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Changelog

1.0a25 (2026-02-25)

write_wrapper() plugin hook for intercepting write operations

A new :ref:`write_wrapper() <plugin_hook_write_wrapper>` plugin hook allows plugins to intercept and wrap database write operations. (#2636)

Plugins implement the hook as a generator-based context manager:

@hookimpl
def write_wrapper(datasette, database, request):
    def wrapper(conn):
        # Setup code runs before the write
        yield
        # Cleanup code runs after the write

    return wrapper

register_token_handler() plugin hook for custom API token backends

A new :ref:`register_token_handler() <plugin_hook_register_token_handler>` plugin hook allows plugins to provide custom token backends for API authentication. (#2650)

This includes a backwards incompatible change: the datasette.create_token() internal method is now an async method. Consult the :ref:`upgrade guide <upgrade_guide_v1_a25>` for details on how to update your code.

render_cell() now receives a pks parameter

The :ref:`render_cell() <plugin_hook_render_cell>` plugin hook now receives a pks parameter containing the list of primary key column names for the table being rendered. This avoids plugins needing to make redundant async calls to look up primary keys. (#2641)

Other changes

  • Facets defined in metadata now preserve their configured order, instead of being sorted by result count. Request-based facets added via the _facet parameter are still sorted by result count and appear after metadata-defined facets. (:issue:`2647`)
  • Fixed --reload incorrectly interpreting the serve command as a file argument. Thanks, Daniel Bates. (#2646)

1.0a24 (2026-01-29)

request.form() method for POST data and file uploads

Datasette now includes a request.form() method for parsing form submissions, including handling file uploads. (#2626)

This supports both application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data content types, and uses a new streaming multipart parser that processes uploads without buffering entire request bodies in memory.

# Parse form fields (files are discarded by default)
form = await request.form()
username = form["username"]

# Parse form fields AND file uploads
form = await request.form(files=True)
uploaded = form["avatar"]
content = await uploaded.read()

The returned :ref:`FormData <internals_formdata>` object provides dictionary-style access with support for multiple values per key via form.getlist("key"). Uploaded files are represented as :ref:`UploadedFile <internals_uploadedfile>` objects with filename, content_type, size properties and async read() and seek() methods.

Files smaller than 1MB are held in memory; larger files automatically spill to temporary files on disk. Configurable limits control maximum file size, request size, field counts and more.

Several internal views (permissions debug, messages debug, create token) now use request.form() instead of request.post_vars().

request.post_vars() remains available for backwards compatibility but is no longer the recommended API for handling POST data.

render_cell and foreign_key_tables extras for the JSON API

The table JSON API now supports ?_extra=render_cell, which returns the rendered HTML for each cell as produced by the :ref:`render_cell plugin hook <plugin_hook_render_cell>`. Only columns whose rendered output differs from the default are included. (:issue:`2619`)

The row JSON API also gains ?_extra=render_cell and ?_extra=foreign_key_tables extras, bringing it closer to parity with the table API.

The row JSON API now returns "ok": true in its response, for consistency with the table API.

uv run pytest with a dev= dependency group

The recommended development environment for Datasette now uses uv. You can now set up a development environment and run the test suite with just uv run pytest — no manual virtualenv or pip install step required. (:issue:`2611`)

Other changes

  • Plugins that raise datasette.utils.StartupError() during startup now display a clean error message instead of a full traceback. (:issue:`2624`)
  • Schema refreshes are now throttled to at most once per second, providing a small performance increase. (:issue:`2629`)
  • Minor performance improvement to remove_infinites — rows without infinity values now skip the list/dict reconstruction step. (:issue:`2629`)
  • Filter inputs and the search input no longer trigger unwanted zoom on iOS Safari. Thanks, Daniel Olasubomi Sobowale. (:issue:`2346`)
  • table_names() and get_all_foreign_keys() now return results in deterministic sorted order. (:issue:`2628`)
  • Switched linting to ruff and fixed all lint errors. (:issue:`2630`)

1.0a23 (2025-12-02)

  • Fix for bug where a stale database entry in internal.db could cause a 500 error on the homepage. (:issue:`2605`)
  • Cosmetic improvement to /-/actions page. (:issue:`2599`)

1.0a22 (2025-11-13)

1.0a21 (2025-11-05)

  • Fixes an open redirect security issue: Datasette instances would redirect to example.com/foo/bar if you accessed the path //example.com/foo/bar. Thanks to James Jefferies for the fix. (:issue:`2429`)
  • Fixed datasette publish cloudrun to work with changes to the underlying Cloud Run architecture. (:issue:`2511`)
  • New datasette --get /path --headers option for inspecting the headers returned by a path. (:issue:`2578`)
  • New datasette.client.get(..., skip_permission_checks=True) parameter to bypass permission checks when making requests using the internal client. (:issue:`2583`)

0.65.2 (2025-11-05)

  • Fixes an open redirect security issue: Datasette instances would redirect to example.com/foo/bar if you accessed the path //example.com/foo/bar. Thanks to James Jefferies for the fix. (:issue:`2429`)
  • Upgraded for compatibility with Python 3.14.
  • Fixed datasette publish cloudrun to work with changes to the underlying Cloud Run architecture. (:issue:`2511`)
  • Minor upgrades to fix warnings, including pkg_resources deprecation.

1.0a20 (2025-11-03)

This alpha introduces a major breaking change prior to the 1.0 release of Datasette concerning how Datasette's permission system works.

Permission system redesign

Previously the permission system worked using datasette.permission_allowed() checks which consulted all available plugins in turn to determine whether a given actor was allowed to perform a given action on a given resource.

This approach could become prohibitively expensive for large lists of items - for example to determine the list of tables that a user could view in a large Datasette instance each plugin implementation of that hook would be fired for every table.

The new design uses SQL queries against Datasette's internal :ref:`catalog tables <internals_internal>` to derive the list of resources for which an actor has permission for a given action. This turns an N x M problem (N resources, M plugins) into a single SQL query.

Plugins can use the new :ref:`plugin_hook_permission_resources_sql` hook to return SQL fragments which will be used as part of that query.

Plugins that use any of the following features will need to be updated to work with this and following alphas (and Datasette 1.0 stable itself):

Consult the :ref:`v1.0a20 upgrade guide <upgrade_guide_v1_a20>` for further details on how to upgrade affected plugins.

Plugins can now make use of two new internal methods to help resolve permission checks:

Related changes:

  • The way datasette --root works has changed. Running Datasette with this flag now causes the root actor to pass all permission checks. (:issue:`2521`)
  • Permission debugging improvements:
    • The /-/allowed endpoint shows resources the user is allowed to interact with for different actions.
    • /-/rules shows the raw allow/deny rules that apply to different permission checks.
    • /-/actions lists every available action.
    • /-/check can be used to try out different permission checks for the current actor.

Other changes

  • The internal catalog_views table now tracks SQLite views alongside tables in the introspection database. (:issue:`2495`)
  • Hitting the / brings up a search interface for navigating to tables that the current user can view. A new /-/tables endpoint supports this functionality. (:issue:`2523`)
  • Datasette attempts to detect some configuration errors on startup.
  • Datasette now supports Python 3.14 and no longer tests against Python 3.9.

1.0a19 (2025-04-21)

  • Tiny cosmetic bug fix for mobile display of table rows. (:issue:`2479`)

1.0a18 (2025-04-16)

  • Fix for incorrect foreign key references in the internal database schema. (:issue:`2466`)
  • The prepare_connection() hook no longer runs for the internal database. (:issue:`2468`)
  • Fixed bug where link: HTTP headers used invalid syntax. (:issue:`2470`)
  • No longer tested against Python 3.8. Now tests against Python 3.13.
  • FTS tables are now hidden by default if they correspond to a content table. (:issue:`2477`)
  • Fixed bug with foreign key links to rows in databases with filenames containing a special character. Thanks, Jack Stratton. (#2476)

1.0a17 (2025-02-06)

  • DATASETTE_SSL_KEYFILE and DATASETTE_SSL_CERTFILE environment variables as alternatives to --ssl-keyfile and --ssl-certfile. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (:issue:`2422`)
  • SQLITE_EXTENSIONS environment variable has been renamed to DATASETTE_LOAD_EXTENSION. (:issue:`2424`)
  • datasette serve environment variables are now :ref:`documented here <cli_datasette_serve_env>`.
  • The :ref:`plugin_hook_register_magic_parameters` plugin hook can now register async functions. (:issue:`2441`)
  • Datasette is now tested against Python 3.13.
  • Breadcrumbs on database and table pages now include a consistent self-link for resetting query string parameters. (:issue:`2454`)
  • Fixed issue where Datasette could crash on metadata.json with nested values. (:issue:`2455`)
  • New internal methods datasette.set_actor_cookie() and datasette.delete_actor_cookie(), :ref:`described here <authentication_ds_actor>`. (:issue:`1690`)
  • /-/permissions page now shows a list of all permissions registered by plugins. (:issue:`1943`)
  • If a table has a single unique text column Datasette now detects that as the foreign key label for that table. (:issue:`2458`)
  • The /-/permissions page now includes options for filtering or exclude permission checks recorded against the current user. (:issue:`2460`)
  • Fixed a bug where replacing a database with a new one with the same name did not pick up the new database correctly. (:issue:`2465`)

0.65.1 (2024-11-28)

  • Fixed bug with upgraded HTTPX 0.28.0 dependency. (:issue:`2443`)

0.65 (2024-10-07)

  • Upgrade for compatibility with Python 3.13 (by vendoring Pint dependency). (:issue:`2434`)
  • Dropped support for Python 3.8.

1.0a16 (2024-09-05)

This release focuses on performance, in particular against large tables, and introduces some minor breaking changes for CSS styling in Datasette plugins.

  • Removed the unit conversions feature and its dependency, Pint. This means Datasette is now compatible with the upcoming Python 3.13. (:issue:`2400`, :issue:`2320`)

  • The datasette --pdb option now uses the ipdb debugger if it is installed. You can install it using datasette install ipdb. Thanks, Tiago Ilieve. (#2342)

  • Fixed a confusing error that occurred if metadata.json contained nested objects. (:issue:`2403`)

  • Fixed a bug with ?_trace=1 where it returned a blank page if the response was larger than 256KB. (:issue:`2404`)

  • Tracing mechanism now also displays SQL queries that returned errors or ran out of time. datasette-pretty-traces 0.5 includes support for displaying this new type of trace. (:issue:`2405`)

  • Fixed a text spacing with table descriptions on the homepage. (:issue:`2399`)

  • Performance improvements for large tables:
    • Suggested facets now only consider the first 1000 rows. (:issue:`2406`)
    • Improved performance of date facet suggestion against large tables. (:issue:`2407`)
    • Row counts stop at 10,000 rows when listing tables. (:issue:`2398`)
    • On table page the count stops at 10,000 rows too, with a "count all" button to execute the full count. (:issue:`2408`)

  • New .dicts() internal method on :ref:`database_results` that returns a list of dictionaries representing the results from a SQL query: (:issue:`2414`)

    rows = (await db.execute("select * from t")).dicts()

  • Default Datasette core CSS that styles inputs and buttons now requires a class of "core" on the element or a containing element, for example <form class="core">. (:issue:`2415`)

  • Similarly, default table styles now only apply to <table class="rows-and-columns">. (:issue:`2420`)

1.0a15 (2024-08-15)

  • Datasette now defaults to hiding SQLite "shadow" tables, as seen in extensions such as SQLite FTS and sqlite-vec. Virtual tables that it makes sense to display, such as FTS core tables, are no longer hidden. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (:issue:`2296`)
  • Fixed bug where running Datasette with one or more -s/--setting options could over-ride settings that were present in datasette.yml. (:issue:`2389`)
  • The Datasette homepage is now duplicated at /-/, using the default index.html template. This ensures that the information on that page is still accessible even if the Datasette homepage has been customized using a custom index.html template, for example on sites like datasette.io. (:issue:`2393`)
  • Failed CSRF checks now display a more user-friendly error page. (:issue:`2390`)
  • Fixed a bug where the json1 extension was not correctly detected on the /-/versions page. Thanks, Seb Bacon. (:issue:`2326`)
  • Fixed a bug where the Datasette write API did not correctly accept Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8. (:issue:`2384`)
  • Fixed a bug where Datasette would fail to start if metadata.yml contained a queries block. (#2386)

1.0a14 (2024-08-05)

This alpha introduces significant changes to Datasette's :ref:`metadata` system, some of which represent breaking changes in advance of the full 1.0 release. The new :ref:`upgrade_guide` document provides detailed coverage of those breaking changes and how they affect plugin authors and Datasette API consumers.

  • The /databasename?sql= interface and JSON API for executing arbitrary SQL queries can now be found at /databasename/-/query?sql=. Requests with a ?sql= parameter to the old endpoints will be redirected. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (:issue:`2360`)
  • Metadata about tables, databases, instances and columns is now stored in :ref:`internals_internal`. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (:issue:`2341`)
  • Database write connections now execute using the IMMEDIATE isolation level for SQLite. This should help avoid a rare SQLITE_BUSY error that could occur when a transaction upgraded to a write mid-flight. (:issue:`2358`)
  • Fix for a bug where canned queries with named parameters could fail against SQLite 3.46. (:issue:`2353`)
  • Datasette now serves E-Tag headers for static files. Thanks, Agustin Bacigalup. (#2306)
  • Dropdown menus now use a z-index that should avoid them being hidden by plugins. (:issue:`2311`)
  • Incorrect table and row names are no longer reflected back on the resulting 404 page. (:issue:`2359`)
  • Improved documentation for async usage of the :ref:`plugin_hook_track_event` hook. (:issue:`2319`)
  • Fixed some HTTPX deprecation warnings. (:issue:`2307`)
  • Datasette now serves a <html lang="en"> attribute. Thanks, Charles Nepote. (:issue:`2348`)
  • Datasette's automated tests now run against the maximum and minimum supported versions of SQLite: 3.25 (from September 2018) and 3.46 (from May 2024). Thanks, Alex Garcia. (#2352)
  • Fixed an issue where clicking twice on the URL output by datasette --root produced a confusing error. (:issue:`2375`)

0.64.8 (2024-06-21)

  • Security improvement: 404 pages used to reflect content from the URL path, which could be used to display misleading information to Datasette users. 404 errors no longer display additional information from the URL. (:issue:`2359`)
  • Backported a better fix for correctly extracting named parameters from canned query SQL against SQLite 3.46.0. (:issue:`2353`)

0.64.7 (2024-06-12)

  • Fixed a bug where canned queries with named parameters threw an error when run against SQLite 3.46.0. (:issue:`2353`)

1.0a13 (2024-03-12)

Each of the key concepts in Datasette now has an :ref:`actions menu <plugin_actions>`, which plugins can use to add additional functionality targeting that entity.

1.0a12 (2024-02-29)

1.0a11 (2024-02-19)

  • The "replace": true argument to the /db/table/-/insert API now requires the actor to have the update-row permission. (:issue:`2279`)
  • Fixed some UI bugs in the interactive permissions debugging tool. (:issue:`2278`)
  • The column action menu now aligns better with the cog icon, and positions itself taking into account the width of the browser window. (:issue:`2263`)

1.0a10 (2024-02-17)

The only changes in this alpha correspond to the way Datasette handles database transactions. (:issue:`2277`)

  • The :ref:`database.execute_write_fn() <database_execute_write_fn>` method has a new transaction=True parameter. This defaults to True which means all functions executed using this method are now automatically wrapped in a transaction - previously the functions needed to roll transaction handling on their own, and many did not.
  • Pass transaction=False to execute_write_fn() if you want to manually handle transactions in your function.
  • Several internal Datasette features, including parts of the :ref:`JSON write API <json_api_write>`, had been failing to wrap their operations in a transaction. This has been fixed by the new transaction=True default.

1.0a9 (2024-02-16)

This alpha release adds basic alter table support to the Datasette Write API and fixes a permissions bug relating to the /upsert API endpoint.

Alter table support for create, insert, upsert and update

The :ref:`JSON write API <json_api_write>` can now be used to apply simple alter table schema changes, provided the acting actor has the new :ref:`actions_alter_table` permission. (:issue:`2101`)

The only alter operation supported so far is adding new columns to an existing table.

Operations that alter a table now fire the new :ref:`alter-table event <events>`.

Permissions fix for the upsert API

The :ref:`/database/table/-/upsert API <TableUpsertView>` had a minor permissions bug, only affecting Datasette instances that had configured the insert-row and update-row permissions to apply to a specific table rather than the database or instance as a whole. Full details in issue :issue:`2262`.

To avoid similar mistakes in the future the datasette.permission_allowed() method now specifies default= as a keyword-only argument.

Permission checks now consider opinions from every plugin

The datasette.permission_allowed() method previously consulted every plugin that implemented the permission_allowed() plugin hook and obeyed the opinion of the last plugin to return a value. (:issue:`2275`)

Datasette now consults every plugin and checks to see if any of them returned False (the veto rule), and if none of them did, it then checks to see if any of them returned True.

This is explained at length in the new documentation covering :ref:`authentication_permissions_explained`.

Other changes

1.0a8 (2024-02-07)

This alpha release continues the migration of Datasette's configuration from metadata.yaml to the new datasette.yaml configuration file, introduces a new system for JavaScript plugins and adds several new plugin hooks.

See Datasette 1.0a8: JavaScript plugins, new plugin hooks and plugin configuration in datasette.yaml for an annotated version of these release notes.

Configuration

  • Plugin configuration now lives in the :ref:`datasette.yaml configuration file <configuration>`, passed to Datasette using the -c/--config option. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (:issue:`2093`)

    datasette -c datasette.yaml

    Where datasette.yaml contains configuration that looks like this:

    plugins:
  datasette-cluster-map:
    latitude_column: xlat
    longitude_column: xlon

    Previously plugins were configured in metadata.yaml, which was confusing as plugin settings were unrelated to database and table metadata.

  • The -s/--setting option can now be used to set plugin configuration as well. See :ref:`configuration_cli` for details. (:issue:`2252`)

    The above YAML configuration example using -s/--setting looks like this:

    datasette mydatabase.db \
  -s plugins.datasette-cluster-map.latitude_column xlat \
  -s plugins.datasette-cluster-map.longitude_column xlon

  • The new /-/config page shows the current instance configuration, after redacting keys that could contain sensitive data such as API keys or passwords. (:issue:`2254`)

  • Existing Datasette installations may already have configuration set in metadata.yaml that should be migrated to datasette.yaml. To avoid breaking these installations, Datasette will silently treat table configuration, plugin configuration and allow blocks in metadata as if they had been specified in configuration instead. (:issue:`2247`) (:issue:`2248`) (:issue:`2249`)

Note that the datasette publish command has not yet been updated to accept a datasette.yaml configuration file. This will be addressed in :issue:`2195` but for the moment you can include those settings in metadata.yaml instead.

JavaScript plugins

Datasette now includes a :ref:`JavaScript plugins mechanism <javascript_plugins>`, allowing JavaScript to customize Datasette in a way that can collaborate with other plugins.

This provides two initial hooks, with more to come in the future:

Thanks Cameron Yick for contributing this feature. (#2052)

Plugin hooks

Documentation

Minor fixes

  • Datasette no longer attempts to run SQL queries in parallel when rendering a table page, as this was leading to some rare crashing bugs. (:issue:`2189`)
  • Fixed warning: DeprecationWarning: pkg_resources is deprecated as an API (:issue:`2057`)
  • Fixed bug where ?_extra=columns parameter returned an incorrectly shaped response. (:issue:`2230`)

0.64.6 (2023-12-22)

  • Fixed a bug where CSV export with expanded labels could fail if a foreign key reference did not correctly resolve. (:issue:`2214`)

0.64.5 (2023-10-08)

  • Dropped dependency on click-default-group-wheel, which could cause a dependency conflict. (:issue:`2197`)

1.0a7 (2023-09-21)

  • Fix for a crashing bug caused by viewing the table page for a named in-memory database. (:issue:`2189`)

0.64.4 (2023-09-21)

  • Fix for a crashing bug caused by viewing the table page for a named in-memory database. (:issue:`2189`)

1.0a6 (2023-09-07)

1.0a5 (2023-08-29)

  • When restrictions are applied to :ref:`API tokens <CreateTokenView>`, those restrictions now behave slightly differently: applying the view-table restriction will imply the ability to view-database for the database containing that table, and both view-table and view-database will imply view-instance. Previously you needed to create a token with restrictions that explicitly listed view-instance and view-database and view-table in order to view a table without getting a permission denied error. (:issue:`2102`)
  • New datasette.yaml (or .json) configuration file, which can be specified using datasette -c path-to-file. The goal here to consolidate settings, plugin configuration, permissions, canned queries, and other Datasette configuration into a single single file, separate from metadata.yaml. The legacy settings.json config file used for :ref:`config_dir` has been removed, and datasette.yaml has a "settings" section where the same settings key/value pairs can be included. In the next future alpha release, more configuration such as plugins/permissions/canned queries will be moved to the datasette.yaml file. See :issue:`2093` for more details. Thanks, Alex Garcia.
  • The -s/--setting option can now take dotted paths to nested settings. These will then be used to set or over-ride the same options as are present in the new configuration file. (:issue:`2156`)
  • New --actor '{"id": "json-goes-here"}' option for use with datasette --get to treat the simulated request as being made by a specific actor, see :ref:`cli_datasette_get`. (:issue:`2153`)
  • The Datasette _internal database has had some changes. It no longer shows up in the datasette.databases list by default, and is now instead available to plugins using the datasette.get_internal_database(). Plugins are invited to use this as a private database to store configuration and settings and secrets that should not be made visible through the default Datasette interface. Users can pass the new --internal internal.db option to persist that internal database to disk. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (:issue:`2157`).

1.0a4 (2023-08-21)

This alpha fixes a security issue with the /-/api API explorer. On authenticated Datasette instances (instances protected using plugins such as datasette-auth-passwords) the API explorer interface could reveal the names of databases and tables within the protected instance. The data stored in those tables was not revealed.

For more information and workarounds, read the security advisory. The issue has been present in every previous alpha version of Datasette 1.0: versions 1.0a0, 1.0a1, 1.0a2 and 1.0a3.

Also in this alpha:

  • The new datasette plugins --requirements option outputs a list of currently installed plugins in Python requirements.txt format, useful for duplicating that installation elsewhere. (:issue:`2133`)
  • :ref:`canned_queries_writable` can now define a on_success_message_sql field in their configuration, containing a SQL query that should be executed upon successful completion of the write operation in order to generate a message to be shown to the user. (:issue:`2138`)
  • The automatically generated border color for a database is now shown in more places around the application. (:issue:`2119`)
  • Every instance of example shell script code in the documentation should now include a working copy button, free from additional syntax. (:issue:`2140`)

1.0a3 (2023-08-09)

This alpha release previews the updated design for Datasette's default JSON API. (:issue:`782`)

The new :ref:`default JSON representation <json_api_default>` for both table pages (/dbname/table.json) and arbitrary SQL queries (/dbname.json?sql=...) is now shaped like this:

{
  "ok": true,
  "rows": [
    {
      "id": 3,
      "name": "Detroit"
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "name": "Los Angeles"
    },
    {
      "id": 4,
      "name": "Memnonia"
    },
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "San Francisco"
    }
  ],
  "truncated": false
}

Tables will include an additional "next" key for pagination, which can be passed to ?_next= to fetch the next page of results.

The various ?_shape= options continue to work as before - see :ref:`json_api_shapes` for details.

A new ?_extra= mechanism is available for tables, but has not yet been stabilized or documented. Details on that are available in :issue:`262`.

Smaller changes

  • Datasette documentation now shows YAML examples for :ref:`metadata` by default, with a tab interface for switching to JSON. (:issue:`1153`)
  • :ref:`plugin_register_output_renderer` plugins now have access to error and truncated arguments, allowing them to display error messages and take into account truncated results. (:issue:`2130`)
  • render_cell() plugin hook now also supports an optional request argument. (:issue:`2007`)
  • New Justfile to support development workflows for Datasette using Just.
  • datasette.render_template() can now accepts a datasette.views.Context subclass as an alternative to a dictionary. (:issue:`2127`)
  • datasette install -e path option for editable installations, useful while developing plugins. (:issue:`2106`)
  • When started with the --cors option Datasette now serves an Access-Control-Max-Age: 3600 header, ensuring CORS OPTIONS requests are repeated no more than once an hour. (:issue:`2079`)
  • Fixed a bug where the _internal database could display None instead of null for in-memory databases. (:issue:`1970`)

0.64.2 (2023-03-08)

  • Fixed a bug with datasette publish cloudrun where deploys all used the same Docker image tag. This was mostly inconsequential as the service is deployed as soon as the image has been pushed to the registry, but could result in the incorrect image being deployed if two different deploys for two separate services ran at exactly the same time. (:issue:`2036`)

0.64.1 (2023-01-11)

  • Documentation now links to a current source of information for installing Python 3. (:issue:`1987`)
  • Incorrectly calling the Datasette constructor using Datasette("path/to/data.db") instead of Datasette(["path/to/data.db"]) now returns a useful error message. (:issue:`1985`)

0.64 (2023-01-09)

0.63.3 (2022-12-17)

  • Fixed a bug where datasette --root, when running in Docker, would only output the URL to sign in root when the server shut down, not when it started up. (:issue:`1958`)
  • You no longer need to ensure await datasette.invoke_startup() has been called in order for Datasette to start correctly serving requests - this is now handled automatically the first time the server receives a request. This fixes a bug experienced when Datasette is served directly by an ASGI application server such as Uvicorn or Gunicorn. It also fixes a bug with the datasette-gunicorn plugin. (:issue:`1955`)

1.0a2 (2022-12-14)

The third Datasette 1.0 alpha release adds upsert support to the JSON API, plus the ability to specify finely grained permissions when creating an API token.

See Datasette 1.0a2: Upserts and finely grained permissions for an extended, annotated version of these release notes.

1.0a1 (2022-12-01)

  • Write APIs now serve correct CORS headers if Datasette is started in --cors mode. See the full list of :ref:`CORS headers <json_api>` in the documentation. (:issue:`1922`)
  • Fixed a bug where the _memory database could be written to even though writes were not persisted. (:issue:`1917`)
  • The https://latest.datasette.io/ demo instance now includes an ephemeral database which can be used to test Datasette's write APIs, using the new datasette-ephemeral-tables plugin to drop any created tables after five minutes. This database is only available if you sign in as the root user using the link on the homepage. (:issue:`1915`)
  • Fixed a bug where hitting the write endpoints with a GET request returned a 500 error. It now returns a 405 (method not allowed) error instead. (:issue:`1916`)
  • The list of endpoints in the API explorer now lists mutable databases first. (:issue:`1918`)
  • The "ignore": true and "replace": true options for the insert API are :ref:`now documented <TableInsertView>`. (:issue:`1924`)

1.0a0 (2022-11-29)

This first alpha release of Datasette 1.0 introduces a brand new collection of APIs for writing to the database (:issue:`1850`), as well as a new API token mechanism baked into Datasette core. Previously, API tokens have only been supported by installing additional plugins.

This is very much a preview: expect many more backwards incompatible API changes prior to the full 1.0 release.

Feedback enthusiastically welcomed, either through issue comments or via the Datasette Discord community.

Signed API tokens

Write API

0.63.2 (2022-11-18)

  • Fixed a bug in datasette publish heroku where deployments failed due to an older version of Python being requested. (:issue:`1905`)
  • New datasette publish heroku --generate-dir <dir> option for generating a Heroku deployment directory without deploying it.

0.63.1 (2022-11-10)

0.63 (2022-10-27)

See Datasette 0.63: The annotated release notes for more background on the changes in this release.

Features

  • Now tested against Python 3.11. Docker containers used by datasette publish and datasette package both now use that version of Python. (:issue:`1853`)
  • --load-extension option now supports entrypoints. Thanks, Alex Garcia. (#1789)
  • Facet size can now be set per-table with the new facet_size table metadata option. (:issue:`1804`)
  • The :ref:`setting_truncate_cells_html` setting now also affects long URLs in columns. (:issue:`1805`)
  • The non-JavaScript SQL editor textarea now increases height to fit the SQL query. (:issue:`1786`)
  • Facets are now displayed with better line-breaks in long values. Thanks, Daniel Rech. (#1794)
  • The settings.json file used in :ref:`config_dir` is now validated on startup. (:issue:`1816`)
  • SQL queries can now include leading SQL comments, using /* ... */ or -- ... syntax. Thanks, Charles Nepote. (:issue:`1860`)
  • SQL query is now re-displayed when terminated with a time limit error. (:issue:`1819`)
  • The :ref:`inspect data <performance_inspect>` mechanism is now used to speed up server startup - thanks, Forest Gregg. (:issue:`1834`)
  • In :ref:`config_dir` databases with filenames ending in .sqlite or .sqlite3 are now automatically added to the Datasette instance. (:issue:`1646`)
  • Breadcrumb navigation display now respects the current user's permissions. (:issue:`1831`)

Plugin hooks and internals

Documentation

0.62 (2022-08-14)

Datasette can now run entirely in your browser using WebAssembly. Try out Datasette Lite, take a look at the code or read more about it in Datasette Lite: a server-side Python web application running in a browser.

Datasette now has a Discord community for questions and discussions about Datasette and its ecosystem of projects.

Features

  • Datasette is now compatible with Pyodide. This is the enabling technology behind Datasette Lite. (:issue:`1733`)
  • Database file downloads now implement conditional GET using ETags. (:issue:`1739`)
  • HTML for facet results and suggested results has been extracted out into new templates _facet_results.html and _suggested_facets.html. Thanks, M. Nasimul Haque. (#1759)
  • Datasette now runs some SQL queries in parallel. This has limited impact on performance, see this research issue for details.
  • New --nolock option for ignoring file locks when opening read-only databases. (:issue:`1744`)
  • Spaces in the database names in URLs are now encoded as + rather than ~20. (:issue:`1701`)
  • <Binary: 2427344 bytes> is now displayed as <Binary: 2,427,344 bytes> and is accompanied by tooltip showing "2.3MB". (:issue:`1712`)
  • The base Docker image used by datasette publish cloudrun, datasette package and the official Datasette image has been upgraded to 3.10.6-slim-bullseye. (:issue:`1768`)
  • Canned writable queries against immutable databases now show a warning message. (:issue:`1728`)
  • datasette publish cloudrun has a new --timeout option which can be used to increase the time limit applied by the Google Cloud build environment. Thanks, Tim Sherratt. (#1717)
  • datasette publish cloudrun has new --min-instances and --max-instances options. (:issue:`1779`)

Plugin hooks

Bug fixes

  • Don't show the facet option in the cog menu if faceting is not allowed. (:issue:`1683`)
  • ?_sort and ?_sort_desc now work if the column that is being sorted has been excluded from the query using ?_col= or ?_nocol=. (:issue:`1773`)
  • Fixed bug where ?_sort_desc was duplicated in the URL every time the Apply button was clicked. (:issue:`1738`)

Documentation

0.61.1 (2022-03-23)

0.61 (2022-03-23)

In preparation for Datasette 1.0, this release includes two potentially backwards-incompatible changes. Hashed URL mode has been moved to a separate plugin, and the way Datasette generates URLs to databases and tables with special characters in their name such as / and . has changed.

Datasette also now requires Python 3.7 or higher.

  • URLs within Datasette now use a different encoding scheme for tables or databases that include "special" characters outside of the range of a-zA-Z0-9_-. This scheme is explained here: :ref:`internals_tilde_encoding`. (:issue:`1657`)
  • Removed hashed URL mode from Datasette. The new datasette-hashed-urls plugin can be used to achieve the same result, see :ref:`performance_hashed_urls` for details. (:issue:`1661`)
  • Databases can now have a custom path within the Datasette instance that is independent of the database name, using the db.route property. (:issue:`1668`)
  • Datasette is now covered by a Code of Conduct. (:issue:`1654`)
  • Python 3.6 is no longer supported. (:issue:`1577`)
  • Tests now run against Python 3.11-dev. (:issue:`1621`)
  • New datasette.ensure_permissions(actor, permissions) internal method for checking multiple permissions at once. (:issue:`1675`)
  • New :ref:`datasette.check_visibility(actor, action, resource=None) <datasette_check_visibility>` internal method for checking if a user can see a resource that would otherwise be invisible to unauthenticated users. (:issue:`1678`)
  • Table and row HTML pages now include a <link rel="alternate" type="application/json+datasette" href="..."> element and return a Link: URL; rel="alternate"; type="application/json+datasette" HTTP header pointing to the JSON version of those pages. (:issue:`1533`)
  • Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Link is now added to the CORS headers, allowing remote JavaScript to access that header.
  • Canned queries are now shown at the top of the database page, directly below the SQL editor. Previously they were shown at the bottom, below the list of tables. (:issue:`1612`)
  • Datasette now has a default favicon. (:issue:`1603`)
  • sqlite_stat tables are now hidden by default. (:issue:`1587`)
  • SpatiaLite tables data_licenses, KNN and KNN2 are now hidden by default. (:issue:`1601`)
  • SQL query tracing mechanism now works for queries executed in asyncio sub-tasks, such as those created by asyncio.gather(). (:issue:`1576`)
  • :ref:`internals_tracer` mechanism is now documented.
  • Common Datasette symbols can now be imported directly from the top-level datasette package, see :ref:`internals_shortcuts`. Those symbols are Response, Forbidden, NotFound, hookimpl, actor_matches_allow. (:issue:`957`)
  • /-/versions page now returns additional details for libraries used by SpatiaLite. (:issue:`1607`)
  • Documentation now links to the Datasette Tutorials.
  • Datasette will now also look for SpatiaLite in /opt/homebrew - thanks, Dan Peterson. (#1649)
  • Fixed bug where :ref:`custom pages <custom_pages>` did not work on Windows. Thanks, Robert Christie. (:issue:`1545`)
  • Fixed error caused when a table had a column named n. (:issue:`1228`)

0.60.2 (2022-02-07)

  • Fixed a bug where Datasette would open the same file twice with two different database names if you ran datasette file.db file.db. (:issue:`1632`)

0.60.1 (2022-01-20)

  • Fixed a bug where installation on Python 3.6 stopped working due to a change to an underlying dependency. This release can now be installed on Python 3.6, but is the last release of Datasette that will support anything less than Python 3.7. (:issue:`1609`)

0.60 (2022-01-13)

Plugins and internals

Faceting

  • The number of unique values in a facet is now always displayed. Previously it was only displayed if the user specified ?_facet_size=max. (:issue:`1556`)
  • Facets of type date or array can now be configured in metadata.json, see :ref:`facets_metadata`. Thanks, David Larlet. (:issue:`1552`)
  • New ?_nosuggest=1 parameter for table views, which disables facet suggestion. (:issue:`1557`)
  • Fixed bug where ?_facet_array=tags&_facet=tags would only display one of the two selected facets. (:issue:`625`)

Other small fixes

  • Made several performance improvements to the database schema introspection code that runs when Datasette first starts up. (:issue:`1555`)
  • Label columns detected for foreign keys are now case-insensitive, so Name or TITLE will be detected in the same way as name or title. (:issue:`1544`)
  • Upgraded Pluggy dependency to 1.0. (:issue:`1575`)
  • Now using Plausible analytics for the Datasette documentation.
  • explain query plan is now allowed with varying amounts of whitespace in the query. (:issue:`1588`)
  • New :ref:`cli_reference` page showing the output of --help for each of the datasette sub-commands. This lead to several small improvements to the help copy. (:issue:`1594`)
  • Fixed bug where writable canned queries could not be used with custom templates. (:issue:`1547`)
  • Improved fix for a bug where columns with a underscore prefix could result in unnecessary hidden form fields. (:issue:`1527`)

0.59.4 (2021-11-29)

  • Fixed bug where columns with a leading underscore could not be removed from the interactive filters list. (:issue:`1527`)
  • Fixed bug where columns with a leading underscore were not correctly linked to by the "Links from other tables" interface on the row page. (:issue:`1525`)
  • Upgraded dependencies aiofiles, black and janus.

0.59.3 (2021-11-20)

0.59.2 (2021-11-13)

  • Column names with a leading underscore now work correctly when used as a facet. (:issue:`1506`)
  • Applying ?_nocol= to a column no longer removes that column from the filtering interface. (:issue:`1503`)
  • Official Datasette Docker container now uses Debian Bullseye as the base image. (:issue:`1497`)
  • Datasette is four years old today! Here's the original release announcement from 2017.

0.59.1 (2021-10-24)

0.59 (2021-10-14)

0.58.1 (2021-07-16)

  • Fix for an intermittent race condition caused by the refresh_schemas() internal function. (:issue:`1231`)

0.58 (2021-07-14)

0.57.1 (2021-06-08)

  • Fixed visual display glitch with global navigation menu. (:issue:`1367`)
  • No longer truncates the list of table columns displayed on the /database page. (:issue:`1364`)

0.57 (2021-06-05)

Warning

This release fixes a reflected cross-site scripting security hole with the ?_trace=1 feature. You should upgrade to this version, or to Datasette 0.56.1, as soon as possible. (:issue:`1360`)

In addition to the security fix, this release includes ?_col= and ?_nocol= options for controlling which columns are displayed for a table, ?_facet_size= for increasing the number of facet results returned, re-display of your SQL query should an error occur and numerous bug fixes.

New features

  • If an error occurs while executing a user-provided SQL query, that query is now re-displayed in an editable form along with the error message. (:issue:`619`)
  • New ?_col= and ?_nocol= parameters to show and hide columns in a table, plus an interface for hiding and showing columns in the column cog menu. (:issue:`615`)
  • A new ?_facet_size= parameter for customizing the number of facet results returned on a table or view page. (:issue:`1332`)
  • ?_facet_size=max sets that to the maximum, which defaults to 1,000 and is controlled by the the :ref:`setting_max_returned_rows` setting. If facet results are truncated the … at the bottom of the facet list now links to this parameter. (:issue:`1337`)
  • ?_nofacet=1 option to disable all facet calculations on a page, used as a performance optimization for CSV exports and ?_shape=array/object. (:issue:`1349`, :issue:`263`)
  • ?_nocount=1 option to disable full query result counts. (:issue:`1353`)
  • ?_trace=1 debugging option is now controlled by the new :ref:`setting_trace_debug` setting, which is turned off by default. (:issue:`1359`)

Bug fixes and other improvements

  • :ref:`custom_pages` now work correctly when combined with the :ref:`setting_base_url` setting. (:issue:`1238`)
  • Fixed intermittent error displaying the index page when the user did not have permission to access one of the tables. Thanks, Guy Freeman. (:issue:`1305`)
  • Columns with the name "Link" are no longer incorrectly displayed in bold. (:issue:`1308`)
  • Fixed error caused by tables with a single quote in their names. (:issue:`1257`)
  • Updated dependencies: pytest-asyncio, Black, jinja2, aiofiles, click, and itsdangerous.
  • The official Datasette Docker image now supports apt-get install. (:issue:`1320`)
  • The Heroku runtime used by datasette publish heroku is now python-3.8.10.

0.56.1 (2021-06-05)

Warning

This release fixes a reflected cross-site scripting security hole with the ?_trace=1 feature. You should upgrade to this version, or to Datasette 0.57, as soon as possible. (:issue:`1360`)

0.56 (2021-03-28)

Documentation improvements, bug fixes and support for SpatiaLite 5.

0.55 (2021-02-18)

Support for cross-database SQL queries and built-in support for serving via HTTPS.

  • The new --crossdb command-line option causes Datasette to attach up to ten database files to the same /_memory database connection. This enables cross-database SQL queries, including the ability to use joins and unions to combine data from tables that exist in different database files. See :ref:`cross_database_queries` for details. (:issue:`283`)
  • --ssl-keyfile and --ssl-certfile options can be used to specify a TLS certificate, allowing Datasette to serve traffic over https:// without needing to run it behind a separate proxy. (:issue:`1221`)
  • The /:memory: page has been renamed (and redirected) to /_memory for consistency with the new /_internal database introduced in Datasette 0.54. (:issue:`1205`)
  • Added plugin testing documentation on :ref:`testing_plugins_pdb`. (:issue:`1207`)
  • The official Datasette Docker image now uses Python 3.7.10, applying the latest security fix for that Python version. (:issue:`1235`)

0.54.1 (2021-02-02)

  • Fixed a bug where ?_search= and ?_sort= parameters were incorrectly duplicated when the filter form on the table page was re-submitted. (:issue:`1214`)

0.54 (2021-01-25)

The two big new features in this release are the _internal SQLite in-memory database storing details of all connected databases and tables, and support for JavaScript modules in plugins and additional scripts.

For additional commentary on this release, see Datasette 0.54, the annotated release notes.

The _internal database

As part of ongoing work to help Datasette handle much larger numbers of connected databases and tables (see Datasette Library) Datasette now maintains an in-memory SQLite database with details of all of the attached databases, tables, columns, indexes and foreign keys. (:issue:`1150`)

This will support future improvements such as a searchable, paginated homepage of all available tables.

You can explore an example of this database by signing in as root to the latest.datasette.io demo instance and then navigating to latest.datasette.io/_internal.

Plugins can use these tables to introspect attached data in an efficient way. Plugin authors should note that this is not yet considered a stable interface, so any plugins that use this may need to make changes prior to Datasette 1.0 if the _internal table schemas change.

Named in-memory database support

As part of the work building the _internal database, Datasette now supports named in-memory databases that can be shared across multiple connections. This allows plugins to create in-memory databases which will persist data for the lifetime of the Datasette server process. (:issue:`1151`)

The new memory_name= parameter to the :ref:`internals_database` can be used to create named, shared in-memory databases.

JavaScript modules

JavaScript modules were introduced in ECMAScript 2015 and provide native browser support for the import and export keywords.

To use modules, JavaScript needs to be included in <script> tags with a type="module" attribute.

Datasette now has the ability to output <script type="module"> in places where you may wish to take advantage of modules. The extra_js_urls option described in :ref:`configuration_reference_css_js` can now be used with modules, and module support is also available for the :ref:`extra_body_script() <plugin_hook_extra_body_script>` plugin hook. (:issue:`1186`, :issue:`1187`)

datasette-leaflet-freedraw is the first example of a Datasette plugin that takes advantage of the new support for JavaScript modules. See Drawing shapes on a map to query a SpatiaLite database for more on this plugin.

Code formatting with Black and Prettier

Datasette adopted Black for opinionated Python code formatting in June 2019. Datasette now also embraces Prettier for JavaScript formatting, which like Black is enforced by tests in continuous integration. Instructions for using these two tools can be found in the new section on :ref:`contributing_formatting` in the contributors documentation. (:issue:`1167`)

Other changes

  • Datasette can now open multiple database files with the same name, e.g. if you run datasette path/to/one.db path/to/other/one.db. (:issue:`509`)
  • datasette publish cloudrun now sets force_https_urls for every deployment, fixing some incorrect http:// links. (:issue:`1178`)
  • Fixed a bug in the example nginx configuration in :ref:`deploying_proxy`. (:issue:`1091`)
  • The :ref:`Datasette Ecosystem <ecosystem>` documentation page has been reduced in size in favour of the datasette.io tools and plugins directories. (:issue:`1182`)
  • The request object now provides a request.full_path property, which returns the path including any query string. (:issue:`1184`)
  • Better error message for disallowed PRAGMA clauses in SQL queries. (:issue:`1185`)
  • datasette publish heroku now deploys using python-3.8.7.
  • New plugin testing documentation on :ref:`testing_plugins_pytest_httpx`. (:issue:`1198`)
  • All ?_* query string parameters passed to the table page are now persisted in hidden form fields, so parameters such as ?_size=10 will be correctly passed to the next page when query filters are changed. (:issue:`1194`)
  • Fixed a bug loading a database file called test-database (1).sqlite. (:issue:`1181`)

0.53 (2020-12-10)

Datasette has an official project website now, at https://datasette.io/. This release mainly updates the documentation to reflect the new site.

0.52.5 (2020-12-09)

  • Fix for error caused by combining the _searchmode=raw and ?_search_COLUMN parameters. (:issue:`1134`)

0.52.4 (2020-12-05)

  • Show pysqlite3 version on /-/versions, if installed. (:issue:`1125`)
  • Errors output by Datasette (e.g. for invalid SQL queries) now go to stderr, not stdout. (:issue:`1131`)
  • Fix for a startup error on windows caused by unnecessary from os import EX_CANTCREAT - thanks, Abdussamet Koçak. (:issue:`1094`)

0.52.3 (2020-12-03)

  • Fixed bug where static assets would 404 for Datasette installed on ARM Amazon Linux. (:issue:`1124`)

0.52.2 (2020-12-02)

  • Generated columns from SQLite 3.31.0 or higher are now correctly displayed. (:issue:`1116`)
  • Error message if you attempt to open a SpatiaLite database now suggests using --load-extension=spatialite if it detects that the extension is available in a common location. (:issue:`1115`)
  • OPTIONS requests against the /database page no longer raise a 500 error. (:issue:`1100`)
  • Databases larger than 32MB that are published to Cloud Run can now be downloaded. (:issue:`749`)
  • Fix for misaligned cog icon on table and database pages. Thanks, Abdussamet Koçak. (:issue:`1121`)

0.52.1 (2020-11-29)

0.52 (2020-11-28)

This release includes a number of changes relating to an internal rebranding effort: Datasette's configuration mechanism (things like datasette --config default_page_size:10) has been renamed to settings.

  • New --setting default_page_size 10 option as a replacement for --config default_page_size:10 (note the lack of a colon). The --config option is deprecated but will continue working until Datasette 1.0. (:issue:`992`)
  • The /-/config introspection page is now /-/settings, and the previous page redirects to the new one. (:issue:`1103`)
  • The config.json file in :ref:`config_dir` is now called settings.json. (:issue:`1104`)
  • The undocumented datasette.config() internal method has been replaced by a documented :ref:`datasette_setting` method. (:issue:`1107`)

Also in this release:

And some bug fixes:

  • Foreign keys linking to rows with blank label columns now display as a hyphen, allowing those links to be clicked. (:issue:`1086`)
  • Fixed bug where row pages could sometimes 500 if the underlying queries exceeded a time limit. (:issue:`1088`)
  • Fixed a bug where the table action menu could appear partially obscured by the edge of the page. (:issue:`1084`)

0.51.1 (2020-10-31)

0.51 (2020-10-31)

A new visual design, plugin hooks for adding navigation options, better handling of binary data, URL building utility methods and better support for running Datasette behind a proxy.

New visual design

Datasette is no longer white and grey with blue and purple links! Natalie Downe has been working on a visual refresh, the first iteration of which is included in this release. (#1056)

Screenshot showing Datasette's new visual look

Plugins can now add links within Datasette

A number of existing Datasette plugins add new pages to the Datasette interface, providig tools for things like uploading CSVs, editing table schemas or configuring full-text search.

Plugins like this can now link to themselves from other parts of Datasette interface. The :ref:`plugin_hook_menu_links` hook (:issue:`1064`) lets plugins add links to Datasette's new top-right application menu, and the :ref:`plugin_hook_table_actions` hook (:issue:`1066`) adds links to a new "table actions" menu on the table page.

The demo at latest.datasette.io now includes some example plugins. To see the new table actions menu first sign into that demo as root and then visit the facetable table to see the new cog icon menu at the top of the page.

Binary data

SQLite tables can contain binary data in BLOB columns. Datasette now provides links for users to download this data directly from Datasette, and uses those links to make binary data available from CSV exports. See :ref:`binary` for more details. (:issue:`1036` and :issue:`1034`).

URL building

The new :ref:`internals_datasette_urls` family of methods can be used to generate URLs to key pages within the Datasette interface, both within custom templates and Datasette plugins. See :ref:`writing_plugins_building_urls` for more details. (:issue:`904`)

Running Datasette behind a proxy

The :ref:`setting_base_url` configuration option is designed to help run Datasette on a specific path behind a proxy - for example if you want to run an instance of Datasette at /my-datasette/ within your existing site's URL hierarchy, proxied behind nginx or Apache.

Support for this configuration option has been greatly improved (:issue:`1023`), and guidelines for using it are now available in a new documentation section on :ref:`deploying_proxy`. (:issue:`1027`)

Smaller changes

0.50.2 (2020-10-09)

  • Fixed another bug introduced in 0.50 where column header links on the table page were broken. (:issue:`1011`)

0.50.1 (2020-10-09)

  • Fixed a bug introduced in 0.50 where the export as JSON/CSV links on the table, row and query pages were broken. (:issue:`1010`)

0.50 (2020-10-09)

The key new feature in this release is the column actions menu on the table page (:issue:`891`). This can be used to sort a column in ascending or descending order, facet data by that column or filter the table to just rows that have a value for that column.

Plugin authors can use the new :ref:`internals_datasette_client` object to make internal HTTP requests from their plugins, allowing them to make use of Datasette's JSON API. (:issue:`943`)

New :ref:`deploying` documentation with guides for deploying Datasette on a Linux server :ref:`using systemd <deploying_systemd>` or to hosting providers :ref:`that support buildpacks <deploying_buildpacks>`. (:issue:`514`, :issue:`997`)

Other improvements in this release:

  • :ref:`publish_cloud_run` documentation now covers Google Cloud SDK options. Thanks, Geoffrey Hing. (#995)
  • New datasette -o option which opens your browser as soon as Datasette starts up. (:issue:`970`)
  • Datasette now sets sqlite3.enable_callback_tracebacks(True) so that errors in custom SQL functions will display tracebacks. (:issue:`891`)
  • Fixed two rendering bugs with column headers in portrait mobile view. (:issue:`978`, :issue:`980`)
  • New db.table_column_details(table) introspection method for retrieving full details of the columns in a specific table, see :ref:`internals_database_introspection`.
  • Fixed a routing bug with custom page wildcard templates. (:issue:`996`)
  • datasette publish heroku now deploys using Python 3.8.6.
  • New datasette publish heroku --tar= option. (:issue:`969`)
  • OPTIONS requests against HTML pages no longer return a 500 error. (:issue:`1001`)
  • Datasette now supports Python 3.9.

See also Datasette 0.50: The annotated release notes.

0.49.1 (2020-09-15)

  • Fixed a bug with writable canned queries that use magic parameters but accept no non-magic arguments. (:issue:`967`)

0.49 (2020-09-14)

See also Datasette 0.49: The annotated release notes.

0.48 (2020-08-16)

0.47.3 (2020-08-15)

  • The datasette --get command-line mechanism now ensures any plugins using the startup() hook are correctly executed. (:issue:`934`)

0.47.2 (2020-08-12)

0.47.1 (2020-08-11)

  • Fixed a bug where the sdist distribution of Datasette was not correctly including the template files. (:issue:`930`)

0.47 (2020-08-11)

  • Datasette now has a GitHub discussions forum for conversations about the project that go beyond just bug reports and issues.
  • Datasette can now be installed on macOS using Homebrew! Run brew install simonw/datasette/datasette. See :ref:`installation_homebrew`. (:issue:`335`)
  • Two new commands: datasette install name-of-plugin and datasette uninstall name-of-plugin. These are equivalent to pip install and pip uninstall but automatically run in the same virtual environment as Datasette, so users don't have to figure out where that virtual environment is - useful for installations created using Homebrew or pipx. See :ref:`plugins_installing`. (:issue:`925`)
  • A new command-line option, datasette --get, accepts a path to a URL within the Datasette instance. It will run that request through Datasette (without starting a web server) and print out the response. See :ref:`cli_datasette_get` for an example. (:issue:`926`)

0.46 (2020-08-09)

Warning

This release contains a security fix related to authenticated writable canned queries. If you are using this feature you should upgrade as soon as possible.

  • Security fix: CSRF tokens were incorrectly included in read-only canned query forms, which could allow them to be leaked to a sophisticated attacker. See issue 918 for details.
  • Datasette now supports GraphQL via the new datasette-graphql plugin - see GraphQL in Datasette with the new datasette-graphql plugin.
  • Principle git branch has been renamed from master to main. (:issue:`849`)
  • New debugging tool: /-/allow-debug tool (demo here) helps test allow blocks against actors, as described in :ref:`authentication_permissions_allow`. (:issue:`908`)
  • New logo for the documentation, and a new project tagline: "An open source multi-tool for exploring and publishing data".
  • Whitespace in column values is now respected on display, using white-space: pre-wrap. (:issue:`896`)
  • New await request.post_body() method for accessing the raw POST body, see :ref:`internals_request`. (:issue:`897`)
  • Database file downloads now include a content-length HTTP header, enabling download progress bars. (:issue:`905`)
  • File downloads now also correctly set the suggested file name using a content-disposition HTTP header. (:issue:`909`)
  • tests are now excluded from the Datasette package properly - thanks, abeyerpath. (:issue:`456`)
  • The Datasette package published to PyPI now includes sdist as well as bdist_wheel.
  • Better titles for canned query pages. (:issue:`887`)
  • Now only loads Python files from a directory passed using the --plugins-dir option - thanks, Amjith Ramanujam. (#890)
  • New documentation section on :ref:`publish_vercel`.

0.45 (2020-07-01)

See also Datasette 0.45: The annotated release notes.

Magic parameters for canned queries, a log out feature, improved plugin documentation and four new plugin hooks.

Magic parameters for canned queries

Canned queries now support :ref:`canned_queries_magic_parameters`, which can be used to insert or select automatically generated values. For example:

insert into logs
  (user_id, timestamp)
values
  (:_actor_id, :_now_datetime_utc)

This inserts the currently authenticated actor ID and the current datetime. (:issue:`842`)

Log out

The :ref:`ds_actor cookie <authentication_ds_actor>` can be used by plugins (or by Datasette's :ref:`--root mechanism<authentication_root>`) to authenticate users. The new /-/logout page provides a way to clear that cookie.

A "Log out" button now shows in the global navigation provided the user is authenticated using the ds_actor cookie. (:issue:`840`)

Better plugin documentation

The plugin documentation has been re-arranged into four sections, including a brand new section on testing plugins. (:issue:`687`)

  • :ref:`plugins` introduces Datasette's plugin system and describes how to install and configure plugins.
  • :ref:`writing_plugins` describes how to author plugins, from one-off single file plugins to packaged plugins that can be published to PyPI. It also describes how to start a plugin using the new datasette-plugin cookiecutter template.
  • :ref:`plugin_hooks` is a full list of detailed documentation for every Datasette plugin hook.
  • :ref:`testing_plugins` describes how to write tests for Datasette plugins, using pytest and HTTPX.

New plugin hooks

Smaller changes

  • Cascading view permissions - so if a user has view-table they can view the table page even if they do not have view-database or view-instance. (:issue:`832`)
  • CSRF protection no longer applies to Authentication: Bearer token requests or requests without cookies. (:issue:`835`)
  • datasette.add_message() now works inside plugins. (:issue:`864`)
  • Workaround for "Too many open files" error in test runs. (:issue:`846`)
  • Respect existing scope["actor"] if already set by ASGI middleware. (:issue:`854`)
  • New process for shipping :ref:`contributing_alpha_beta`. (:issue:`807`)
  • {{ csrftoken() }} now works when plugins render a template using datasette.render_template(..., request=request). (:issue:`863`)
  • Datasette now creates a single :ref:`internals_request` and uses it throughout the lifetime of the current HTTP request. (:issue:`870`)

0.44 (2020-06-11)

See also Datasette 0.44: The annotated release notes.

Authentication and permissions, writable canned queries, flash messages, new plugin hooks and more.

Authentication

Prior to this release the Datasette ecosystem has treated authentication as exclusively the realm of plugins, most notably through datasette-auth-github.

0.44 introduces :ref:`authentication` as core Datasette concepts (:issue:`699`). This enables different plugins to share responsibility for authenticating requests - you might have one plugin that handles user accounts and another one that allows automated access via API keys, for example.

You'll need to install plugins if you want full user accounts, but default Datasette can now authenticate a single root user with the new --root command-line option, which outputs a one-time use URL to :ref:`authenticate as a root actor <authentication_root>` (:issue:`784`):

datasette fixtures.db --root

http://127.0.0.1:8001/-/auth-token?token=5b632f8cd44b868df625f5a6e2185d88eea5b22237fd3cc8773f107cc4fd6477
INFO:     Started server process [14973]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:8001 (Press CTRL+C to quit)

Plugins can implement new ways of authenticating users using the new :ref:`plugin_hook_actor_from_request` hook.

Permissions

Datasette also now has a built-in concept of :ref:`authentication_permissions`. The permissions system answers the following question:

Is this actor allowed to perform this action, optionally against this particular resource?

You can use the new "allow" block syntax in metadata.json (or metadata.yaml) to set required permissions at the instance, database, table or canned query level. For example, to restrict access to the fixtures.db database to the "root" user:

{
    "databases": {
        "fixtures": {
            "allow": {
                "id" "root"
            }
        }
    }
}

See :ref:`authentication_permissions_allow` for more details.

Plugins can implement their own custom permission checks using the new plugin_hook_permission_allowed() plugin hook.

A new debug page at /-/permissions shows recent permission checks, to help administrators and plugin authors understand exactly what checks are being performed. This tool defaults to only being available to the root user, but can be exposed to other users by plugins that respond to the permissions-debug permission. (:issue:`788`)

Writable canned queries

Datasette's :ref:`canned_queries` feature lets you define SQL queries in metadata.json which can then be executed by users visiting a specific URL. https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/neighborhood_search for example.

Canned queries were previously restricted to SELECT, but Datasette 0.44 introduces the ability for canned queries to execute INSERT or UPDATE queries as well, using the new "write": true property (:issue:`800`):

{
    "databases": {
        "dogs": {
            "queries": {
                "add_name": {
                    "sql": "INSERT INTO names (name) VALUES (:name)",
                    "write": true
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

See :ref:`canned_queries_writable` for more details.

Flash messages

Writable canned queries needed a mechanism to let the user know that the query has been successfully executed. The new flash messaging system (:issue:`790`) allows messages to persist in signed cookies which are then displayed to the user on the next page that they visit. Plugins can use this mechanism to display their own messages, see :ref:`datasette_add_message` for details.

You can try out the new messages using the /-/messages debug tool, for example at https://latest.datasette.io/-/messages

Signed values and secrets

Both flash messages and user authentication needed a way to sign values and set signed cookies. Two new methods are now available for plugins to take advantage of this mechanism: :ref:`datasette_sign` and :ref:`datasette_unsign`.

Datasette will generate a secret automatically when it starts up, but to avoid resetting the secret (and hence invalidating any cookies) every time the server restarts you should set your own secret. You can pass a secret to Datasette using the new --secret option or with a DATASETTE_SECRET environment variable. See :ref:`setting_secret` for more details.

You can also set a secret when you deploy Datasette using datasette publish or datasette package - see :ref:`setting_publish_secrets`.

Plugins can now sign values and verify their signatures using the :ref:`datasette.sign() <datasette_sign>` and :ref:`datasette.unsign() <datasette_unsign>` methods.

CSRF protection

Since writable canned queries are built using POST forms, Datasette now ships with :ref:`internals_csrf` (:issue:`798`). This applies automatically to any POST request, which means plugins need to include a csrftoken in any POST forms that they render. They can do that like so:

<input type="hidden" name="csrftoken" value="{{ csrftoken() }}">

Cookie methods

Plugins can now use the new :ref:`response.set_cookie() <internals_response_set_cookie>` method to set cookies.

A new request.cookies method on the :ref:internals_request` can be used to read incoming cookies.

register_routes() plugin hooks

Plugins can now register new views and routes via the :ref:`plugin_register_routes` plugin hook (:issue:`819`). View functions can be defined that accept any of the current datasette object, the current request, or the ASGI scope, send and receive objects.

Smaller changes

The road to Datasette 1.0

I've assembled a milestone for Datasette 1.0. The focus of the 1.0 release will be the following:

  • Signify confidence in the quality/stability of Datasette
  • Give plugin authors confidence that their plugins will work for the whole 1.x release cycle
  • Provide the same confidence to developers building against Datasette JSON APIs

If you have thoughts about what you would like to see for Datasette 1.0 you can join the conversation on issue #519.

0.43 (2020-05-28)

The main focus of this release is a major upgrade to the :ref:`plugin_register_output_renderer` plugin hook, which allows plugins to provide new output formats for Datasette such as datasette-atom and datasette-ics.

0.42 (2020-05-08)

A small release which provides improved internal methods for use in plugins, along with documentation. See :issue:`685`.

0.41 (2020-05-06)

You can now create :ref:`custom pages <custom_pages>` within your Datasette instance using a custom template file. For example, adding a template file called templates/pages/about.html will result in a new page being served at /about on your instance. See the :ref:`custom pages documentation <custom_pages>` for full details, including how to return custom HTTP headers, redirects and status codes. (:issue:`648`)

:ref:`config_dir` (:issue:`731`) allows you to define a custom Datasette instance as a directory. So instead of running the following:

datasette one.db two.db \
  --metadata=metadata.json \
  --template-dir=templates/ \
  --plugins-dir=plugins \
  --static css:css

You can instead arrange your files in a single directory called my-project and run this:

datasette my-project/

Also in this release:

0.40 (2020-04-21)

  • Datasette :ref:`metadata` can now be provided as a YAML file as an optional alternative to JSON. (:issue:`713`)
  • Removed support for datasette publish now, which used the the now-retired Zeit Now v1 hosting platform. A new plugin, datasette-publish-now, can be installed to publish data to Zeit (now Vercel) Now v2. (:issue:`710`)
  • Fixed a bug where the extra_template_vars(request, view_name) plugin hook was not receiving the correct view_name. (:issue:`716`)
  • Variables added to the template context by the extra_template_vars() plugin hook are now shown in the ?_context=1 debugging mode (see :ref:`setting_template_debug`). (:issue:`693`)
  • Fixed a bug where the "templates considered" HTML comment was no longer being displayed. (:issue:`689`)
  • Fixed a datasette publish bug where --plugin-secret would over-ride plugin configuration in the provided metadata.json file. (:issue:`724`)
  • Added a new CSS class for customizing the canned query page. (:issue:`727`)

0.39 (2020-03-24)

0.38 (2020-03-08)

  • The Docker build of Datasette now uses SQLite 3.31.1, upgraded from 3.26. (:issue:`695`)
  • datasette publish cloudrun now accepts an optional --memory=2Gi flag for setting the Cloud Run allocated memory to a value other than the default (256Mi). (:issue:`694`)
  • Fixed bug where templates that shipped with plugins were sometimes not being correctly loaded. (:issue:`697`)

0.37.1 (2020-03-02)

  • Don't attempt to count table rows to display on the index page for databases > 100MB. (:issue:`688`)
  • Print exceptions if they occur in the write thread rather than silently swallowing them.
  • Handle the possibility of scope["path"] being a string rather than bytes
  • Better documentation for the :ref:`plugin_hook_extra_template_vars` plugin hook.

0.37 (2020-02-25)

  • Plugins now have a supported mechanism for writing to a database, using the new .execute_write() and .execute_write_fn() methods. :ref:`Documentation <database_execute_write>`. (:issue:`682`)
  • Immutable databases that have had their rows counted using the inspect command now use the calculated count more effectively - thanks, Kevin Keogh. (#666)
  • --reload no longer restarts the server if a database file is modified, unless that database was opened immutable mode with -i. (:issue:`494`)
  • New ?_searchmode=raw option turns off escaping for FTS queries in ?_search= allowing full use of SQLite's FTS5 query syntax. (:issue:`676`)

0.36 (2020-02-21)

0.35 (2020-02-04)

  • Added five new plugins and one new conversion tool to the :ref:`ecosystem`.
  • The Datasette class has a new render_template() method which can be used by plugins to render templates using Datasette's pre-configured Jinja templating library.
  • You can now execute SQL queries that start with a -- comment - thanks, Jay Graves (#653)

0.34 (2020-01-29)

  • _search= queries are now correctly escaped using a new escape_fts() custom SQL function. This means you can now run searches for strings like park. without seeing errors. (:issue:`651`)
  • Google Cloud Run is no longer in beta, so datasette publish cloudrun has been updated to work even if the user has not installed the gcloud beta components package. Thanks, Katie McLaughlin (#660)
  • datasette package now accepts a --port option for specifying which port the resulting Docker container should listen on. (:issue:`661`)

0.33 (2019-12-22)

0.32 (2019-11-14)

Datasette now renders templates using Jinja async mode. This means plugins can provide custom template functions that perform asynchronous actions, for example the new datasette-template-sql plugin which allows custom templates to directly execute SQL queries and render their results. (:issue:`628`)

0.31.2 (2019-11-13)

  • Fixed a bug where datasette publish heroku applications failed to start (:issue:`633`)
  • Fix for datasette publish with just --source_url - thanks, Stanley Zheng (:issue:`572`)
  • Deployments to Heroku now use Python 3.8.0 (:issue:`632`)

0.31.1 (2019-11-12)

  • Deployments created using datasette publish now use python:3.8 base Docker image (#629)

0.31 (2019-11-11)

This version adds compatibility with Python 3.8 and breaks compatibility with Python 3.5.

If you are still running Python 3.5 you should stick with 0.30.2, which you can install like this:

pip install datasette==0.30.2
  • Format SQL button now works with read-only SQL queries - thanks, Tobias Kunze (#602)
  • New ?column__notin=x,y,z filter for table views (:issue:`614`)
  • Table view now uses select col1, col2, col3 instead of select *
  • Database filenames can now contain spaces - thanks, Tobias Kunze (#590)
  • Removed obsolete ?_group_count=col feature (:issue:`504`)
  • Improved user interface and documentation for datasette publish cloudrun (:issue:`608`)
  • Tables with indexes now show the CREATE INDEX statements on the table page (:issue:`618`)
  • Current version of uvicorn is now shown on /-/versions
  • Python 3.8 is now supported! (:issue:`622`)
  • Python 3.5 is no longer supported.

0.30.2 (2019-11-02)

  • /-/plugins page now uses distribution name e.g. datasette-cluster-map instead of the name of the underlying Python package (datasette_cluster_map) (:issue:`606`)
  • Array faceting is now only suggested for columns that contain arrays of strings (:issue:`562`)
  • Better documentation for the --host argument (:issue:`574`)
  • Don't show None with a broken link for the label on a nullable foreign key (:issue:`406`)

0.30.1 (2019-10-30)

  • Fixed bug where ?_where= parameter was not persisted in hidden form fields (:issue:`604`)
  • Fixed bug with .JSON representation of row pages - thanks, Chris Shaw (:issue:`603`)

0.30 (2019-10-18)

  • Added /-/threads debugging page
  • Allow EXPLAIN WITH... (:issue:`583`)
  • Button to format SQL - thanks, Tobias Kunze (:issue:`136`)
  • Sort databases on homepage by argument order - thanks, Tobias Kunze (:issue:`585`)
  • Display metadata footer on custom SQL queries - thanks, Tobias Kunze (#589)
  • Use --platform=managed for publish cloudrun (:issue:`587`)
  • Fixed bug returning non-ASCII characters in CSV (:issue:`584`)
  • Fix for /foo v.s. /foo-bar bug (:issue:`601`)

0.29.3 (2019-09-02)

  • Fixed implementation of CodeMirror on database page (:issue:`560`)
  • Documentation typo fixes - thanks, Min ho Kim (#561)
  • Mechanism for detecting if a table has FTS enabled now works if the table name used alternative escaping mechanisms (:issue:`570`) - for compatibility with a recent change to sqlite-utils.

0.29.2 (2019-07-13)

  • Bumped Uvicorn to 0.8.4, fixing a bug where the query string was not included in the server logs. (:issue:`559`)
  • Fixed bug where the navigation breadcrumbs were not displayed correctly on the page for a custom query. (:issue:`558`)
  • Fixed bug where custom query names containing unicode characters caused errors.

0.29.1 (2019-07-11)

  • Fixed bug with static mounts using relative paths which could lead to traversal exploits (:issue:`555`) - thanks Abdussamet Kocak!
  • Datasette can now be run as a module: python -m datasette (:issue:`556`) - thanks, Abdussamet Kocak!

0.29 (2019-07-07)

ASGI, new plugin hooks, facet by date and much, much more...

ASGI

ASGI is the Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface standard. I've been wanting to convert Datasette into an ASGI application for over a year - Port Datasette to ASGI #272 tracks thirteen months of intermittent development - but with Datasette 0.29 the change is finally released. This also means Datasette now runs on top of Uvicorn and no longer depends on Sanic.

I wrote about the significance of this change in Porting Datasette to ASGI, and Turtles all the way down.

The most exciting consequence of this change is that Datasette plugins can now take advantage of the ASGI standard.

New plugin hook: asgi_wrapper

The :ref:`plugin_asgi_wrapper` plugin hook allows plugins to entirely wrap the Datasette ASGI application in their own ASGI middleware. (:issue:`520`)

Two new plugins take advantage of this hook:

  • datasette-auth-github adds a authentication layer: users will have to sign in using their GitHub account before they can view data or interact with Datasette. You can also use it to restrict access to specific GitHub users, or to members of specified GitHub organizations or teams.
  • datasette-cors allows you to configure CORS headers for your Datasette instance. You can use this to enable JavaScript running on a whitelisted set of domains to make fetch() calls to the JSON API provided by your Datasette instance.

New plugin hook: extra_template_vars

The :ref:`plugin_hook_extra_template_vars` plugin hook allows plugins to inject their own additional variables into the Datasette template context. This can be used in conjunction with custom templates to customize the Datasette interface. datasette-auth-github uses this hook to add custom HTML to the new top navigation bar (which is designed to be modified by plugins, see :issue:`540`).

Secret plugin configuration options

Plugins like datasette-auth-github need a safe way to set secret configuration options. Since the default mechanism for configuring plugins exposes those settings in /-/metadata a new mechanism was needed. :ref:`plugins_configuration_secret` describes how plugins can now specify that their settings should be read from a file or an environment variable:

{
    "plugins": {
        "datasette-auth-github": {
            "client_secret": {
                "$env": "GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET"
            }
        }
    }
}

These plugin secrets can be set directly using datasette publish. See :ref:`publish_custom_metadata_and_plugins` for details. (:issue:`538` and :issue:`543`)

Facet by date

If a column contains datetime values, Datasette can now facet that column by date. (:issue:`481`)

Easier custom templates for table rows

If you want to customize the display of individual table rows, you can do so using a _table.html template include that looks something like this:

{% for row in display_rows %}
    <div>
        <h2>{{ row["title"] }}</h2>
        <p>{{ row["description"] }}<lp>
        <p>Category: {{ row.display("category_id") }}</p>
    </div>
{% endfor %}

This is a backwards incompatible change. If you previously had a custom template called _rows_and_columns.html you need to rename it to _table.html.

See :ref:`customization_custom_templates` for full details.

?_through= for joins through many-to-many tables

The new ?_through={json} argument to the Table view allows records to be filtered based on a many-to-many relationship. See :ref:`json_api_table_arguments` for full documentation - here's an example. (:issue:`355`)

This feature was added to help support facet by many-to-many, which isn't quite ready yet but will be coming in the next Datasette release.

Small changes

  • Databases published using datasette publish now open in :ref:`performance_immutable_mode`. (:issue:`469`)
  • ?col__date= now works for columns containing spaces
  • Automatic label detection (for deciding which column to show when linking to a foreign key) has been improved. (:issue:`485`)
  • Fixed bug where pagination broke when combined with an expanded foreign key. (:issue:`489`)
  • Contributors can now run pip install -e .[docs] to get all of the dependencies needed to build the documentation, including cd docs && make livehtml support.
  • Datasette's dependencies are now all specified using the ~= match operator. (:issue:`532`)
  • white-space: pre-wrap now used for table creation SQL. (:issue:`505`)

Full list of commits between 0.28 and 0.29.

0.28 (2019-05-19)

A salmagundi of new features!

Supporting databases that change

From the beginning of the project, Datasette has been designed with read-only databases in mind. If a database is guaranteed not to change it opens up all kinds of interesting opportunities - from taking advantage of SQLite immutable mode and HTTP caching to bundling static copies of the database directly in a Docker container. The interesting ideas in Datasette explores this idea in detail.

As my goals for the project have developed, I realized that read-only databases are no longer the right default. SQLite actually supports concurrent access very well provided only one thread attempts to write to a database at a time, and I keep encountering sensible use-cases for running Datasette on top of a database that is processing inserts and updates.

So, as-of version 0.28 Datasette no longer assumes that a database file will not change. It is now safe to point Datasette at a SQLite database which is being updated by another process.

Making this change was a lot of work - see tracking tickets :issue:`418`, :issue:`419` and :issue:`420`. It required new thinking around how Datasette should calculate table counts (an expensive operation against a large, changing database) and also meant reconsidering the "content hash" URLs Datasette has used in the past to optimize the performance of HTTP caches.

Datasette can still run against immutable files and gains numerous performance benefits from doing so, but this is no longer the default behaviour. Take a look at the new :ref:`performance` documentation section for details on how to make the most of Datasette against data that you know will be staying read-only and immutable.

Faceting improvements, and faceting plugins

Datasette :ref:`facets` provide an intuitive way to quickly summarize and interact with data. Previously the only supported faceting technique was column faceting, but 0.28 introduces two powerful new capabilities: facet-by-JSON-array and the ability to define further facet types using plugins.

Facet by array (:issue:`359`) is only available if your SQLite installation provides the json1 extension. Datasette will automatically detect columns that contain JSON arrays of values and offer a faceting interface against those columns - useful for modelling things like tags without needing to break them out into a new table. See :ref:`facet_by_json_array` for more.

The new :ref:`plugin_register_facet_classes` plugin hook (#445) can be used to register additional custom facet classes. Each facet class should provide two methods: suggest() which suggests facet selections that might be appropriate for a provided SQL query, and facet_results() which executes a facet operation and returns results. Datasette's own faceting implementations have been refactored to use the same API as these plugins.

datasette publish cloudrun

Google Cloud Run is a brand new serverless hosting platform from Google, which allows you to build a Docker container which will run only when HTTP traffic is received and will shut down (and hence cost you nothing) the rest of the time. It's similar to Zeit's Now v1 Docker hosting platform which sadly is no longer accepting signups from new users.

The new datasette publish cloudrun command was contributed by Romain Primet (#434) and publishes selected databases to a new Datasette instance running on Google Cloud Run.

See :ref:`publish_cloud_run` for full documentation.

register_output_renderer plugins

Russ Garrett implemented a new Datasette plugin hook called :ref:`register_output_renderer <plugin_register_output_renderer>` (#441) which allows plugins to create additional output renderers in addition to Datasette's default .json and .csv.

Russ's in-development datasette-geo plugin includes an example of this hook being used to output .geojson automatically converted from SpatiaLite.

Medium changes

  • Datasette now conforms to the Black coding style (#449) - and has a unit test to enforce this in the future
  • New :ref:`json_api_table_arguments`:
    • ?columnname__in=value1,value2,value3 filter for executing SQL IN queries against a table, see :ref:`table_arguments` (:issue:`433`)
    • ?columnname__date=yyyy-mm-dd filter which returns rows where the spoecified datetime column falls on the specified date (583b22a)
    • ?tags__arraycontains=tag filter which acts against a JSON array contained in a column (78e45ea)
    • ?_where=sql-fragment filter for the table view (:issue:`429`)
    • ?_fts_table=mytable and ?_fts_pk=mycolumn query string options can be used to specify which FTS table to use for a search query - see :ref:`full_text_search_table_or_view` (:issue:`428`)
  • You can now pass the same table filter multiple times - for example, ?content__not=world&content__not=hello will return all rows where the content column is neither hello or world (:issue:`288`)
  • You can now specify about and about_url metadata (in addition to source and license) linking to further information about a project - see :ref:`metadata_source_license_about`
  • New ?_trace=1 parameter now adds debug information showing every SQL query that was executed while constructing the page (:issue:`435`)
  • datasette inspect now just calculates table counts, and does not introspect other database metadata (:issue:`462`)
  • Removed /-/inspect page entirely - this will be replaced by something similar in the future, see :issue:`465`
  • Datasette can now run against an in-memory SQLite database. You can do this by starting it without passing any files or by using the new --memory option to datasette serve. This can be useful for experimenting with SQLite queries that do not access any data, such as SELECT 1+1 or SELECT sqlite_version().

Small changes

  • We now show the size of the database file next to the download link (:issue:`172`)
  • New /-/databases introspection page shows currently connected databases (:issue:`470`)
  • Binary data is no longer displayed on the table and row pages (#442 - thanks, Russ Garrett)
  • New show/hide SQL links on custom query pages (:issue:`415`)
  • The :ref:`extra_body_script <plugin_hook_extra_body_script>` plugin hook now accepts an optional view_name argument (#443 - thanks, Russ Garrett)
  • Bumped Jinja2 dependency to 2.10.1 (#426)
  • All table filters are now documented, and documentation is enforced via unit tests (2c19a27)
  • New project guideline: master should stay shippable at all times! (31f36e1)
  • Fixed a bug where sqlite_timelimit() occasionally failed to clean up after itself (bac4e01)
  • We no longer load additional plugins when executing pytest (:issue:`438`)
  • Homepage now links to database views if there are less than five tables in a database (:issue:`373`)
  • The --cors option is now respected by error pages (:issue:`453`)
  • datasette publish heroku now uses the --include-vcs-ignore option, which means it works under Travis CI (#407)
  • datasette publish heroku now publishes using Python 3.6.8 (666c374)
  • Renamed datasette publish now to datasette publish nowv1 (:issue:`472`)
  • datasette publish nowv1 now accepts multiple --alias parameters (09ef305)
  • Removed the datasette skeleton command (:issue:`476`)
  • The :ref:`documentation on how to build the documentation <contributing_documentation>` now recommends sphinx-autobuild

0.27.1 (2019-05-09)

  • Tiny bugfix release: don't install tests/ in the wrong place. Thanks, Veit Heller.

0.27 (2019-01-31)

0.26.1 (2019-01-10)

0.26 (2019-01-02)

  • datasette serve --reload now restarts Datasette if a database file changes on disk.
  • datasette publish now now takes an optional --alias mysite.now.sh argument. This will attempt to set an alias after the deploy completes.
  • Fixed a bug where the advanced CSV export form failed to include the currently selected filters (:issue:`393`)

0.25.2 (2018-12-16)

0.25.1 (2018-11-04)

Documentation improvements plus a fix for publishing to Zeit Now.

  • datasette publish now now uses Zeit's v1 platform, to work around the new 100MB image limit. Thanks, @slygent - closes :issue:`366`.

0.25 (2018-09-19)

New plugin hooks, improved database view support and an easier way to use more recent versions of SQLite.

0.24 (2018-07-23)

A number of small new features:

0.23.2 (2018-07-07)

Minor bugfix and documentation release.

0.23.1 (2018-06-21)

Minor bugfix release.

  • Correctly display empty strings in HTML table, closes #314
  • Allow "." in database filenames, closes #302
  • 404s ending in slash redirect to remove that slash, closes #309
  • Fixed incorrect display of compound primary keys with foreign key references. Closes #319
  • Docs + example of canned SQL query using || concatenation. Closes #321
  • Correctly display facets with value of 0 - closes #318
  • Default 'expand labels' to checked in CSV advanced export

0.23 (2018-06-18)

This release features CSV export, improved options for foreign key expansions, new configuration settings and improved support for SpatiaLite.

See datasette/compare/0.22.1...0.23 for a full list of commits added since the last release.

CSV export

Any Datasette table, view or custom SQL query can now be exported as CSV.

Advanced export form. You can get the data in different JSON shapes, and CSV options are download file, expand labels and stream all rows.

Check out the :ref:`CSV export documentation <csv_export>` for more details, or try the feature out on https://fivethirtyeight.datasettes.com/fivethirtyeight/bechdel%2Fmovies

If your table has more than :ref:`setting_max_returned_rows` (default 1,000) Datasette provides the option to stream all rows. This option takes advantage of async Python and Datasette's efficient :ref:`pagination <pagination>` to iterate through the entire matching result set and stream it back as a downloadable CSV file.

Foreign key expansions

When Datasette detects a foreign key reference it attempts to resolve a label for that reference (automatically or using the :ref:`table_configuration_label_column` metadata option) so it can display a link to the associated row.

This expansion is now also available for JSON and CSV representations of the table, using the new _labels=on query string option. See :ref:`expand_foreign_keys` for more details.

New configuration settings

Datasette's :ref:`settings` now also supports boolean settings. A number of new configuration options have been added:

  • num_sql_threads - the number of threads used to execute SQLite queries. Defaults to 3.
  • allow_facet - enable or disable custom :ref:`facets` using the _facet= parameter. Defaults to on.
  • suggest_facets - should Datasette suggest facets? Defaults to on.
  • allow_download - should users be allowed to download the entire SQLite database? Defaults to on.
  • allow_sql - should users be allowed to execute custom SQL queries? Defaults to on.
  • default_cache_ttl - Default HTTP caching max-age header in seconds. Defaults to 365 days - caching can be disabled entirely by settings this to 0.
  • cache_size_kb - Set the amount of memory SQLite uses for its per-connection cache, in KB.
  • allow_csv_stream - allow users to stream entire result sets as a single CSV file. Defaults to on.
  • max_csv_mb - maximum size of a returned CSV file in MB. Defaults to 100MB, set to 0 to disable this limit.

Control HTTP caching with ?_ttl=

You can now customize the HTTP max-age header that is sent on a per-URL basis, using the new ?_ttl= query string parameter.

You can set this to any value in seconds, or you can set it to 0 to disable HTTP caching entirely.

Consider for example this query which returns a randomly selected member of the Avengers:

select * from [avengers/avengers] order by random() limit 1

If you hit the following page repeatedly you will get the same result, due to HTTP caching:

/fivethirtyeight?sql=select+*+from+%5Bavengers%2Favengers%5D+order+by+random%28%29+limit+1

By adding ?_ttl=0 to the zero you can ensure the page will not be cached and get back a different super hero every time:

/fivethirtyeight?sql=select+*+from+%5Bavengers%2Favengers%5D+order+by+random%28%29+limit+1&_ttl=0

Improved support for SpatiaLite

The SpatiaLite module for SQLite adds robust geospatial features to the database.

Getting SpatiaLite working can be tricky, especially if you want to use the most recent alpha version (with support for K-nearest neighbor).

Datasette now includes :ref:`extensive documentation on SpatiaLite <spatialite>`, and thanks to Ravi Kotecha our GitHub repo includes a Dockerfile that can build the latest SpatiaLite and configure it for use with Datasette.

The datasette publish and datasette package commands now accept a new --spatialite argument which causes them to install and configure SpatiaLite as part of the container they deploy.

latest.datasette.io

Every commit to Datasette master is now automatically deployed by Travis CI to https://latest.datasette.io/ - ensuring there is always a live demo of the latest version of the software.

The demo uses the fixtures from our unit tests, ensuring it demonstrates the same range of functionality that is covered by the tests.

You can see how the deployment mechanism works in our .travis.yml file.

Miscellaneous

  • Got JSON data in one of your columns? Use the new ?_json=COLNAME argument to tell Datasette to return that JSON value directly rather than encoding it as a string.
  • If you just want an array of the first value of each row, use the new ?_shape=arrayfirst option - example.

0.22.1 (2018-05-23)

Bugfix release, plus we now use versioneer for our version numbers.

  • Faceting no longer breaks pagination, fixes #282

  • Add __version_info__ derived from __version__ [Robert Gieseke]

    This might be tuple of more than two values (major and minor version) if commits have been made after a release.

  • Add version number support with Versioneer. [Robert Gieseke]

    Versioneer Licence: Public Domain (CC0-1.0)

    Closes #273

  • Refactor inspect logic [Russ Garrett]

0.22 (2018-05-20)

The big new feature in this release is :ref:`facets`. Datasette can now apply faceted browse to any column in any table. It will also suggest possible facets. See the Datasette Facets announcement post for more details.

In addition to the work on facets:

  • Added docs for introspection endpoints

  • New --config option, added --help-config, closes #274

    Removed the --page_size= argument to datasette serve in favour of:

    datasette serve --config default_page_size:50 mydb.db

    Added new help section:

    datasette --help-config

    Config options:
  default_page_size            Default page size for the table view
                               (default=100)
  max_returned_rows            Maximum rows that can be returned from a table
                               or custom query (default=1000)
  sql_time_limit_ms            Time limit for a SQL query in milliseconds
                               (default=1000)
  default_facet_size           Number of values to return for requested facets
                               (default=30)
  facet_time_limit_ms          Time limit for calculating a requested facet
                               (default=200)
  facet_suggest_time_limit_ms  Time limit for calculating a suggested facet
                               (default=50)

  • Only apply responsive table styles to .rows-and-column

    Otherwise they interfere with tables in the description, e.g. on https://fivethirtyeight.datasettes.com/fivethirtyeight/nba-elo%2Fnbaallelo

  • Refactored views into new views/ modules, refs #256

  • Documentation for SQLite full-text search support, closes #253

  • /-/versions now includes SQLite fts_versions, closes #252

0.21 (2018-05-05)

New JSON _shape= options, the ability to set table _size= and a mechanism for searching within specific columns.

  • Default tests to using a longer timelimit

    Every now and then a test will fail in Travis CI on Python 3.5 because it hit the default 20ms SQL time limit.

    Test fixtures now default to a 200ms time limit, and we only use the 20ms time limit for the specific test that tests query interruption. This should make our tests on Python 3.5 in Travis much more stable.

  • Support _search_COLUMN=text searches, closes #237

  • Show version on /-/plugins page, closes #248

  • ?_size=max option, closes #249

  • Added /-/versions and /-/versions.json, closes #244

    Sample output:

    {
  "python": {
    "version": "3.6.3",
    "full": "3.6.3 (default, Oct  4 2017, 06:09:38) \n[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 9.0.0 (clang-900.0.37)]"
  },
  "datasette": {
    "version": "0.20"
  },
  "sqlite": {
    "version": "3.23.1",
    "extensions": {
      "json1": null,
      "spatialite": "4.3.0a"
    }
  }
}

  • Renamed ?_sql_time_limit_ms= to ?_timelimit, closes #242

  • New ?_shape=array option + tweaks to _shape, closes #245

    • Default is now ?_shape=arrays (renamed from lists)
    • New ?_shape=array returns an array of objects as the root object
    • Changed ?_shape=object to return the object as the root
    • Updated docs

  • FTS tables now detected by inspect(), closes #240

  • New ?_size=XXX query string parameter for table view, closes #229

    Also added documentation for all of the _special arguments.

    Plus deleted some duplicate logic implementing _group_count.

  • If max_returned_rows==page_size, increment max_returned_rows - fixes #230

  • New hidden: True option for table metadata, closes #239

  • Hide idx_* tables if spatialite detected, closes #228

  • Added class=rows-and-columns to custom query results table

  • Added CSS class rows-and-columns to main table

  • label_column option in metadata.json - closes #234

0.20 (2018-04-20)

Mostly new work on the :ref:`plugins` mechanism: plugins can now bundle static assets and custom templates, and datasette publish has a new --install=name-of-plugin option.

  • Add col-X classes to HTML table on custom query page

  • Fixed out-dated template in documentation

  • Plugins can now bundle custom templates, #224

  • Added /-/metadata /-/plugins /-/inspect, #225

  • Documentation for --install option, refs #223

  • Datasette publish/package --install option, #223

  • Fix for plugins in Python 3.5, #222

  • New plugin hooks: extra_css_urls() and extra_js_urls(), #214

  • /-/static-plugins/PLUGIN_NAME/ now serves static/ from plugins

  • <th> now gets class="col-X" - plus added col-X documentation

  • Use to_css_class for table cell column classes

    This ensures that columns with spaces in the name will still generate usable CSS class names. Refs #209

  • Add column name classes to <td>s, make PK bold [Russ Garrett]

  • Don't duplicate simple primary keys in the link column [Russ Garrett]

    When there's a simple (single-column) primary key, it looks weird to duplicate it in the link column.

    This change removes the second PK column and treats the link column as if it were the PK column from a header/sorting perspective.

  • Correct escaping for HTML display of row links [Russ Garrett]

  • Longer time limit for test_paginate_compound_keys

    It was failing intermittently in Travis - see #209

  • Use application/octet-stream for downloadable databases

  • Updated PyPI classifiers

  • Updated PyPI link to pypi.org

0.19 (2018-04-16)

This is the first preview of the new Datasette plugins mechanism. Only two plugin hooks are available so far - for custom SQL functions and custom template filters. There's plenty more to come - read the documentation and get involved in the tracking ticket if you have feedback on the direction so far.

  • Fix for _sort_desc=sortable_with_nulls test, refs #216

  • Fixed #216 - paginate correctly when sorting by nullable column

  • Initial documentation for plugins, closes #213

    https://docs.datasette.io/en/stable/plugins.html

  • New --plugins-dir=plugins/ option (#212)

    New option causing Datasette to load and evaluate all of the Python files in the specified directory and register any plugins that are defined in those files.

    This new option is available for the following commands:

    datasette serve mydb.db --plugins-dir=plugins/
datasette publish now/heroku mydb.db --plugins-dir=plugins/
datasette package mydb.db --plugins-dir=plugins/

  • Start of the plugin system, based on pluggy (#210)

    Uses https://pluggy.readthedocs.io/ originally created for the py.test project

    We're starting with two plugin hooks:

    prepare_connection(conn)

    This is called when a new SQLite connection is created. It can be used to register custom SQL functions.

    prepare_jinja2_environment(env)

    This is called with the Jinja2 environment. It can be used to register custom template tags and filters.

    An example plugin which uses these two hooks can be found at https://github.com/simonw/datasette-plugin-demos or installed using pip install datasette-plugin-demos

    Refs #14

  • Return HTTP 405 on InvalidUsage rather than 500. [Russ Garrett]

    This also stops it filling up the logs. This happens for HEAD requests at the moment - which perhaps should be handled better, but that's a different issue.

0.18 (2018-04-14)

This release introduces support for units, contributed by Russ Garrett (#203). You can now optionally specify the units for specific columns using metadata.json. Once specified, units will be displayed in the HTML view of your table. They also become available for use in filters - if a column is configured with a unit of distance, you can request all rows where that column is less than 50 meters or more than 20 feet for example.

  • Link foreign keys which don't have labels. [Russ Garrett]

    This renders unlabeled FKs as simple links.

    Also includes bonus fixes for two minor issues:

    • In foreign key link hrefs the primary key was escaped using HTML escaping rather than URL escaping. This broke some non-integer PKs.
    • Print tracebacks to console when handling 500 errors.

  • Fix SQLite error when loading rows with no incoming FKs. [Russ Garrett]

    This fixes an error caused by an invalid query when loading incoming FKs.

    The error was ignored due to async but it still got printed to the console.

  • Allow custom units to be registered with Pint. [Russ Garrett]

  • Support units in filters. [Russ Garrett]

  • Tidy up units support. [Russ Garrett]

    • Add units to exported JSON
    • Units key in metadata skeleton
    • Docs

  • Initial units support. [Russ Garrett]

    Add support for specifying units for a column in metadata.json and rendering them on display using pint

0.17 (2018-04-13)

  • Release 0.17 to fix issues with PyPI

0.16 (2018-04-13)

  • Better mechanism for handling errors; 404s for missing table/database

    New error mechanism closes #193

    404s for missing tables/databases closes #184

  • long_description in markdown for the new PyPI

  • Hide SpatiaLite system tables. [Russ Garrett]

  • Allow explain select / explain query plan select #201

  • Datasette inspect now finds primary_keys #195

  • Ability to sort using form fields (for mobile portrait mode) #199

    We now display sort options as a select box plus a descending checkbox, which means you can apply sort orders even in portrait mode on a mobile phone where the column headers are hidden.

0.15 (2018-04-09)

The biggest new feature in this release is the ability to sort by column. On the table page the column headers can now be clicked to apply sort (or descending sort), or you can specify ?_sort=column or ?_sort_desc=column directly in the URL.

  • table_rows => table_rows_count, filtered_table_rows => filtered_table_rows_count

    Renamed properties. Closes #194

  • New sortable_columns option in metadata.json to control sort options.

    You can now explicitly set which columns in a table can be used for sorting using the _sort and _sort_desc arguments using metadata.json:

    {
    "databases": {
        "database1": {
            "tables": {
                "example_table": {
                    "sortable_columns": [
                        "height",
                        "weight"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

    Refs #189

  • Column headers now link to sort/desc sort - refs #189

  • _sort and _sort_desc parameters for table views

    Allows for paginated sorted results based on a specified column.

    Refs #189

  • Total row count now correct even if _next applied

  • Use .custom_sql() for _group_count implementation (refs #150)

  • Make HTML title more readable in query template (#180) [Ryan Pitts]

  • New ?_shape=objects/object/lists param for JSON API (#192)

    New _shape= parameter replacing old .jsono extension

    Now instead of this:

    /database/table.jsono

    We use the _shape parameter like this:

    /database/table.json?_shape=objects

    Also introduced a new _shape called object which looks like this:

    /database/table.json?_shape=object

    Returning an object for the rows key:

    ...
"rows": {
    "pk1": {
        ...
    },
    "pk2": {
        ...
    }
}

    Refs #122

  • Utility for writing test database fixtures to a .db file

    python tests/fixtures.py /tmp/hello.db

    This is useful for making a SQLite database of the test fixtures for interactive exploration.

  • Compound primary key _next= now plays well with extra filters

    Closes #190

  • Fixed bug with keyset pagination over compound primary keys

    Refs #190

  • Database/Table views inherit source/license/source_url/license_url metadata

    If you set the source_url/license_url/source/license fields in your root metadata those values will now be inherited all the way down to the database and table templates.

    The title/description are NOT inherited.

    Also added unit tests for the HTML generated by the metadata.

    Refs #185

  • Add metadata, if it exists, to heroku temp dir (#178) [Tony Hirst]

  • Initial documentation for pagination

  • Broke up test_app into test_api and test_html

  • Fixed bug with .json path regular expression

    I had a table called geojson and it caused an exception because the regex was matching .json and not \.json

  • Deploy to Heroku with Python 3.6.3

0.14 (2017-12-09)

The theme of this release is customization: Datasette now allows every aspect of its presentation to be customized either using additional CSS or by providing entirely new templates.

Datasette's metadata.json format has also been expanded, to allow per-database and per-table metadata. A new datasette skeleton command can be used to generate a skeleton JSON file ready to be filled in with per-database and per-table details.

The metadata.json file can also be used to define canned queries, as a more powerful alternative to SQL views.

  • extra_css_urls/extra_js_urls in metadata

    A mechanism in the metadata.json format for adding custom CSS and JS urls.

    Create a metadata.json file that looks like this:

    {
    "extra_css_urls": [
        "https://simonwillison.net/static/css/all.bf8cd891642c.css"
    ],
    "extra_js_urls": [
        "https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js"
    ]
}

    Then start datasette like this:

    datasette mydb.db --metadata=metadata.json

    The CSS and JavaScript files will be linked in the <head> of every page.

    You can also specify a SRI (subresource integrity hash) for these assets:

    {
    "extra_css_urls": [
        {
            "url": "https://simonwillison.net/static/css/all.bf8cd891642c.css",
            "sri": "sha384-9qIZekWUyjCyDIf2YK1FRoKiPJq4PHt6tp/ulnuuyRBvazd0hG7pWbE99zvwSznI"
        }
    ],
    "extra_js_urls": [
        {
            "url": "https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js",
            "sri": "sha256-k2WSCIexGzOj3Euiig+TlR8gA0EmPjuc79OEeY5L45g="
        }
    ]
}

    Modern browsers will only execute the stylesheet or JavaScript if the SRI hash matches the content served. You can generate hashes using https://www.srihash.org/

  • Auto-link column values that look like URLs (#153)

  • CSS styling hooks as classes on the body (#153)

    Every template now gets CSS classes in the body designed to support custom styling.

    The index template (the top level page at /) gets this:

    <body class="index">

    The database template (/dbname/) gets this:

    <body class="db db-dbname">

    The table template (/dbname/tablename) gets:

    <body class="table db-dbname table-tablename">

    The row template (/dbname/tablename/rowid) gets:

    <body class="row db-dbname table-tablename">

    The db-x and table-x classes use the database or table names themselves IF they are valid CSS identifiers. If they aren't, we strip any invalid characters out and append a 6 character md5 digest of the original name, in order to ensure that multiple tables which resolve to the same stripped character version still have different CSS classes.

    Some examples (extracted from the unit tests):

    "simple" => "simple"
"MixedCase" => "MixedCase"
"-no-leading-hyphens" => "no-leading-hyphens-65bea6"
"_no-leading-underscores" => "no-leading-underscores-b921bc"
"no spaces" => "no-spaces-7088d7"
"-" => "336d5e"
"no $ characters" => "no--characters-59e024"

  • datasette --template-dir=mytemplates/ argument

    You can now pass an additional argument specifying a directory to look for custom templates in.

    Datasette will fall back on the default templates if a template is not found in that directory.

  • Ability to over-ride templates for individual tables/databases.

    It is now possible to over-ride templates on a per-database / per-row or per- table basis.

    When you access e.g. /mydatabase/mytable Datasette will look for the following:

    - table-mydatabase-mytable.html
- table.html

    If you provided a --template-dir argument to datasette serve it will look in that directory first.

    The lookup rules are as follows:

    Index page (/):
    index.html

Database page (/mydatabase):
    database-mydatabase.html
    database.html

Table page (/mydatabase/mytable):
    table-mydatabase-mytable.html
    table.html

Row page (/mydatabase/mytable/id):
    row-mydatabase-mytable.html
    row.html

    If a table name has spaces or other unexpected characters in it, the template filename will follow the same rules as our custom <body> CSS classes - for example, a table called "Food Trucks" will attempt to load the following templates:

    table-mydatabase-Food-Trucks-399138.html
table.html

    It is possible to extend the default templates using Jinja template inheritance. If you want to customize EVERY row template with some additional content you can do so by creating a row.html template like this:

    {% extends "default:row.html" %}

{% block content %}
<h1>EXTRA HTML AT THE TOP OF THE CONTENT BLOCK</h1>
<p>This line renders the original block:</p>
{{ super() }}
{% endblock %}

  • --static option for datasette serve (#160)

    You can now tell Datasette to serve static files from a specific location at a specific mountpoint.

    For example:

    datasette serve mydb.db --static extra-css:/tmp/static/css

    Now if you visit this URL:

    http://localhost:8001/extra-css/blah.css

    The following file will be served:

    /tmp/static/css/blah.css

  • Canned query support.

    Named canned queries can now be defined in metadata.json like this:

    {
    "databases": {
        "timezones": {
            "queries": {
                "timezone_for_point": "select tzid from timezones ..."
            }
        }
    }
}

    These will be shown in a new "Queries" section beneath "Views" on the database page.

  • New datasette skeleton command for generating metadata.json (#164)

  • metadata.json support for per-table/per-database metadata (#165)

    Also added support for descriptions and HTML descriptions.

    Here's an example metadata.json file illustrating custom per-database and per- table metadata:

    {
    "title": "Overall datasette title",
    "description_html": "This is a <em>description with HTML</em>.",
    "databases": {
        "db1": {
            "title": "First database",
            "description": "This is a string description & has no HTML",
            "license_url": "http://example.com/",
        "license": "The example license",
            "queries": {
              "canned_query": "select * from table1 limit 3;"
            },
            "tables": {
                "table1": {
                    "title": "Custom title for table1",
                    "description": "Tables can have descriptions too",
                    "source": "This has a custom source",
                    "source_url": "http://example.com/"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

  • Renamed datasette build command to datasette inspect (#130)

  • Upgrade to Sanic 0.7.0 (#168)

    https://github.com/channelcat/sanic/releases/tag/0.7.0

  • Package and publish commands now accept --static and --template-dir

    Example usage:

    datasette package --static css:extra-css/ --static js:extra-js/ \
  sf-trees.db --template-dir templates/ --tag sf-trees --branch master

    This creates a local Docker image that includes copies of the templates/, extra-css/ and extra-js/ directories. You can then run it like this:

    docker run -p 8001:8001 sf-trees

    For publishing to Zeit now:

    datasette publish now --static css:extra-css/ --static js:extra-js/ \
  sf-trees.db --template-dir templates/ --name sf-trees --branch master

  • HTML comment showing which templates were considered for a page (#171)

0.13 (2017-11-24)

  • Search now applies to current filters.

    Combined search into the same form as filters.

    Closes #133

  • Much tidier design for table view header.

    Closes #147

  • Added ?column__not=blah filter.

    Closes #148

  • Row page now resolves foreign keys.

    Closes #132

  • Further tweaks to select/input filter styling.

    Refs #86 - thanks for the help, @natbat!

  • Show linked foreign key in table cells.

  • Added UI for editing table filters.

    Refs #86

  • Hide FTS-created tables on index pages.

    Closes #129

  • Add publish to heroku support [Jacob Kaplan-Moss]

    datasette publish heroku mydb.db

    Pull request #104

  • Initial implementation of ?_group_count=column.

    URL shortcut for counting rows grouped by one or more columns.

    ?_group_count=column1&_group_count=column2 works as well.

    SQL generated looks like this:

    select "qSpecies", count(*) as "count"
from Street_Tree_List
group by "qSpecies"
order by "count" desc limit 100

    Or for two columns like this:

    select "qSpecies", "qSiteInfo", count(*) as "count"
from Street_Tree_List
group by "qSpecies", "qSiteInfo"
order by "count" desc limit 100

    Refs #44

  • Added --build=master option to datasette publish and package.

    The datasette publish and datasette package commands both now accept an optional --build argument. If provided, this can be used to specify a branch published to GitHub that should be built into the container.

    This makes it easier to test code that has not yet been officially released to PyPI, e.g.:

    datasette publish now mydb.db --branch=master

  • Implemented ?_search=XXX + UI if a FTS table is detected.

    Closes #131

  • Added datasette --version support.

  • Table views now show expanded foreign key references, if possible.

    If a table has foreign key columns, and those foreign key tables have label_columns, the TableView will now query those other tables for the corresponding values and display those values as links in the corresponding table cells.

    label_columns are currently detected by the inspect() function, which looks for any table that has just two columns - an ID column and one other - and sets the label_column to be that second non-ID column.

  • Don't prevent tabbing to "Run SQL" button (#117) [Robert Gieseke]

    See comment in #115

  • Add keyboard shortcut to execute SQL query (#115) [Robert Gieseke]

  • Allow --load-extension to be set via environment variable.

  • Add support for ?field__isnull=1 (#107) [Ray N]

  • Add spatialite, switch to debian and local build (#114) [Ariel Núñez]

  • Added --load-extension argument to datasette serve.

    Allows loading of SQLite extensions. Refs #110.

0.12 (2017-11-16)

  • Added __version__, now displayed as tooltip in page footer (#108).

  • Added initial docs, including a changelog (#99).

  • Turned on auto-escaping in Jinja.

  • Added a UI for editing named parameters (#96).

    You can now construct a custom SQL statement using SQLite named parameters (e.g. :name) and datasette will display form fields for editing those parameters. Here’s an example which lets you see the most popular names for dogs of different species registered through various dog registration schemes in Australia.

  • Pin to specific Jinja version. (#100).

  • Default to 127.0.0.1 not 0.0.0.0. (#98).

  • Added extra metadata options to publish and package commands. (#92).

    You can now run these commands like so:

    datasette now publish mydb.db \
    --title="My Title" \
    --source="Source" \
    --source_url="http://www.example.com/" \
    --license="CC0" \
    --license_url="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"

    This will write those values into the metadata.json that is packaged with the app. If you also pass --metadata=metadata.json that file will be updated with the extra values before being written into the Docker image.

  • Added production-ready Dockerfile (#94) [Andrew Cutler]

  • New ?_sql_time_limit_ms=10 argument to database and table page (#95)

  • SQL syntax highlighting with Codemirror (#89) [Tom Dyson]

0.11 (2017-11-14)

  • Added datasette publish now --force option.

    This calls now with --force - useful as it means you get a fresh copy of datasette even if Now has already cached that docker layer.

  • Enable --cors by default when running in a container.

0.10 (2017-11-14)

  • Fixed #83 - 500 error on individual row pages.

  • Stop using sqlite WITH RECURSIVE in our tests.

    The version of Python 3 running in Travis CI doesn't support this.

0.9 (2017-11-13)

  • Added --sql_time_limit_ms and --extra-options.

    The serve command now accepts --sql_time_limit_ms for customizing the SQL time limit.

    The publish and package commands now accept --extra-options which can be used to specify additional options to be passed to the datasite serve command when it executes inside the resulting Docker containers.

0.8 (2017-11-13)

  • V0.8 - added PyPI metadata, ready to ship.

  • Implemented offset/limit pagination for views (#70).

  • Improved pagination. (#78)

  • Limit on max rows returned, controlled by --max_returned_rows option. (#69)

    If someone executes 'select * from table' against a table with a million rows in it, we could run into problems: just serializing that much data as JSON is likely to lock up the server.

    Solution: we now have a hard limit on the maximum number of rows that can be returned by a query. If that limit is exceeded, the server will return a "truncated": true field in the JSON.

    This limit can be optionally controlled by the new --max_returned_rows option. Setting that option to 0 disables the limit entirely.