[HN Gopher] Show HN: SQL Formatter
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       Show HN: SQL Formatter
        
       Author : pictur
       Score  : 6 points
       Date   : 2023-08-21 20:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (normaltool.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (normaltool.com)
        
       | natpalmer1776 wrote:
       | Maybe it's just me, but I find the sample input more legible than
       | the output.
        
         | bot347851834 wrote:
         | I'm of the same opinion. I always wonder why SQL formatters do
         | this. Is it because it's easier to diff queries with versioning
         | tools? Because to me it's definitely not for legibility. The
         | example shown here isn't even that bad compared to what I see
         | regularly. We've got quiet a few queries longer than 100 sanely
         | written lines running in BigQuery, sometimes I missclick the
         | "format query" option and it always makes me wonder who the
         | hell enjoys scrolling so much because suddenly the line count
         | increases by an order or magnitude or more and the lines aren't
         | much longer than 20 or so characters.
        
           | natpalmer1776 wrote:
           | I think formatters are generally written by people who value
           | consistency above other criteria, as many of the general
           | conventions used when handwriting queries tend to break down
           | as the complexity of the query increases. With these
           | formatters I imagine complex queries would render in a more
           | 'consistent' manner.
        
             | DougMerritt wrote:
             | Yes, and that tends to be the case with formatters for
             | programming languages in general.
        
           | adamrezich wrote:
           | I agree that the example input is more readable than the
           | output, but I also think it's a bad example of messy SQL.
           | sometimes it's nice to use a tool like this to break down a
           | complex, appended-to-by-multiple-authors-over-the-years query
           | just so you can understand the logic (and sometimes find
           | unexpected logic bugs that nobody noticed before). at least,
           | that's been my experience.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-21 23:01 UTC)