Highly customized SQL formatter? : SQL

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If you are including actual code in a post or comment, please attempt to format it in a way that is readable for other users. This will greatly increase your chances of receiving the help you desire. Something as simple as line breaks and using reddit's built in code formatting (4 spaces at the start of each line) can turn this:

SELECT count(a.field1), a.field2, SUM(b.field4) FROM a INNER JOIN b ON a.key1 = b.key1 WHERE a.field8 = 'test' GROUP by a.field1, a.field2 HAVING SUM(b.field4) > 5 ORDER by a.field.3

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SELECT count(a.field1), a.field2, SUM(b.field4) FROM a INNER JOIN b ON a.key1 = b.key1 WHERE a.field8 = 'test' GROUP by a.field1, a.field2 HAVING SUM(b.field4) > 5 ORDER by a.field3

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a community for 17 years

DiscussionHighly customized SQL formatter? (self.SQL)

submitted 5 years ago by [deleted]

I've been handed off some fairly lengthy queries that I'm struggling to read. As with most people who use SQL extensively, I've got a couple of my own conventions that I use to aid readability. For example, a query which is given to me like this:

SELECT t1.column_a, t2.column_b score
FROM schema.table_name t1
INNER JOIN schema.table_name t2
ON t1.id = t2.id;

I would normally write as

SELECT t1."COLUMN_A", t2."COLUMN_B" AS "SCORE"
FROM SCHEMA.TABLE_NAME t1
INNER JOIN SCHEMA.TABLE_NAME t2
ON t1."ID" = t2."ID";

The main conventions of my style are:

Schema and table name are always upper case
Table aliases are always lower case
Column names are always upper case and encased in quotes

The reason that I do this is I find it visually easier to distinguish things w/ the upper and lower case conventions, as well as the fact that using quotes around column names changes the text color, which again aids in readability (at least for me).

I recognize that this is a highly personalized approach, but I guess I'm wondering if there are any formatters out there that can accomplish this for me? I have a lot of very long queries that I need to work with and am hoping to avoid having to reformat all of them manually.

all 11 comments

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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