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SQRL Documentation

SQRL is a declarative language for defining data transformations based on SQL. SQRL stands for "Structured Query and Reaction Language" because it extends SQL with support for streaming data and the ability to react to data in realtime. In addition, SQRL adds a number of convenience features that make it development-friendly.

This documentation explains the features of SQRL and everything you need to know to build data products with SQRL. It assumes basic familiarity with SQL. If you haven't used SQL before, or it's been a while, we recommend that you read the SQL primer first.

SQRL Tables​

SQRL scripts define a set of tables. Tables can be exposed in the API, imported by other SQRL scripts, or exported to other data systems and action triggers.

SQRL tables are defined as imports or as SELECT queries from previously defined tables. Tables can also be defined incrementally by adding a column or relationship to an existing table. Learn more about defining tables in SQRL.

SQRL allows users to define relationships between tables to relate records from one table to associated records from another table. Relationships allow SQRL to support nested tables which are a convenient way to represent nested or hierarchical data.

SQRL distinguishes between state and stream tables. State tables hold records that change over time as records are modified. Stream tables hold immutable records that have a timestamp and are naturally ordered in time.

Stream tables represent streams of data like events, IoT metrics, web logs, or change streams. SQRL provides native support for stream tables and methods for converting between stream and state tables. Time plays an important role in stream tables because they are naturally ordered in time and SQRL provides a few features to make timestamp handling easy.
Stream tables can be exported to react to certain conditions or changes in the data.

State tables represent entities which can change or evolve over time. State tables are normal tables and have the same semantics and treatment as they do in SQL.

SQRL Functions​

Functions are used in queries and expressions to manipulate or aggregate data. SQRL supports most of the standard SQL functions out-of-the box.

You can import additional functions from the SQRL standard function library:

  • string: function to manipulate strings and characters
  • time: functions to process and aggregate by timestamp

In addition, you can implement and import your own functions as a custom function package.