releases

• Fix for an intermittent race condition caused by the refresh_schemas() internal function. (#1231)

• New datasette --uds /tmp/datasette.sock option for binding Datasette to a Unix domain socket, see proxy documentation. (#1388)
• "searchmode": "raw" table metadata option for defaulting a table to executing SQLite full-text search syntax without first escaping it, see Advanced SQLite search queries. (#1389)
• New plugin hook: get_metadata(datasette, key, database, table), for returning custom metadata for an instance, database or table. Thanks, Brandon Roberts! (#1384)
• New plugin hook: skip_csrf(datasette, scope), for opting out of CSRF protection based on the incoming request. (#1377)
• The menu_links(), table_actions() and database_actions() plugin hooks all gained a new optional request argument providing access to the current request. (#1371)
• Major performance improvement for Datasette faceting. (#1394)
• Improved documentation for Running Datasette behind a proxy to recommend using ProxyPreservehost On with Apache. (#1387)
• POST requests to endpoints that do not support that HTTP verb now return a 405 error.
• db.path can now be provided as a pathlib.Path object, useful when writing unit tests for plugins. Thanks, Chris Amico. (#1365)

• New db.query(sql, params) method, which executes a SQL query and returns the results as an iterator over Python dictionaries. (#290)
• This project now uses flake8 and has started to use mypy. (#291)
• New documentation on contributing to this project. (#292)

• New plugin hook: skip_csrf(datasette, scope), for opting out of CSRF protection based on the incoming request. (#1377)
• POST requests to endpoints that do not support that HTTP verb now return a 405 error.
• db.path can now be provided as a pathlib.Path object, useful when writing unit tests for plugins. Thanks, Chris Amico. (#1365)

• New sqlite-utils memory data.csv --schema option, for outputting the schema of the in-memory database generated from one or more files. See --schema, --dump and --save. (#288)
• Added installation instructions. (#286)

This release introduces the sqlite-utils memory command, which can be used to load CSV or JSON data into a temporary in-memory database and run SQL queries (including joins across multiple files) directly against that data.

Also new: sqlite-utils insert --detect-types, sqlite-utils dump, table.use_rowid plus some smaller fixes.

sqlite-utils memory

This example of sqlite-utils memory retrieves information about the all of the repositories in the Dogsheep organization on GitHub using this JSON API, sorts them by their number of stars and outputs a table of the top five (using -t):

$ curl -s 'https://api.github.com/users/dogsheep/repos'\
  | sqlite-utils memory - '
      select full_name, forks_count, stargazers_count
      from stdin order by stargazers_count desc limit 5
    ' -t
full_name                            forks_count    stargazers_count
---------------------------------  -------------  ------------------
dogsheep/twitter-to-sqlite                    12                 225
dogsheep/github-to-sqlite                     14                 139
dogsheep/dogsheep-photos                       5                 116
dogsheep/dogsheep.github.io                    7                  90
dogsheep/healthkit-to-sqlite                   4                  85

The tool works against files on disk as well. This example joins data from two CSV files:

$ cat creatures.csv
species_id,name
1,Cleo
2,Bants
2,Dori
2,Azi
$ cat species.csv
id,species_name
1,Dog
2,Chicken
$ sqlite-utils memory species.csv creatures.csv '
  select * from creatures join species on creatures.species_id = species.id
'
[{"species_id": 1, "name": "Cleo", "id": 1, "species_name": "Dog"},
 {"species_id": 2, "name": "Bants", "id": 2, "species_name": "Chicken"},
 {"species_id": 2, "name": "Dori", "id": 2, "species_name": "Chicken"},
 {"species_id": 2, "name": "Azi", "id": 2, "species_name": "Chicken"}]

Here the species.csv file becomes the species table, the creatures.csv file becomes the creatures table and the output is JSON, the default output format.

You can also use the --attach option to attach existing SQLite database files to the in-memory database, in order to join data from CSV or JSON directly against your existing tables.

Full documentation of this new feature is available in Querying data directly using an in-memory database. (#272)

sqlite-utils insert --detect-types

The sqlite-utils insert command can be used to insert data from JSON, CSV or TSV files into a SQLite database file. The new --detect-types option (shortcut -d), when used in conjunction with a CSV or TSV import, will automatically detect if columns in the file are integers or floating point numbers as opposed to treating everything as a text column and create the new table with the corresponding schema. See Inserting CSV or TSV data for details. (#282)

Other changes

• Bug fix: table.transform(), when run against a table without explicit primary keys, would incorrectly create a new version of the table with an explicit primary key column called rowid. (#284)
• New table.use_rowid introspection property, see .use_rowid. (#285)
• The new sqlite-utils dump file.db command outputs a SQL dump that can be used to recreate a database. (#274)
• -h now works as a shortcut for --help, thanks Loren McIntyre. (#276)
• Now using pytest-cov and Codecov to track test coverage - currently at 96%. (#275)
• SQL errors that occur when using sqlite-utils query are now displayed as CLI errors.

• Fixed bug where searches consisting only of whitespace caused a server error. #33

• Fixed bug when using table.upsert_all() to create a table with only a single column that is treated as the primary key. (#271)

• New sqlite-utils schema command showing the full SQL schema for a database, see Showing the schema (CLI). (#268)
• db.schema introspection property exposing the same feature to the Python library, see Showing the schema (Python library).

• The menu_links(), table_actions() and database_actions() plugin hooks all gained a new optional request argument providing access to the current request. (#1371)

• Fixed visual display glitch with global navigation menu. (#1367)
• No longer truncates the list of table columns displayed on the /database page. (#1364)

Warning: This release fixes a reflected cross-site scripting security hole with the ?_trace=1 feature. You should upgrade to this version, or to Datasette 0.56.1, as soon as possible. (#1360)

In addition to the security fix, this release includes ?_col= and ?_nocol= options for controlling which columns are displayed for a table, ?_facet_size= for increasing the number of facet results returned, re-display of your SQL query should an error occur and numerous bug fixes.

New features

• If an error occurs while executing a user-provided SQL query, that query is now re-displayed in an editable form along with the error message. (#619)
• New ?_col= and ?_nocol= parameters to show and hide columns in a table, plus an interface for hiding and showing columns in the column cog menu. (#615)
• A new ?_facet_size= parameter for customizing the number of facet results returned on a table or view page. (#1332)
• ?_facet_size=max sets that to the maximum, which defaults to 1,000 and is controlled by the the max_returned_rows setting. If facet results are truncated the ... at the bottom of the facet list now links to this parameter. (#1337)
• ?_nofacet=1 option to disable all facet calculations on a page, used as a performance optimization for CSV exports and ?_shape=array/object. (#1349, #263)
• ?_nocount=1 option to disable full query result counts. (#1353)
• ?_trace=1 debugging option is now controlled by the new trace_debug setting, which is turned off by default. (#1359)

Bug fixes and other improvements

• Custom pages now work correctly when combined with the base_url setting. (#1238)
• Fixed intermittent error displaying the index page when the user did not have permission to access one of the tables. Thanks, Guy Freeman. (#1305)
• Columns with the name "Link" are no longer incorrectly displayed in bold. (#1308)
• Fixed error caused by tables with a single quote in their names. (#1257)
• Updated dependencies: pytest-asyncio, Black, jinja2, aiofiles, click, and itsdangerous.
• The official Datasette Docker image now supports apt-get install. (#1320)
• The Heroku runtime used by datasette publish heroku is now python-3.8.10.

• Fix for a security hole: reflected cross-site scripting in the ?_trace=1 feature. #1360

• New sqlite-utils indexes command to list indexes in a database, see Listing indexes. (#263)
• table.xindexes introspection property returning more details about that table's indexes, see .xindexes. (#261)

• New table.pks_and_rows_where() method returning (primary_key, row_dictionary) tuples - see Listing rows with their primary keys. (#240)
• Fixed bug with table.add_foreign_key() against columns containing spaces. (#238)
• table_or_view.drop(ignore=True) option for avoiding errors if the table or view does not exist. (#237)
• sqlite-utils drop-view --ignore and sqlite-utils drop-table --ignore options. (#237)
• Fixed a bug with inserts of nested JSON containing non-ascii strings - thanks, Dylan Wu. (#257)
• Suggest --alter if an error occurs caused by a missing column. (#259)
• Support creating indexes with columns in descending order, see API documentation and CLI documentation. (#260)
• Correctly handle CSV files that start with a UTF-8 BOM. (#250)

• Docker image now allows apt-get install. #1320
• ?_col= and ?_nocol= options to show and hide columns in a table, plus UI for doing this in the column cog menu. #615
• New ?_facet_size=max option, linked to from the … on truncated facets. #1337
• Heroku runtime used by datasette publish heroku is now python-3.8.10.
• Multi-arch support for built Docker images using Buildx - thanks, Blair Drummand. #1319

Mainly dependency bumps, plus a new ?_facet_size= argument.

• Updated dependencies: pytest-asyncio, Black, jinja2, aiofiles, itsdangerous
• Fixed bug where columns called "Link" were incorrectly displayed in bold. (#1308)
• New ?_facet_size= argument for customizing the number of facet results returned on a page. (#1332)

Documentation improvements, bug fixes and support for SpatiaLite 5.

• The SQL editor can now be resized by dragging a handle. (#1236)
• Fixed a bug with JSON faceting and the __arraycontains filter caused by tables with spaces in their names. (#1239)
• Upgraded httpx dependency. (#1005)
• JSON faceting is now suggested even if a column contains blank strings. (#1246)
• New datasette.add_memory_database() method. (#1247)
• The Response.asgi_send() method is now documented. (#1266)
• The official Datasette Docker image now bundles SpatiaLite version 5. (#1278)
• Fixed a no such table: pragma_database_list bug when running Datasette against SQLite versions prior to SQLite 3.16.0. (#1276)
• HTML lists displayed in table cells are now styled correctly. Thanks, Bob Whitelock. (#1141, #1252)
• Configuration directory mode now correctly serves immutable databases that are listed in inspect-data.json. Thanks Campbell Allen and Frankie Robertson. (#1031, #1229)

Progress display now shows the total as well as the number currently in the queue.

% hacker-news-to-sqlite trees hn.db 26440397
done: 1, in queue: 0, total: 1
done: 2, in queue: 28, total: 30
done: 3, in queue: 27, total: 30

This release adds the ability to execute queries joining data from more than one database file - similar to the cross database querying feature introduced in Datasette 0.55.

• The db.attach(alias, filepath) Python method can be used to attach extra databases to the same connection, see db.attach() in the Python API documentation. (#113)
• The --attach option attaches extra aliased databases to run SQL queries against directly on the command-line, see attaching additional databases in the CLI documentation. (#236)

Support for cross-database SQL queries and built-in support for serving via HTTPS.

• The new --crossdb command-line option causes Datasette to attach up to ten database files to the same /_memory database connection. This enables cross-database SQL queries, including the ability to use joins and unions to combine data from tables that exist in different database files. See Cross-database queries for details. (#283)
• --ssl-keyfile and --ssl-certfile options can be used to specify a TLS certificate, allowing Datasette to serve traffic over https:// without needing to run it behind a separate proxy. (#1221)
• The /:memory: page has been renamed (and redirected) to /_memory for consistency with the new /_internal database introduced in Datasette 0.54. (#1205)
• Added plugin testing documentation on Using pdb for errors thrown inside Datasette. (#1207)
• The official Datasette Docker image now uses Python 3.7.10, applying the latest security fix for that Python version. (#1235)

• sqlite-utils insert --sniff option for detecting the delimiter and quote character used by a CSV file, see Alternative delimiters and quote characters. (#230)
• The table.rows_where(), table.search() and table.search_sql() methods all now take optional offset= and limit= arguments. (#231)
• New --no-headers option for sqlite-utils insert --csv to handle CSV files that are missing the header row, see CSV files without a header row. (#228)
• Fixed bug where inserting data with extra columns in subsequent chunks would throw an error. Thanks @nieuwenhoven for the fix. (#234)
• Fixed bug importing CSV files with columns containing more than 128KB of data. (#229)
• Test suite now runs in CI against Ubuntu, macOS and Windows. Thanks @nieuwenhoven for the Windows test fixes. (#232)

• Explicitly open file using utf-8 encoding - thanks, RiverZhou. #10
• Fix import error if note has no "updated" element - thanks, Matej Korosec. #8

• Correctly handle entities in XHTML notes. #9
• Fixed a bug importing ENEX files on Windows. Thanks, dskrad. #11

• Fixed a code import bug that slipped in to 3.4. (#226)

• sqlite-utils insert --csv now accepts optional --delimiter and --quotechar options. See Alternative delimiters and quote characters. (#223)

• Fixed a bug where ?_search= and ?_sort= parameters were incorrectly duplicated when the filter form on the table page was re-submitted. (#1214)

The two big new features in this release are the _internal SQLite in-memory database storing details of all connected databases and tables, and support for JavaScript modules in plugins and additional scripts.

For additional commentary on this release, see Datasette 0.54, the annotated release notes.

The _internal database

As part of ongoing work to help Datasette handle much larger numbers of connected databases and tables (see Datasette Library) Datasette now maintains an in-memory SQLite database with details of all of the attached databases, tables, columns, indexes and foreign keys. (#1150)

This will support future improvements such as a searchable, paginated homepage of all available tables.

You can explore an example of this database by signing in as root to the latest.datasette.io demo instance and then navigating to latest.datasette.io/_internal.

Plugins can use these tables to introspect attached data in an efficient way. Plugin authors should note that this is not yet considered a stable interface, so any plugins that use this may need to make changes prior to Datasette 1.0 if the _internal table schemas change.

Named in-memory database support

As part of the work building the _internal database, Datasette now supports named in-memory databases that can be shared across multiple connections. This allows plugins to create in-memory databases which will persist data for the lifetime of the Datasette server process. (#1151)

The new memory_name= parameter to the Database class can be used to create named, shared in-memory databases.

JavaScript modules

JavaScript modules were introduced in ECMAScript 2015 and provide native browser support for the import and export keywords.

To use modules, JavaScript needs to be included in <script> tags with a type="module" attribute.

Datasette now has the ability to output <script type="module"> in places where you may wish to take advantage of modules. The extra_js_urls option described in Custom CSS and JavaScript can now be used with modules, and module support is also available for the extra_body_script() plugin hook. (#1186, #1187)

datasette-leaflet-freedraw is the first example of a Datasette plugin that takes advantage of the new support for JavaScript modules. See Drawing shapes on a map to query a SpatiaLite database for more on this plugin.

Code formatting with Black and Prettier

Datasette adopted Black for opinionated Python code formatting in June 2019. Datasette now also embraces Prettier for JavaScript formatting, which like Black is enforced by tests in continuous integration. Instructions for using these two tools can be found in the new section on Code formatting in the contributors documentation. (#1167)

Other changes

• Datasette can now open multiple database files with the same name, e.g. if you run datasette path/to/one.db path/to/other/one.db. (#509)
• datasette publish cloudrun now sets force_https_urls for every deployment, fixing some incorrect http:// links. (#1178)
• Fixed a bug in the example nginx configuration in Running Datasette behind a proxy. (#1091)
• The Datasette Ecosystem documentation page has been reduced in size in favour of the datasette.io tools and plugins directories. (#1182)
• The request object now provides a request.full_path property, which returns the path including any query string. (#1184)
• Better error message for disallowed PRAGMA clauses in SQL queries. (#1185)
• datasette publish heroku now deploys using python-3.8.7.
• New plugin testing documentation on Testing outbound HTTP calls with pytest-httpx. (#1198)
• All ?_* query string parameters passed to the table page are now persisted in hidden form fields, so parameters such as ?_size=10 will be correctly passed to the next page when query filters are changed. (#1194)
• Fixed a bug loading a database file called test-database (1).sqlite. (#1181)

Alpha release. Release notes in progress.

• Improved support for named in-memory databases. (#1151)
• New _internal in-memory database tracking attached databases, tables and columns. (#1150)
• Support for JavaScript modules. (#1186, #1187)

• Fixed bug where tool could crash with an error about missing columns. #11

• The table.m2m() method now accepts an optional alter=True argument to specify that any missing columns should be added to the referenced table. See Working with many-to-many relationships. (#222)

• Fixed a bug where .add_missing_columns() failed to take case insensitive column names into account. (#221)

This release introduces a new mechanism for speeding up count(*) queries using cached table counts, stored in a _counts table and updated by triggers. This mechanism is described in Cached table counts using triggers, and can be enabled using Python API methods or the new enable-counts CLI command. (#212)

• table.enable_counts() method for enabling these triggers on a specific table.
• db.enable_counts() method for enabling triggers on every table in the database. (#213)
• New sqlite-utils enable-counts my.db command for enabling counts on all or specific tables, see Enabling cached counts. (#214)
• New sqlite-utils triggers command for listing the triggers defined for a database or specific tables, see Listing triggers. (#218)
• New db.use_counts_table property which, if True, causes table.count to read from the _counts table. (#215)
• table.has_counts_triggers property revealing if a table has been configured with the new _counts database triggers.
• db.reset_counts() method and sqlite-utils reset-counts command for resetting the values in the _counts table. (#219)
• The previously undocumented db.escape() method has been renamed to db.quote() and is now covered by the documentation: Quoting strings for use in SQL. (#217)
• New table.triggers_dict and db.triggers_dict introspection properties. (#211, #216)
• sqlite-utils insert now shows a more useful error message for invalid JSON. (#206)

• Fixed failing test caused by optimize sometimes creating larger database files. (#209)
• Documentation now lives on https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/
• README now includes brew install sqlite-utils installation method.

• Fix for error if search query contains hyphens such as github-to-sqlite. #31

• Now depends on sqlite-utils >= 3.0. #30
• The user's original search term is now passed to the display_sql SQL query as the :q parameter. #29

• --readme now stores null if the README file does not exist, rather than throwing an error. #57
• README HTML is rewritten to fix broken internal links, e.g. for a table of contents. #58

• New command: sqlite-utils analyze-tables my.db outputs useful information about the table columns in the database, such as the number of distinct values and how many rows are null. See Analyzing tables for documentation. (#207)
• New table.analyze_column(column) Python method used by the analyze-tables command - see Analyzing a column.
• The table.update() method now correctly handles values that should be stored as JSON. Thanks, Andreas Madsack. (#204)

Datasette has an official project website now, at https://datasette.io/. This release mainly updates the documentation to reflect the new site.

• New ?column__arraynotcontains= table filter. (#1132)
• datasette serve has a new --create option, which will create blank database files if they do not already exist rather than exiting with an error. (#1135)
• New ?_header=off option for CSV export which omits the CSV header row, documented here. (#1133)
• "Powered by Datasette" link in the footer now links to https://datasette.io/. (#1138)
• Project news no longer lives in the README - it can now be found at https://datasette.io/news. (#1137)

• Fix for error caused by combining the _searchmode=raw and ?_search_COLUMN parameters. (#1134)

• Show pysqlite3 version on /-/versions, if installed. (#1125)
• Errors output by Datasette (e.g. for invalid SQL queries) now go to stderr, not stdout. (#1131)
• Fix for a startup error on windows caused by unnecessary from os import EX_CANTCREAT - thanks, Abdussamet Koçak. (#1094)

• Fixed bug where static assets would 404 for Datasette installed on ARM Amazon Linux. (#1124)

• Generated columns from SQLite 3.31.0 or higher are now correctly displayed. (#1116)
• Error message if you attempt to open a SpatiaLite database now suggests using --load-extension=spatialite if it detects that the extension is available in a common location. (#1115)
• OPTIONS requests against the /database page no longer raise a 500 error. (#1100)
• Databases larger than 32MB that are published to Cloud Run can now be downloaded. (#749)
• Fix for misaligned cog icon on table and database pages. Thanks, Abdussamet Koçak. (#1121)

• README now links to example database tables for each command. #56
• Added documentation for github-to-sqlite releases.

• New command: github-to-sqlite workflows, for fetching the YAML configuration used by GitHub Actions workflows and using it to populate new workflows, jobs and steps tables. #54
• New command: github-to-sqlite pull-requests - thanks, @adamjonas! #48
• github-to-sqlite issues --issue option can now be used multiple times.

• Documentation on Testing plugins now recommends using datasette.client. (#1102)
• Fix bug where compound foreign keys produced broken links. (#1098)
• datasette --load-module=spatialite now also checks for /usr/local/lib/mod_spatialite.so. Thanks, Dan Peterson. (#1114)

This release includes a number of changes relating to an internal rebranding effort: Datasette's configuration mechanism (things like datasette --config default_page_size:10) has been renamed to settings.

• New --setting default_page_size 10 option as a replacement for --config default_page_size:10 (note the lack of a colon). The --config option is deprecated but will continue working until Datasette 1.0. (#992)
• The /-/config introspection page is now /-/settings, and the previous page redirects to the new one. (#1103)
• The config.json file in Configuration directory mode is now called settings.json. (#1104)
• The undocumented datasette.config() internal method has been replaced by a documented .setting(key) method. (#1107)

Also in this release:

• New plugin hook: database_actions(datasette, actor, database), which adds menu items to a new cog menu shown at the top of the database page. (#1077)
• datasette publish cloudrun has a new --apt-get-install option that can be used to install additional Ubuntu packages as part of the deployment. This is useful for deploying the new datasette-ripgrep plugin. (#1110)
• Swept the documentation to remove words that minimize involved difficulty. (#1089)

And some bug fixes:

• Foreign keys linking to rows with blank label columns now display as a hyphen, allowing those links to be clicked. (#1086)
• Fixed bug where row pages could sometimes 500 if the underlying queries exceeded a time limit. (#1088)
• Fixed a bug where the table action menu could appear partially obscured by the edge of the page. (#1084)

This release introduces a new sqlite-utils search command for searching tables, see Executing searches. (#192)

The table.search() method has been redesigned, see Searching with table.search(). (#197)

The release includes minor backwards-incompatible changes, hence the version bump to 3.0. Those changes, which should not affect most users, are:

• The -c shortcut option for outputting CSV is no longer available. The full --csv option is required instead.
• The -f shortcut for --fmt has also been removed - use --fmt.
• The table.search() method now defaults to sorting by relevance, not sorting by rowid. (#198)
• The table.search() method now returns a generator over a list of Python dictionaries. It previously returned a list of tuples.

Also in this release:

• The query, tables, rows and search CLI commands now accept a new --tsv option which outputs the results in TSV. (#193)
• A new table.virtual_table_using property reveals if a table is a virtual table, and returns the upper case type of virtual table (e.g. FTS4 or FTS5) if it is. It returns None if the table is not a virtual table. (#196)
• The new table.search_sql() method returns the SQL for searching a table, see Building SQL queries with table.search_sql().
• sqlite-utils rows now accepts multiple optional -c parameters specifying the columns to return. (#200)

Changes since the 3.0a0 alpha release:

• The sqlite-utils search command now defaults to returning every result, unless you add a --limit 20 option.
• The sqlite-utils search -c and table.search(columns=[]) options are now fully respected. (#201)

This release introduces a new sqlite-utils search command for searching tables, see Executing searches. (#192)

The table.search() method has been redesigned, see Searching with table.search(). (#197)

The release includes minor backwards-incompatible changes, hence the version bump to 3.0. Those changes, which should not affect most users, are:

• The -c shortcut option for outputting CSV is no longer available. The full --csv option is required instead.
• The -f shortcut for --fmt has also been removed - use --fmt.
• The table.search() method now defaults to sorting by relevance, not sorting by rowid. (#198)
• The table.search() method now returns a generator over a list of Python dictionaries. It previously returned a list of tuples.

Also in this release:

• The query, tables, rows and search CLI commands now accept a new --tsv option which outputs the results in TSV. (#193)
• A new table.virtual_table_using property reveals if a table is a virtual table, and returns the upper case type of virtual table (e.g. FTS4 or FTS5) if it is. It returns None if the table is not a virtual table. (#196)
• The new table.search_sql() method returns the SQL for searching a table, see Building SQL queries with table.search_sql().
• sqlite-utils rows now accepts multiple optional -c parameters specifying the columns to return. (#200)

• Improvements to the new Binary data documentation page.

A new visual design, plugin hooks for adding navigation options, better handling of binary data, URL building utility methods and better support for running Datasette behind a proxy.

New visual design

Datasette is no longer white and grey with blue and purple links! Natalie Downe has been working on a visual refresh, the first iteration of which is included in this release. (#1056)

Plugins can now add links within Datasette

A number of existing Datasette plugins add new pages to the Datasette interface, providig tools for things like uploading CSVs, editing table schemas or configuring full-text search.

Plugins like this can now link to themselves from other parts of Datasette interface. The menu_links(datasette, actor) hook (#1064) lets plugins add links to Datasette's new top-right application menu, and the table_actions(datasette, actor, database, table) hook (#1066) adds links to a new "table actions" menu on the table page.

The demo at latest.datasette.io now includes some example plugins. To see the new table actions menu first sign into that demo as root and then visit the facetable table to see the new cog icon menu at the top of the page.

Binary data

SQLite tables can contain binary data in BLOB columns. Datasette now provides links for users to download this data directly from Datasette, and uses those links to make binary data available from CSV exports. See Binary data for more details. (#1036 and #1034).

URL building

The new datasette.urls family of methods can be used to generate URLs to key pages within the Datasette interface, both within custom templates and Datasette plugins. See Building URLs within plugins for more details. (#904)

Running Datasette behind a proxy

The base_url configuration option is designed to help run Datasette on a specific path behind a proxy - for example if you want to run an instance of Datasette at /my-datasette/ within your existing site's URL hierarchy, proxied behind nginx or Apache.

Support for this configuration option has been greatly improved (#1023), and guidelines for using it are now available in a new documentation section on Running Datasette behind a proxy. (#1027)

Smaller changes

• Wide tables shown within Datasette now scroll horizontally (#998). This is achieved using a new <div class="table-wrapper"> element which may impact the implementation of some plugins (for example this change to datasette-cluster-map).
• New debug-menu permission. (#1068)
• Removed --debug option, which didn't do anything. (#814)
• Link: HTTP header pagination. (#1014)
• x button for clearing filters. (#1016)
• Edit SQL button on canned queries, (#1019)
• --load-extension=spatialite shortcut. (#1028)
• scale-in animation for column action menu. (#1039)
• Option to pass a list of templates to .render_template() is now documented. (#1045)
• New datasette.urls.static_plugins() method. (#1033)
• datasette -o option now opens the most relevant page. (#976)
• datasette --cors option now enables access to /database.db downloads. (#1057)
• Database file downloads now implement cascading permissions, so you can download a database if you have view-database-download permission even if you do not have permission to access the Datasette instance. (#1058)
• New documentation on Designing URLs for your plugin. (#1053)

• New load_template(template, request, datasette) plugin hook. (#1042)
• New debug-menu permission. (#1068)

• New colour scheme and improved visual design, courtesy of Natalie Downe. (#1056)
• scale-in animation for column action menu. (#1039)
• Wide tables now scroll horizontally. (#998)
• Option to pass a list of templates to .render_template() is now documented. (#1045)
• New datasette.urls.static_plugins() method. (#1033)
• BLOB column values can now be downloaded directly from the Datasette UI. (#1036)
• .csv exports now link to direct BLOB downloads. (#1034)
• datasette -o option now opens the most relevant page. (#976)
• datasette --cors option now enables access to /database.db downloads. (#1057)
• Database file downloads now implement cascading permissions, so you can download a database if you have view-database-download permission even if you do not have permission to access the Datasette instance. (#1058)
• New documentation on Designing URLs for your plugin. (#1053)
• New navigation menu plus a menu_links(datasette, actor) plugin hook to customize it. (#1064)
• table_actions(datasette, actor, database, table) plugin hook for the new table actions menu. (#1066)

• table.m2m(other_table, records) method now takes any iterable, not just a list or tuple. Thanks, Adam Wolf. (#189)
• sqlite-utils insert now displays a progress bar for CSV or TSV imports. (#173)
• New @db.register_function(deterministic=True) option for registering deterministic SQLite functions in Python 3.8 or higher. (#191)

• Tweaked dependencies for compatibility with new PyPI resolver.

• Tweaked dependencies for compatibility with new PyPI resolver.

• Fixed a bunch of issues relating to the base_url setting. (#1023)
• New datasette.urls URL builder for plugins, see Building URLs within plugins. (#904)
• Removed --debug option, which didn't do anything. (#814)
• Link: HTTP header pagination. (#1014)
• x button for clearing filters. (#1016)
• Edit SQL button on canned queries, (#1019)
• --load-extension=spatialite shortcut. (#1028)

• github-to-sqlite repos command now takes options --readme and --readme-html, which write the README or rendered HTML README into the readme or readme_html columns, respectively. #52
• New --accept option for github-to-sqlite get. #50

• Facet by date. #16
• Now depends on Datasette 0.50.2
• Uses datasette.client and passes through authentication cookies. #28

• Fixed a bug where export files generated in languages other than English failed to import. #11
• CI now uses GitHub Actions

• New --encoding option for processing CSV and TSV files that use a non-utf-8 encoding, for both the insert and update commands. (#182)
• The --load-extension option is now available to many more commands. (#137)
• --load-extension=spatialite can be used to load SpatiaLite from common installation locations, if it is available. (#136)
• Tests now also run against Python 3.9. (#184)
• Passing pk=["id"] now has the same effect as passing pk="id". (#181)

• Fix for "table photos has no column named hasSticker" bug, thanks @mattiaborsoi. #10
• Switched CI to GitHub Actions.

• Notes now use an ID derived from a hash of their contents. #3
• Date columns are now in ISO format, and indexd. #4
• Notes and resources table now have full-text search configured. #4
• Improved how OCR is stored in the database, only storing the most confident matches. #6

• Initial release, with support for importing ENEX files.

• Fixed another bug introduced in 0.50 where column header links on the table page were broken. (#1011)

• Fixed a bug introduced in 0.50 where the export as JSON/CSV links on the table, row and query pages were broken. (#1010)

The key new feature in this release is the column actions menu on the table page (#891). This can be used to sort a column in ascending or descending order, facet data by that column or filter the table to just rows that have a value for that column.

Plugin authors can use the new datasette.client object to make internal HTTP requests from their plugins, allowing them to make use of Datasette's JSON API. (#943)

New Deploying Datasette documentation with guides for deploying Datasette on a Linux server using systemd or to hosting providers that support buildpacks. (#514, #997)

Other improvements in this release:

• Publishing to Google Cloud Run documentation now covers Google Cloud SDK options. Thanks, Geoffrey Hing. (#995)
• New datasette -o option which opens your browser as soon as Datasette starts up. (#970)
• Datasette now sets sqlite3.enable_callback_tracebacks(True) so that errors in custom SQL functions will display tracebacks. (#891)
• Fixed two rendering bugs with column headers in portrait mobile view. (#978, #980)
• New db.table_column_details(table) introspection method for retrieving full details of the columns in a specific table, see Database introspection.
• Fixed a routing bug with custom page wildcard templates. (#996)
• datasette publish heroku now deploys using Python 3.8.6.
• New datasette publish heroku --tar= option. (#969)
• OPTIONS requests against HTML pages no longer return a 500 error. (#1001)
• Datasette now supports Python 3.9.

• Column action menu now shows the column type. (#993)
• Column action sort links now correctly link to the first page of sorted results. (#989)
• Publishing to Google Cloud Run documentation now covers Google Cloud SDK options. Thanks, Geoffrey Hing. (#995)

• New column action menu - table columns now show a cog icon which provides a contextual menu for that column. (#981)
• New datasette -o option which opens your browser as soon as Datasette starts up. (#970
• sqlite3.enable_callback_tracebacks(True) so errors in custom SQL functions will now display tracebacks. (#891)
• Fixed two rendering bugs with column headers in portrait mobile view. (#978, #980)

• table.extract() and sqlite-utils extract now apply much, much faster - one example operation reduced from twelve minutes to just four seconds! (#172)
• sqlite-utils extract no longer shows a progress bar, because it's fast enough not to need one.
• New column_order= option for table.transform() which can be used to alter the order of columns in a table. (#175)
• sqlite-utils transform --column-order= option (with a -o shortcut) for changing column order. (#176)
• The table.transform(drop_foreign_keys=) parameter and the sqlite-utils transform --drop-foreign-key option have changed. They now accept just the name of the column rather than requiring all three of the column, other table and other column. This is technically a backwards-incompatible change but I chose not to bump the major version number because the transform feature is so new. (#177)
• The table .disable_fts(), .rebuild_fts(), .delete(), .delete_where() and .add_missing_columns() methods all now return self, which means they can be chained together with other table operations.

This release introduces two key new capabilities: transform (#114) and extract (#42).

Transform

SQLite's ALTER TABLE has several documented limitations. The table.transform() Python method and sqlite-utils transform CLI command work around these limitations using a pattern where a new table with the desired structure is created, data is copied over to it and the old table is then dropped and replaced by the new one.

You can use these tools to drop columns, change column types, rename columns, add and remove NOT NULL and defaults, remove foreign key constraints and more. See the transforming tables (CLI) and transforming tables (Python library) documentation for full details of how to use them.

Extract

Sometimes a database table - especially one imported from a CSV file - will contain duplicate data. A Trees table may include a Species column with only a few dozen unique values, when the table itself contains thousands of rows.

The table.extract() method and sqlite-utils extract commands can extract a column - or multiple columns - out into a separate lookup table, and set up a foreign key relationship from the original table.

The Python library extract() documentation describes how extraction works in detail, and Extracting columns into a separate table in the CLI documentation includes a detailed example.

Other changes

• The @db.register_function decorator can be used to quickly register Python functions as custom SQL functions, see Registering custom SQL functions. (#162)
• The table.rows_where() method now accepts an optional select= argument for specifying which columns should be selected, see Listing rows.

• Added by date, as part of developing a timeline view. #16

• New sqlite-utils add-foreign-keys command for Adding multiple foreign keys at once. (#157)
• New table.enable_fts(..., replace=True) argument for replacing an existing FTS table with a new configuration. (#160)
• New table.add_foreign_key(..., ignore=True) argument for ignoring a foreign key if it already exists. (#112)

• New template_debug configuration setting. #25
• Templates now autoescape by default, use {{ display.foo|safe }} if you know you want HTML not to be escaped.
• Fixed bug where the wrong template fragment could be used for a row. #24
• Sort order is now persisted when you execute a new search. #23

• Fixed bug with sort orders displayed for the timeline view. #22

• Option to sort by relevance / oldest / newest. #21
• Renamed table column to type. #17
• New -d option for passing one or more databases to index. Without this all databases in the config file will be indexed.

• New github-to-sqlite get /gists command for making authenticated API calls against any API path. #50

• Fixed a bug with writable canned queries that use magic parameters but accept no non-magic arguments. (#967)

• Writable canned queries now expose a JSON API, see JSON API for writable canned queries. (#880)
• New mechanism for defining page templates with custom path parameters - a template file called pages/about/{slug}.html will be used to render any requests to /about/something. See Path parameters for pages. (#944)
• register_output_renderer() render functions can now return a Response. (#953)
• New --upgrade option for datasette install. (#945)
• New datasette --pdb option. (#962)
• datasette --get exit code now reflects the internal HTTP status code. (#947)
• New raise_404() template function for returning 404 errors. (#964)
• datasette publish heroku now deploys using Python 3.8.5
• Upgraded CodeMirror to 5.57.0. (#948)
• Upgraded code style to Black 20.8b1. (#958)
• Fixed bug where selected facets were not correctly persisted in hidden form fields on the table page. (#963)
• Renamed the default error template from 500.html to error.html.
• Custom error pages are now documented, see Custom error pages. (#965)

• Upgraded CodeMirror to 5.57.0. (#948)
• Upgraded code style to Black 20.8b1. (#958)
• New datasette --pdb option. (#962)
• datasette --get exit code now reflects the internal HTTP status code. (#947)
• Fixed bug where selected facets were not correctly persisted in hidden form fields on the table page. (#963)
• New mechanism for defining page templates with custom path parameters. (#944)

• Renamed table column to type. #17
• New -d option for passing one or more databases to index. Without this all databases in the config file will be indexed.

• table.rebuild_fts() method for rebuilding a FTS index, see Rebuilding a full-text search table. (#155)
• sqlite-utils rebuild-fts data.db command for rebuilding FTS indexes across all tables, or just specific tables. (#155)
• table.optimize() method no longer deletes junk rows from the *_fts_docsize table. This was added in 2.17 but it turns out running table.rebuild_fts() is a better solution to this problem.
• Fixed a bug where rows with additional columns that are inserted after the first batch of records could cause an error due to breaking SQLite's maximum number of parameters. Thanks, Simon Wiles. (#145)

This release handles a bug where replacing rows in FTS tables could result in growing numbers of unneccessary rows in the associated *_fts_docsize table. (#149)

• PRAGMA recursive_triggers=on by default for all connections. You can turn it off with Database(recursive_triggers=False). (#152)
• table.optimize() method now deletes unnecessary rows from the *_fts_docsize table. (#153)
• New tracer method for tracking underlying SQL queries, see Tracing queries. (#150)
• Neater indentation for schema SQL. (#148)
• Documentation for sqlite_utils.AlterError exception thrown by in add_foreign_keys().

• Rerun the search query with FTS quoting if a SQLite FTS error occurs. This means searching for e.g. "#dogfest" will no longer throw an error, while still supporting advanced SQLite FTS syntax. #14
• Maximum width 100% on images in results
• Don't display facet headers if there are no results for that facet.

• Custom template displays can now render a point on a map. #12

• Fixed support for advanced FTS query syntax. #13

• Working faceted search interface at /-/beta #3
• is_public column for filtering between public and private data. #11
• New received category. #10

• Added received category. #10
• New is_public column. #11

• Incomplete preview of the /-/beta search interface. #3 #9

• New category column plus default categories table. #7

• Use Porter stemming by default, allow that to be over-ridden with the new --tokenize= option. #2

• Optimize the FTS table and vacuum the database. #4
• First non-alpha release

• Now creates an index on the timestamp column. #1

• First working version

• register_output_renderer() render functions can now return a Response. (#953)
• New --upgrade option for datasette install. (#945)
• datasette publish heroku now deploys using Python 3.8.5

• insert_all(..., alter=True) now works for columns introduced after the first 100 records. Thanks, Simon Wiles! (#139)
• Continuous Integration is now powered by GitHub Actions. (#143)

• --load-extension option for sqlite-utils query for loading SQLite extensions. (#134)
• New sqlite_utils.utils.find_spatialite() function for finding SpatiaLite in common locations. (#135)

• New github-to-sqlite emojis command for fetching emoji supported by GitHub. Demo. #47
• Added table of contents to README.
• Switched to GitHub Actions for CI.
• Switched default branch to main

• Datasette documentation now lives at docs.datasette.io.
• db.is_mutable property is now documented and tested, see Database introspection.
• The extra_template_vars, extra_css_urls, extra_js_urls and extra_body_script plugin hooks now all accept the same arguments. See extra_template_vars(template, database, table, columns, view_name, request, datasette) for details. (#939)
• Those hooks now accept a new columns argument detailing the table columns that will be rendered on that page. (#938)
• Fixed bug where plugins calling db.execute_write_fn() could hang Datasette if the connection failed. (#935)
• Fixed bug with the ?_nl=on output option and binary data. (#914)

• The datasette --get command-line mechanism now ensures any plugins using the startup() hook are correctly executed. (#934)