There was a time when I had a rudimentary proficiency with SQL. I could make updates and rudimentary queries but those days are gone. I haven’t had the need to interact with an SQL database for several years so what facility I had with them has evaporated.
Fortunately, as always, Emacs has my back. The new Emacs 29 has a builtin sqlite mode that can read SQLite databases, list the tables, the rows of a given table, and even delete a row of one of those tables. Álvaro Ramírez has a short post that demonstrates these elementary facilities.
Of course, being Ramírez, he decided to extend those facilities. His changes, for the time being, are fairly minimal. He added the ability to tab (forward and backward) through the fields and the ability to edit the row fields themselves. A second post demonstrates these new abilities. The code, Ramírez says, is still a little hacky but seems to work well.
Sqlite mode, especially with Ramírez’s additions is perfect for someone like me who’s rusty on the mechanics of dealing with SQL databases. It doesn’t, of course, replace a thorough knowledge of SQL but it does give us SQL duffers the ability to perform elementary operations on an SQLite database.
Given that more and more applications—including Emacs—are integrating SQLite, this is a boon for those of us who like to live in Emacs. Take a look at Ramírez’s videos to see what’s possible.