[Python-ideas] SQL-like way to manipulate Python data structures

[Steve Howell]

--- Aahz <aahz at pythoncraft.com> wrote:
> Think of it this way: if Python requires you to use
> a library for regex
> manipulation, what makes SQL-like data processing
> sufficiently special
> that it belongs in the language itself?

There is a difference.

Regexes would never leverage python expressions
*inside* the regex, even if they were more directly
integrated into the language like Perl.  (And, for the
record, I prefer Python's philosophy to make regexes a
module, but I do appreciate the short name, re, and
the fact that it's battery included).

In the case of SQL, I can imagine something like this:

def convert_to_euros(salary): ...

result_set = [[[
select deptno, total(convert_to_euros(salary))
from emp
where country = 'France'
group by deptno
]]] # where emp is a list of dictionaries

Obviously, I understand that you can solve this
problem in Python now, but you either have to do this:

   1) Use more bulky way to describe the expression:

   sql(..., criteria=lambda row: row['country'] ==
'France')

   2) Rely on some library to parse the SQL for you,
which is good enough for the year 2007, but I wonder
why the Python interpreter itself couldn't interpret
the SQL to bytecode (at startup time) just as easily
as, say, SQLAlchemy or sqlite, does at runtime.








       
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