ISBL is the original database query language.

I first read about ISBL in early 2008 and it has been running about my thoughts ever since. This is mostly because I find SQL to be unintuitive. I rather like something more algebraic. ISBL gives us a peek into what might have been.

This package impliments a DSL that is like the ISBL described in the original PRTV paper and allows the opportunity to explore a truely relation notation for database query expressions. It is a thin layer that converts ISBL into SQL and executes the result on an SQLite database.

ISBL expressions can be evaluated on the command line or from within a Tcl script.

There are lots of scripted examples in the test script isbl-test.tcl.

Command line examples:

./isbl sample.db eval 'T += % "John" -> first, "Smith" -> last, 665 -> Id'
./isbl sample.db eval 'T += % "John" -> first, "Jones" -> last, 666 -> Id'
./isbl sample.db eval 'T += % "Frank" -> first, "Jones" -> last, 667 -> Id'
./isbl sample.db eval 'T += % "Martha" -> first, "Jones" -> last, 668 -> Id'
./isbl sample.db eval 'T += % "Rose" -> first, "Tyler" -> last, 669 -> Id'
./isbl sample.db list T
first	last	Id
-----	----	--
Frank	Jones	667
John	Jones	666
John	Smith	665
Martha	Jones	668
Rose	Tyler	669

./isbl sample.db list 'T % Id, First'
Id	First
--	-----
667	Frank
666	John
665	John
668	Martha
669	Rose

The pieces:

• [isbl-parser.peg] - The [Parser Tools] parser
• [isbl-actions.act] - Some template actions for parser rules with similar definitions
• [isbl.tcl] - An ISBL class to tie the whole thing together
• [isbl] - A command line interface utility.
• [unsource] - A little helper to create the module "isbl-1.0.tm"