Target & Version

Target dialect

PRQL allows specifying a target dialect at the top of the query, which allows PRQL to compile to a database-specific SQL flavor.

Examples

PRQL

prql target:sql.postgres

from employees
sort age
take 10

SQL

SELECT
  *
FROM
  employees
ORDER BY
  age
LIMIT
  10

PRQL

prql target:sql.mssql

from employees
sort age
take 10

SQL

SELECT
  TOP (10) *
FROM
  employees
ORDER BY
  age

Supported dialects

Note

Note that dialect support is early — most differences are not implemented, and most dialects’ implementations are identical to generic’s. Contributions are very welcome.

sql.ansi
sql.bigquery
sql.clickhouse
sql.generic
sql.hive
sql.mssql
sql.mysql
sql.postgres
sql.sqlite
sql.snowflake
sql.duckdb

Version

PRQL allows specifying a version of the language in the PRQL header, like:

PRQL

prql version:"0.8.1"

from employees

SQL

SELECT
  *
FROM
  employees

This has two roles, one of which is implemented:

The compiler will raise an error if the compiler is older than the query version. This prevents confusing errors when queries use newer features of the language but the compiler hasn’t yet been upgraded.
The compiler will compile for the major version of the query. This allows the language to evolve without breaking existing queries, or forcing multiple installations of the compiler. This isn’t yet implemented, but is a gating feature for PRQL 1.0.

PRQL language book