LoveHandle

A vim plugin that extends Tim Pope's vim-dadbod to make it easier to work in various databases across different projects. It provides commands for easily switching between database URLs, creating and editing SQL files kept in projects, setting DB URLs based on file name and path, and generating common SQL queries within these files. See below for examples.

Note that this guide is helpful to get started and understand what the plugin does, but should you install this plugin, please read the authoritative documentation (:help lovehandle) after generating helptags.

Installation

I recommend installing a modern version of vim (8.0+) and using its built-in packages system (:help packages).

Clone the repository in your pack directory. Note, evanthegrayt/ is used as the package directory in this example, but you can put it in whichever package directory you want.

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/evanthegrayt/start/

git clone https://github.com/evanthegrayt/vim-lovehandle.git \
    ~/.vim/pack/evanthegrayt/start/vim-lovehandle

Don't forget the documentation. Run :helptags on the doc/ directory. Or, to update all your plugins' documentation:

:helptags ~/.vim/pack/evanthegrayt/start/vim-lovehandle/doc
" OR
:helptags ALL

Initial Setup

This plugin was written to make it easier to set DB URLs for different projects. Because of this, it's helpful to have a different set of variables defined for each project. There are several ways to accomplish this. Note that the variables referenced in this section will be covered in the next section.

First, it's worth noting that if you set exrc, you can just set the variables in the project's local .vimrc file. This option is not recommended. For reasoning, see :help 'exrc'.

If you like the idea of keeping a local .vimrc (or other file name) in each project so that team members will have the same config, but don't want to set exrc, you can define a dictionary with the key/value pairs being the directory of the project and the file to source for that project. Note that the keys must be full paths to the directory, with no slash at the end.

let g:lovehandle_projects = {
        \   '/home/me/project_one': '.vimrc',
        \   '/home/me/project_two': '.lovehandle.vim'
        \ }

If you prefer not to create a file in the project, or aren't able to do so, the values can be set via a sub-dictionary, with the key/value pairs being the variable to set (minus the g:lovehandle_ prefix) and the variable's value.

let g:lovehandle_projects = {
        \   '/home/me/project_one': {
        \     'list': [
        \       ['development', 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database'],
        \       ['staging', 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database']
        \     ],
        \     'sql_directory': 'db/sql',
        \     'default_database': 'development',
        \     'switch_confirm_production': 1,
        \     'switch_silently': 0
        \   },
        \   '/home/me/project_two': '.lovehandle.vim'
        \ }

If you want to source a project's local vimrc, but also override some of the variables, you can add a 'file' key to the project's sub-dictionary. The file will be sourced first, and then the remaining variables in the dictionary will be (re)set.

let g:lovehandle_projects = {
        \   '/home/me/project_one': {
        \     'sql_directory': 'db/sql',
        \     'switch_confirm_production': 1,
        \     'switch_silently': 0,
        \     'file': '.vimrc'
        \   },
        \   '/home/me/project_two': '.lovehandle.vim'
        \ }

Project-Specific Setup

This section defines the variables to configure for the plugin to work properly. They should be defined for each project, either in the file to be sourced for that project, or in the project's sub-dictionary of g:lovehandle_projects. It's worth noting that g:lovehandle_list is the only required variable, as the rest have defaults.

Defining handles and URLs

You will need to define a two-dimensional list called g:lovehandle_list. The handles will be used as an identifier when setting the URLs. They will also be used for tab-completion. The values should be database URLs to those databases. Here's an example:

" Obviously, in a real-world example, all the URLs would be different.
let g:lovehandle_list = [
      \   ['testing', 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database'],
      \   ['development', 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database'],
      \   ['staging', 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database'],
      \   ['production', 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database'],
      \ ]

There is a benefit to using the handle names in the example, which will be explained shortly.

You can define a default database by setting g:lovehandle_default_database in the project's .vimrc.

let g:lovehandle_default_database = 'development'

If g:lovehandle_default_database is not defined, but 'development' exists as a handle, it will be the default database. Otherwise, the first database in the list will be the default. This is why we use a 2-D list instead of a dictionary; dictionaries are not ordered in vimscript.

It's important to note, when setting the default URL, g:db will be set (global). Any time a URL is changed after that, it will be set b:db (local to the buffer). There's currently an open issue to be able to customize this behavior, so feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment.

Usage

Listing current and available handles

If, at any time, you want to see which database is being used, use the :LHList command. If you use the naming convention previously explained, if the current DB URL is set to a production database, it will be in red. Calling with :verbose will also show the actual DB URL.

:LHList
"=> b:db is set to development

:verbose LHList
"=> b:db is set to development: 'postgres://user:password@host:port/database'

Switching between database URLs

Still assuming the above example list, switching DBs is now as easy as calling :LHSwitch production. This feature has tab-completion, so you can type :LHSwitch <tab> and it will show/cycle the options. LHSwitch with no arguments will switch to the default handle.

If you attempt to switch to a production database, and assuming you named your handles correctly, you will be asked to confirm the switch. To avoid this confirmation, use the bang version of the command.

:LHSwitch! production

To disable the confirmation permanently, the following can be set.

let g:lovehandle_switch_confirm_production = 0

To silence the "Switching to X database" message when switching, the following can be set.

let g:lovehandle_switch_silently = 1

Tip: To learn about database URLs, read the help documentation for DadBod.

SQL Files and Automatic Database URLs

This feature is for people who keep commonly-used SQL queries in their projects.

You can define a directory for storing SQL files (with .sql extension) by setting g:lovehandle_sql_directory to a string.

let g:lovehandle_sql_directory = 'db/sql'

If this variable is not set, it will default to db/sql/ if db/ exists, database/sql/ if database/ exists, or finally, sql/ if neither exist.

When opened, files in this directory with a .sql extension, will automatically be set to the default database (either "development" if it exists, or the first database listed in g:lovehandle_list).

If, however, the file is in a sub-directory, and that sub-directory name matches a handle in g:lovehandle_list, the database URL will be set to that handle's value.

Assuming the directory db/ exists, and a project's .vimrc contains the following:

let g:lovehandle_list = [
      \   ['development',       'postgres://user@host/database'],
      \   ['mysql_development', 'mysql://user:password@host:port/database']
      \ ]

A file called db/sql/users.sql would point to postgres://user@host/database. This would also be true if the file were called db/sql/development/users.sql.

If we want the URL to point to mysql://user:password@host:port/database, we'd need to call the file db/sql/mysql_development/users.sql. If you call the sub-directory mysql instead of mysql_development, the _development suffix will be implied.

Note that you can still change the database URL anytime with :LHSwitch.

Automatic Query Generation for SQL Files

Any new or empty db/sql/**/*.sql file opened with vim will automatically have default queries generated in the file. It is assumed that the file name will be the table name to query. These queries are even adapter aware, which as we've learned, are based off the directory in which they reside. Assuming the file name is users.sql:

If the adapter is postgres, the following contents will be placed in the file:

-- SQL for 'users' table generated by lovehandle.
-- Sun Feb 23 08:23:53 2020

-- List all tables in the database.
\dt;

-- Describe 'users' table's attributes.
\d users;

-- Count records in 'users'.
SELECT count(1) FROM users;

-- List all records from the 'users' table.
SELECT * FROM users;

If the adapter is mysql, the following contents will be placed in the file:

-- SQL for 'users' table generated by lovehandle.
-- Sun Feb 23 08:23:53 2020

-- List all tables in the database.
show tables;

-- Describe 'users' table's attributes.
describe users;

-- Count records in 'users'.
SELECT count(1) FROM users;

-- List all records from the 'users' table.
SELECT * FROM users;

There are also commands provided for generating this sql at-will. Using the ! form will place text above current cursor position. Note that a database URL must be set.

:LHGenerateSQL[!] [TABLE]

Dependencies and Recommended Plugins

Lovehandles was originally written around DadBod, so it sets variables specific to that plugin. However, you can use any plugin that can communicate with a database. You may just have to change the variables it uses for database URLs (g:db and b:db).

LoveHandle assumes you open vim from the root of a project to look for project-specific vimrc files, and to determine the projects SQL directory. If you're not in this habit, I recommend installing Rooter.

Issues and Feature Requests

If you find a bug or would like to request a feature, please create an issue. Just make sure the topic doesn't already exist. Or, better yet, feel free to submit a pull request.

Self-Promotion

I do these projects for fun, and I enjoy knowing that they're helpful to people. Consider starring the repository if you like it! If you love it, follow me on github!