SQLPage v0.20.3 documentation

If you are completely new to SQLPage, you should start by reading the get started tutorial, which will guide you through the process of creating your first SQLPage application.

Building an application with SQLPage is quite simple. To create a new web page, just create a new SQL file. For each SELECT statement that you write, the data it returns will be analyzed and rendered to the user. The two most important concepts in SQLPage are components and parameters.

To select a component and set its top-level properties, you write the following SQL statement:

SELECT 'component_name' AS component, 'my value' AS top_level_parameter_1;

Then, you can set its row-level parameters by writing a second SELECT statement:

SELECT my_column_1 AS row_level_parameter_1, my_column_2 AS row_level_parameter_2 FROM my_table;

This page documents all the components provided by default in SQLPage and their parameters. Use this as a reference when building your SQL application. If at any point you need help, you can ask for it on the SQLPage forum.

If you know some HTML, you can also easily create your own components for your application.

components

alert
A visually distinctive message or notification.
authentication
An advanced component that can be used to create pages with password-restricted access. When used, this component has to be at the top of your page, because once the page has begun being sent to the browser, it is too late to restrict access to it. The authentication component checks if the user has sent the correct password, and if not, redirects them to the URL specified in the link parameter. If you don't want to re-check the password on every page (which is an expensive operation), you can check the password only once and store a session token in your database. You can use the cookie component to set the session token cookie in the client browser, and then check whether the token matches what you stored in subsequent pages.
breadcrumb
A secondary navigation aid that helps users understand their location on a website or mobile application.
button
A versatile button component do display one or multiple button links of different styles.
card
A grid where each element is a small card that displays a piece of data.
carousel
A carousel is used to display images. When used with multiple images, it will cycle through them automatically or with controls, creating a slideshow.
chart
A component that plots data. Line, area, bar, and pie charts are all supported. Each item in the component is a data point in the graph.
code
Displays one or many blocks of code from a programming language or formated text as XML or JSON.
cookie
Sets a cookie in the client browser, used for session management and storing user-related information. This component creates a single cookie. Since cookies need to be set before the response body is sent to the client, this component should be placed at the top of the page, before any other components that generate output. After being set, a cookie can be accessed anywhere in your SQL code using the `sqlpage.cookie('cookie_name')` pseudo-function.
csv
A button that lets the user download data as a CSV file. Each column from the items in the component will map to a column in the resulting CSV.
datagrid
Display small pieces of information in a clear and readable way. Each item has a name and is associated with a value.
debug
Visualize any set of values as JSON. Can be used to display all the parameters passed to the component. Useful for debugging: just replace the name of the component you want to debug with 'debug', and see all the top-level and row-level parameters that are passed to it, and their types.
divider
Dividers help organize content and make the interface layout clear and uncluttered.
dynamic
A special component that can be used to render other components, the number and properties of which are not known in advance.
form
A series of input fields that can be filled in by the user. The form contents can be posted and handled by another sql file in your site. The value entered by the user in a field named x will be accessible to the target SQL page as a variable named $x. For instance, you can create a SQL page named "create_user.sql" that would contain "INSERT INTO users(name) VALUES($name)" and a form with its action property set to "create_user.sql" that would contain a field named "name".
hero
Display a large title and description for your page, with an optional large illustrative image. Useful in your home page, for instance.
http_header
An advanced component to set arbitrary HTTP headers: can be used to set a custom caching policy to your pages, or implement custom redirections, for example. If you are a beginner, you probably don't need this component. When used, this component has to be the first component in the page, because once the page is sent to the browser, it is too late to change the headers. HTTP headers are additional pieces of information sent with responses to web requests that provide instructions or metadata about the data being sent — for example, setting cache control directives to control caching behavior or specifying the content type of a response. Any valid HTTP header name can be used as a top-level parameter for this component. The examples shown here are just that, examples; and you can create any custom header if needed simply by declaring it. If your header's name contains a dash or any other special character, you will have to use your database's quoting mechanism to declare it. In standard SQL, you can use double quotes to quote identifiers (like "X-My-Header"), in Microsoft SQL Server, you can use square brackets (like [X-My-Header]).
json
For advanced users, allows you to easily build an API over your database. The json component responds to the current HTTP request with a JSON object. This component must appear at the top of your SQL file, before any other data has been sent to the browser.
list
A vertical list of items. Each item can be clickable and link to another page.
map
Displays a map with markers on it. Useful in combination with PostgreSQL's PostGIS or SQLite's spatialite.
redirect
Redirects the user to another page. This component is useful for implementing redirects after a form submission, or to redirect users to a login page if they are not logged in. Contrary to the http_header component, this component completely stops the execution of the page after it is called, so it is suitable to use to hide sensitive information from users that are not logged in, for example. Since it uses an HTTP header to redirect the user, it is not possible to use this component after the page has started being sent to the browser.
rss
Produces a data flow in the RSS format. Can be used to generate a podcast feed. To use this component, you must first return an HTTP header with the "application/rss+xml" content type (see http_header component). Next, you must use the shell-empty component to avoid that SQLPage generates HTML code.
shell
Personalize the "shell" surrounding your page contents. Used to set properties for the entire page.
steps
Guide users through multi-stage processes, displaying a clear list of previous and future steps.
tab
Build a tabbed interface, with each tab being a link to a page. Each tab can be in two states: active or inactive.
table
A table with optional filtering and sorting. Unlike most others, this component does not have a fixed set of item properties, any property that is used will be rendered directly as a column in the table. Tables can contain rich text, including images, links, and icons. Table rows can be styled with a background color, and the table can be made striped, hoverable, and bordered. Advanced users can apply custom styles to table columns using a CSS class with the same name as the column, and to table rows using the `_sqlpage_css_class` property.
text
A paragraph of text. The entire component will render as a single paragraph, with each item being rendered as a span of text inside it, the styling of which can be customized using parameters.
timeline
A list of events with a vertical line connecting them.
title
Defines HTML headings. The level 1 is used for the maximal size and the level 6 is used for the minimal size.
tracking
Component for visualising activity logs or other monitoring-related data.

The "chart" component

A component that plots data. Line, area, bar, and pie charts are all supported. Each item in the component is a data point in the graph.

Top-level parameters

type

REQUIRED. The type of chart: "line", "area", "bar", "column", "pie", "scatter", "bubble", or "heatmap".
TEXT

class

class attribute added to the container in HTML. It can be used to apply custom styling to this item through css. Added in v0.18.0.
TEXT

color

The name of a color in which to display the chart. If there are multiple series in the chart, this parameter can be repeated multiple times.
COLOR

height

Height of the chart, in pixels. By default: 250
INTEGER

horizontal

Displays a bar chart with horizontal bars instead of vertical ones.
BOOLEAN

id

id attribute added to the container in HTML. It can be used to target this item through css or for scrolling to this item through links (use "#id" in link url).
TEXT

labels

Whether to show the data labels on the chart or not.
BOOLEAN

logarithmic

Display the y-axis in logarithmic scale.
BOOLEAN

marker

Marker size
NUMBER

stacked

Whether to cumulate values from different series.
BOOLEAN

time

Whether the x-axis represents time. If set to true, the x values will be parsed and formatted as dates for the user.
BOOLEAN

title

The name of the chart.
TEXT

toolbar

Whether to display a toolbar at the top right of the chart, that offers downloading the data as CSV.
BOOLEAN

xticks

Number of ticks on the x axis.
NUMBER

xtitle

Title of the x axis, displayed below it.
TEXT

ymax

The maximum value for the y-axis.
NUMBER

ymin

The minimal value for the y-axis.
NUMBER

ystep

Step between ticks on the y axis.
NUMBER

ytitle

Title of the y axis, displayed to its left.
TEXT

ztitle

Title of the z axis, displayed in tooltips.
TEXT

Row-level parameters

x

REQUIRED. The value of the point on the horizontal axis
NUMBER

y

REQUIRED. The value of the point on the vertical axis
NUMBER

label

An alias for parameter "x"
NUMBER

series

If multiple series are represented and share the same y-axis, this parameter can be used to distinguish between them.
TEXT

value

An alias for parameter "y"
NUMBER

Example 1

An area chart representing a time series, using the top-level property time. Ticks on the x axis are adjusted automatically, and ISO datetimes are parsed and displayed in a readable format.

select 
    'chart'             as component,
    'Quarterly Revenue' as title,
    'area'              as type,
    'indigo'            as color,
    5                   as marker,
    TRUE                as time;
select 
    '2022-01-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    15                     as y;
select 
    '2022-04-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    46                     as y;
select 
    '2022-07-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    23                     as y;
select 
    '2022-10-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    70                     as y;
select 
    '2023-01-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    35                     as y;
select 
    '2023-04-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    106                    as y;
select 
    '2023-07-01T00:00:00Z' as x,
    53                     as y;

Result

Quarterly Revenue

Example 2

A pie chart.

select 
    'chart'   as component,
    'Answers' as title,
    'pie'     as type,
    TRUE      as labels;
select 
    'Yes' as label,
    65    as value;
select 
    'No' as label,
    35   as value;

Result

Answers

Example 3

A basic bar chart

select 
    'chart'             as component,
    'bar'               as type,
    'Quarterly Results' as title,
    TRUE                as horizontal;
select 
    'Tom' as label,
    35    as value;
select 
    'Olive' as label,
    15      as value;

Result

Quarterly Results

Example 4

A bar chart with multiple series.

select 
    'chart'    as component,
    'Expenses' as title,
    'bar'      as type,
    TRUE       as stacked,
    TRUE       as toolbar,
    10         as ystep;
select 
    'Marketing' as series,
    2021        as x,
    35          as value;
select 
    'Marketing' as series,
    2022        as x,
    15          as value;
select 
    'Human resources' as series,
    2021              as x,
    30                as value;
select 
    'Human resources' as series,
    2022              as x,
    55                as value;

Result

Expenses

Example 5

A scatter plot with multiple custom options.

select 
    'chart'               as component,
    'Gross domestic product and its growth' as title,
    'scatter'             as type,
    'Growth Rate'         as xtitle,
    'GDP (Trillions USD)' as ytitle,
    500                   as height,
    8                     as marker,
    0                     as xmin,
    10                    as xmax,
    0                     as ymin,
    25                    as ymax,
    5                     as yticks;
select 
    'Brazil' as series,
    2.5      as x,
    2        as y;
select 
    'China' as series,
    6.5     as x,
    14      as y;
select 
    'United States' as series,
    2.3             as x,
    21              as y;
select 
    'France' as series,
    1.5      as x,
    3        as y;
select 
    'South Africa' as series,
    0.9            as x,
    0.3            as y;

Result

Gross domestic product and its growth

Example 6

Heatmaps

You can build heatmaps using the heatmap top-level property.

The data format follows the apexcharts heatmap format, where each series is represented as a line in the chart:

  • The x property of each item will be used as the x-axis value.
  • The series property of each item will be used as the y-axis value.
  • The y property of each item will be used as the value to display in the heatmap

The color property sets the color of each series separately, in order.

select 
    'chart'                     as component,
    'Survey Results'            as title,
    'heatmap'                   as type,
    'Database managemet system' as ytitle,
    'Year'                      as xtitle,
    'red'                       as color,
    'orange'                    as color,
    'yellow'                    as color;
select 
    'PostgreSQL' as series,
    '2000'       as x,
    48           as y;
select 
    'SQLite' as series,
    '2000'   as x,
    14       as y;
select 
    'MySQL' as series,
    '2000'  as x,
    78      as y;
select 
    'PostgreSQL' as series,
    '2010'       as x,
    65           as y;
select 
    'SQLite' as series,
    '2010'   as x,
    22       as y;
select 
    'MySQL' as series,
    '2010'  as x,
    83      as y;
select 
    'PostgreSQL' as series,
    '2020'       as x,
    73           as y;
select 
    'SQLite' as series,
    '2020'   as x,
    28       as y;
select 
    'MySQL' as series,
    '2020'  as x,
    87      as y;

Result

Survey Results

Example 7

Multiple charts on the same line

You can create information-dense dashboards by using the card component to put multiple charts on the same line.

For this, create one sql file per visualization you want to show, and set the embed attribute of the card component to the path of the file you want to include, followed by ?_sqlpage_embed.

select 
    'card' as component,
    'A dashboard with multiple graphs on the same line' as title,
    2      as columns;
select 
    '/examples/chart.sql?color=green&n=42&_sqlpage_embed' as embed,
    'You can find the sql file that generates the chart [here](https://github.com/lovasoa/SQLpage/tree/main/examples/official-site/examples/chart.sql)' as footer_md;
select 
    '/examples/chart.sql?_sqlpage_embed' as embed;

Result

A dashboard with multiple graphs on the same line

You can find the sql file that generates the chart here

Official SQLPage documentation