part of it).

I was able to create a prototype module implementing (to some extent) the latter and minimally the former. However, maybe there's an already existing solution on CPAN? The size of DBIx:: namespace is far beyond my comprehension, so I seek help here.

Looks like SQL::Abstract does something similar... Are there more precise matches? And yes, I love the ability to write SQL queries by hand (or ask a DBA to), it's just substitution of criteria that I find inconvenient.

Thank you, and hope you have a nice day!

Comment on Module for substituting complex criteria into hand-written SQL queries Select or Download Code

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Re: Module for substituting complex criteria into hand-written SQL queries by 1nickt (Canon) on Apr 16, 2017 at 17:31 UTC
Check out SQL::Abstract::More, which extends the parent class with more flexible functionality (and uses named params, Blessed Be!) So you can do something like: `my $sqla = SQL::Abstract::More->new; my $time = time; my $status = 'active'; my ( $sql, @bind ) = $sqla->select( # new users yesterday -columns => 'id, name', -from => 'users', -where => { status => $status, first_seen_time => { '>' => $time - 86400, '<=' => $time, }, }, );` [download] Output: `$sql: 'SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE ( ( ( first_seen_time <= ? AND + first_seen_time > ? ) AND status = ? ) )'; \@bind: [ 1492373509, 1492287109, 'active' ];` [download] As you can see this SQL builder often adds unnecessary parentheses; I don't worry about these since any decent RDBMS will optimize them away. update: added example and then example output Hope this helps! The way forward always starts with a minimal test.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Module for substituting complex criteria into hand-written SQL queries by Dallaylaen (Chaplain) on Apr 16, 2017 at 20:32 UTC
Thanks for your reply! SQL::Abstract::More looks powerful, but that is a slightly different approach from what I would like. It seems like it's about generating complex SQL queries from a data structure. I'm fine with using SQL itself as a DSL to describe SQL. However, sometimes a condition more complex than just `parameter = ?` is not known beforehand. E.g. we don't know whether user wants dates after, before, or between certain point(s), but the rest of the query is still the same. In such cases pre-written SQL is not enough. I usually end up concatenating generated and pre-written parts of query by hand. Possibly not the most efficient way, but that's what I'm comfortable with. So I think there may be a tool that automates it by patching a pre-written query with some condition group(s). Hard to figure out what I'm really looking for... If I knew for sure, I'd just google instead of asking...	[reply]
Re^3: Module for substituting complex criteria into hand-written SQL queries by 1nickt (Canon) on Apr 16, 2017 at 21:14 UTC
There is no reason you can't build your parameters based on runtime conditions: `my $cutoff = time - 86400; my $first_seen_time = {}; if ( $user_wants_dates_before_today ) { $first_seen_time = { '<' => $cutoff, }; } else { $first_seen_time = { '>=' => $cutoff, }; ); my ( $sql, @bind ) = $sqla->select( -columns => 'id, name', -from => 'users', -where => { status => $status, first_seen_time => $first_seen_time, }, );` [download] Also, for another approach, remember that you can insert actual SQL into the parameters to a SQLA call, and you could generate that SQL snippet based on your run-time conditions. Hope this helps! The way forward always starts with a minimal test.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Module for substituting complex criteria into hand-written SQL queries by bart (Canon) on Apr 18, 2017 at 21:25 UTC
From SQL::Abstract's docs: `# Just generate the WHERE clause my($stmt, @bind) = $sql->where(\%where, $order);` [download] Just plug that into your own SQL.	[reply] [d/l]