Improve query history navigation

[jpy-git]

Often when executing queries I'll need to revisit and tweak/correct a previous query that I've executed. In usql the up arrow walks back through the query history one line at a time rather than a query at a time.

This is awkward as I have to press up multiple times just to get the same query, made all the more difficult by the fact that the first line I add gets added back to the end of the history which adds an extra click. So in this example below I have to click up 25 times just to edit one line of this fairly small query.

usql:

psql on the other jumps back to the complete previous command with 1 up click and I can then navigate and update the query however I want and re-execute it very quickly.

psql:

It would be great if usql could be updated to match this behaviour as it would be a big boost in productivity with the tool.

How I would suggest it works is:

• Only write to history on completion of a query, i.e. a semi-colon has been entered. This includes incomplete/syntactically incorrect queries ending in a semi-colon e.g. select foo from; as the user would likely want to just jump back and correct it without re-typing everything (psql also does this). This prevents the issue where the line selected keeps getting appended back onto the history before we've even executed it.
• Then return a complete query at a time when navigating through the history. Using the logic above the history file is just a semi-colon delimited list of these queries so should be fairly simple to differentiate these.

[kenshaw]

@jpy-git I too have issues with this, but I have not yet had the time to write a full/proper implementation of a readline prompt, and usql has been hindered from day one based on what's available. I'd like to get it done, but the issue is that a proper readline implementation that supports the functionality usql needs that overcomes this limitation, and, eg, would be compatible with libinput or some such, easily carries a scope 2 to 3 times as large as usql itself.

[alejandrodnm]

For what it's worth, if you want to fix the last query you can execute \e and open the full query in the $EDITOR