pgFormatter::Beautify(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation NAME pgFormatter::Beautify - Library for pretty-printing SQL queries VERSION Version 5.11 SYNOPSIS This module can be used to reformat given SQL query, optionally anonymizing parameters. Output can be either plain text, or it can be HTML with appropriate styles so that it can be displayed on a web page. Example usage: my $beautifier = pgFormatter::Beautify->new(); $beautifier->query( 'select a,b,c from d where e = f' ); $beautifier->beautify(); my $nice_txt = $beautifier->content(); $beautifier->format('html'); $beautifier->beautify(); my $nice_html = $beautifier->content(); $beautifier->format('html'); $beautifier->anonymize(); $beautifier->beautify(); my $nice_anonymized_html = $beautifier->content(); $beautifier->format(); $beautifier->beautify(); $beautifier->wrap_lines() my $wrapped_txt = $beautifier->content(); FUNCTIONS new Generic constructor - creates object, sets defaults, and reads config from given hash with options. Takes options as hash. Following options are recognized: o break - String that is used for linebreaks. Default is "\n". o colorize - if set to false CSS style will not be applied to html output. Used internally to display errors in CGI mode withour style. o comma - set comma at beginning or end of a line in a parameter list end - put comma at end of the list (default) start - put comma at beginning of the list o comma_break - add new-line after each comma in INSERT statements o format - set beautify format to apply to the content (default: text) text - output content as plain/text (command line mode default) html - output text/html with CSS style applied to content (CGI mode default) o functions - list (arrayref) of strings that are function names o keywords - list (arrayref) of strings that are keywords o multiline - use multi-line search for placeholder regex, see placeholder. o no_comments - if set to true comments will be removed from query o no_grouping - if set to true statements will not be grouped in a transaction, an extra newline character will be added between statements like outside a transaction. o placeholder - use the specified regex to find code that must not be changed in the query. o query - query to beautify o rules - hash of rules - uses rule semantics from SQL::Beautify o space - character(s) to be used as space for indentation o spaces - how many spaces to use for indentation o uc_functions - what to do with function names: 0 - do not change 1 - change to lower case 2 - change to upper case 3 - change to Capitalized o separator - string used as dynamic code separator, default is single quote o uc_keywords - what to do with keywords - meaning of value like with uc_functions o uc_types - what to do with data types - meaning of value like with uc_functions o wrap - wraps given keywords in pre- and post- markup. Specific docs in SQL::Beautify o format_type - try an other formatting o wrap_limit - wrap queries at a certain length o wrap_after - number of column after which lists must be wrapped o wrap_comment - apply wrapping to comments starting with -- o numbering - statement numbering as a comment before each query o redshift - add Redshift keywords (obsolete, use --extra-keyword) o no_extra_line - do not add an extra empty line at end of the output o keep_newline - preserve empty line in plpgsql code o no_space_function - remove space before function call and open parenthesis o redundant_parenthesis - do not eliminate redundant parenthesis in DML queries o vertical_align - vertically align CREATE TABLE column definitions For defaults, please check function set_defaults. query Accessor to query string. Both reads: $object->query() , and writes $object->query( $something ) content Accessor to content of results. Must be called after $object->beautify(). This can be either plain text or html following the format asked by the client with the $object->format() method. highlight_code Makes result html with styles set for highlighting. tokenize_sql Splits input SQL into tokens Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _parse_create_table_column Parse one single-line CREATE TABLE column definition into the parts needed by vertical alignment. A trailing comment is stored separately from the SQL. Returns undef for table constraints, embedded comments, multiline input, and definitions that do not contain both a column name and a data type. This method only analyzes input. It does not change the formatted SQL. _render_sql_tokens Render a list of SQL tokens as one compact, single-line SQL fragment. This helper is intentionally limited to the fragments produced by _parse_create_table_column(). It preserves token order and only decides where spaces belong. It does not perform alignment or change keyword casing. _pad_right Pad a string with spaces until it reaches the requested width. The helper returns the original string unchanged when it is already at least as wide as the requested width. Alignment uses spaces deliberately: tabs would make the result depend on the tab width configured by the editor displaying the SQL. _align_create_table_column_keyword Align a top-level keyword within the remainder of parsed CREATE TABLE columns. For every matching row, the tokens before the keyword are treated as a prefix. Shorter prefixes are padded so the keyword starts in the same output column. Keywords nested inside parentheses or array brackets are ignored. The method updates the rendered remainder stored in each matching row. It does not reorder tokens or affect rows that do not contain the requested keyword. _parenthesis_delta Return the net parenthesis depth change for one SQL line. The existing SQL tokenizer is reused so parentheses inside quoted strings and comments are not mistaken for structural parentheses. _create_table_start Inspect one formatted line for the beginning of a regular CREATE TABLE body. The return value is a three-element list: whether the line begins a supported CREATE TABLE statement, whether its opening parenthesis is present, and the net parenthesis depth on that line. When the opening parenthesis is absent it may occur on the following line. CREATE TABLE AS, PARTITION OF, and typed-table forms are deliberately skipped because their parentheses do not necessarily contain ordinary column definitions. _align_create_table_body Align eligible top-level lines from one already formatted CREATE TABLE body. Only lines that begin and end at the table body's direct parenthesis depth are sent to the column-group aligner. This excludes continuation lines belonging to multiline CHECK expressions or other nested constructs while still allowing single-line type modifiers and function calls. _align_create_table_columns Apply vertical column alignment to regular CREATE TABLE statements in a fully formatted SQL document. The method is a final text-only rendering pass. It preserves all lines outside supported table bodies and delegates actual row formatting to the smaller parser, renderer, and group-alignment helpers. _align_create_table_column_comments Append trailing comments at a shared output column. The SQL portion of every supported column is measured after name, declaration, and DEFAULT alignment. Only rows containing comments receive padding, so rows without comments do not gain trailing whitespace. Unsupported lines are ignored when calculating the comment column. _align_create_table_column_group Align a group of single-line CREATE TABLE column definitions. The method aligns the column names and the beginning of each remainder, while preserving indentation, token order, trailing commas, and unsupported lines. It only returns rendered lines; it does not modify the formatter output. beautify Beautify SQL. After calling this function, $object->content() will contain nicely indented result. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _add_token Add a token to the beautified string. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _over Increase the indentation level. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _back Decrease the indentation level. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _indent Return a string of spaces according to the current indentation level and the spaces setting for indenting. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _new_line Add a line break, but make sure there are no empty lines. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _next_token Have a look at the token that's coming up next. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _next_token_skip_comment Have a look at the token that's coming up next omitting comments. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _token Get the next token, removing it from the list of remaining tokens. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _is_keyword Check if a token is a known SQL keyword. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _is_type Check if a token is a known SQL type _is_comment Check if a token is a SQL or C style comment _is_function Check if a token is a known SQL function. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify and rewritten to check one long regexp instead of a lot of small ones. add_keywords Add new keywords to highlight. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _re_from_list Create compiled regexp from prefix, suffix and and a list of values to match. _refresh_functions_re Refresh compiled regexp for functions. add_functions Add new functions to highlight. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify add_rule Add new rules. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _get_rule Find custom rule for a token. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _process_rule Applies defined rule. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _is_constant Check if a token is a constant. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _is_punctuation Check if a token is punctuation. Code lifted from SQL::Beautify _generate_anonymized_string Simply generate a random string, thanks to Perlmonks. Returns original in certain cases which don't require anonymization, like timestamps, or intervals. anonymize Anonymize litteral in SQL queries by replacing parameters with fake values set_defaults Sets defaults for newly created objects. Currently defined defaults: spaces => 4 space => ' ' break => "\n" uc_keywords => 2 uc_functions => 0 uc_types => 1 no_comments => 0 no_grouping => 0 placeholder => '' multiline => 0 separator => '' comma => 'end' format => 'text' colorize => 1 format_type => 0 wrap_limit => 0 wrap_after => 0 wrap_comment => 0 no_extra_line => 0 keep_newline => 0 no_space_function => 0 redundant_parenthesis => 0 vertical_align => 0 format Set output format - possible values: 'text' and 'html' Default is text output. Returns 0 in case or wrong format and use default. set_dicts Sets various dictionaries (lists of keywords, functions, symbols, and the like) This was moved to separate function, so it can be put at the very end of module so it will be easier to read the rest of the code. _remove_dynamic_code Internal function used to hide dynamic code in plpgsql to the parser. The original values are restored with function _restore_dynamic_code(). _restore_dynamic_code Internal function used to restore plpgsql dynamic code in plpgsql that was removed by the _remove_dynamic_code() method. _quote_operator Internal function used to quote operator with multiple character to be tokenized as a single word. The original values are restored with function _restore_operator(). _restore_operator Internal function used to restore operator that was removed by the _quote_operator() method. _quote_comment_stmt Internal function used to replace constant in a COMMENT statement to be tokenized as a single word. The original values are restored with function _restore_comment_stmt(). _restore_comment_stmt Internal function used to restore comment string that was removed by the _quote_comment_stmt() method. _remove_comments Internal function used to remove comments in SQL code to simplify the work of the wrap_lines. Comments must be restored with the _restore_comments() method. _restore_comments Internal function used to restore comments in SQL code that was removed by the _remove_comments() method. wrap_lines Internal function used to wrap line at a certain length. AUTHOR pgFormatter is an original work from Gilles Darold BUGS Please report any bugs or feature requests to: https://github.com/darold/pgFormatter/issues COPYRIGHT Copyright 2012-2026 Gilles Darold. All rights reserved. LICENSE pgFormatter is free software distributed under the PostgreSQL Licence. A modified version of the SQL::Beautify Perl Module is embedded in pgFormatter with copyright (C) 2009 by Jonas Kramer and is published under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0. perl v5.42.2 2026-09-04 pgFormatter::Beautify(3)