Formatter for YQL queries

[dainiusjocas]

It is not uncommon for YQL queries to become large and complex.

Also, when queries are constructed in java searchers it is hard to test the output.

It would be great if vespa extensions for vscode/intellij could properly format YQL. But they can't, only the syntax highlighting is available.

Currently, the closest thing to a solution for me is to format with a generic SQL formatter. But Vespa annotations create problems for them and results are not great.

How others are solving such issue?

[radu-gheorghe]

I have a tangent solution, because I lean towards the Select syntax. For that, I use the Navigator for my daily Vespa-ing. I know, it's a WiP tool, but it does the job (including aligning JSON). And it will support much more in the following weeks (for the Select syntax at least).

For pure YQL, it does sound like it would be an improvement for the IDE extensions. Feel free to open an issue/PR there. I'm thinking that a keyboard shortcut could format the YQL based on some predefined rules (WHERE, LIMIT, parentheses...).

That's my opinion, at least 😅

[dainiusjocas]

Any benefits of using the select syntax over yql? Or it is just just a preference?

[radu-gheorghe]

Just a matter of preference (for me, coming from ES, but also for clients like the Navigator, which can more easily grok the syntax and suggest things). Actually, it doesn't support 100% of what YQL supports. For example, no userInput(), but text() is there with all the options.

In short, if anything is missing, it's a bug and we'll fix it.