Customisation cheat sheet?

[dbolser]

There are a few 'nits' I have with the cli that I can't easily figure out how to configure away... e.g., I don't want to hit forward-arrow to complete a suggestion, but rather tab, which feels more familiar and keeps my fingers on the home keys... Is re-configuring that even possible in mycli? (sorry for being noob... in general I like the tool a lot, there are a just a few small things that just get frustrating after a while).

[rolandwalker]

Hi! The forward-arrow completion comes from prompt-toolkit, rather than from mycli. It looks like that project is open to a customization file, but hasn't implemented it yet: https://python-prompt-toolkit.readthedocs.io/en/stable/pages/advanced_topics/key_bindings.html#processing-inputrc .

It may not be possible or wise for mycli to override the arrow binding.

I would prefer tab as well!

What else is "frustrating"?

[dbolser]

Thanks @rolandwalker, totally agree we shouldn't fight the tools we're using, rather help to improve them if possible.

One thing I miss from 'regular' terminal is Ctrl-r for searching backwards in commands. The specific feature is 1) Ctrl-r for 'something' I roughly remember, 2) see something 'close' to what I want, 3) hammer Ctrl-r repeatedly to 'find again' backwards in the command history. e.g. go back beyond the first exact match. I can move my hand to the arrow keys and start paging up and down in the history from the point where the search 'landed', but again, my fingers are already on ctrl-r and are ready to 'find again' ... Sounds silly now I type it out, but you know how it goes... your fingers know how to move around until suddenly you have to switch contexts, move you hand 6cm right... what a pain! ;-)

In my shell (bash) I have this cryptic comment:

# Make multiline comand history behave:
shopt -s cmdhist
shopt -s lithist

which generally feels right (even though I'm not 100% sure how it works or what it's doing).

I recently added multi_line = True to ~/.myclirc, so this may be historical, but when I ctrl-r, I don't see any point finding a single line of a multi-line command... As I said, I may see this less going forward.

Oh.. a big annoyance is if I copy an SQL out of mycli (select it and expect to paste it with middle mouse button), it includes line breaks (and the prompt continuation characters, even when the query is a single 'line' that just happens to wrap around). When I copy a long (single line) command from the terminal, in contrast, it's a single line when I paste it.

Finally, the autocomplete is so good when it works, it becomes annoying when it doesn't work.

For example, in this query:

SELECT x.sp_id, A.sp_id, B.sp_id FROM cons x
LEFT JOIN coh A ON x.sp_id = A.sp_id AND A.coh_id = "fb_1"
LEFT JOIN coh B ON x.sp_id = B.sp_id AND B.coh
-> _id = "fb_2"
WHERE x.gn = 'FUCA2'
AND (
  A.sp_id IS NOT NULL OR
  B.sp_id IS NOT NULL
) LIMIT 50;

(Literally just a random query I'm working on), If I type A. after the select, I get a autocomplete on coh columns, but B. doesn't work... I guess it's getting confused because I'm aliasing the same underlying table twice?

This last one feels very minor ;-)

Thanks again for the excellent tool!

[rolandwalker]

One thing I miss from 'regular' terminal is Ctrl-r for searching backwards in commands.

Ah, do you have fzf installed, and is your Ctrl-r using a fancy interactive fuzzy search? I've been wondering if there should be separate keybindings for classic Ctrl-r vs the fuzzy search. We definitely need to document here.

Oh.. a big annoyance is if I copy an SQL out of mycli (select it and expect to paste it with middle mouse button), it includes line breaks

Agreed, but there is a workaround: append \clip to your query and it will get copied to the clipboard without the breaks.

Finally, the autocomplete is so good when it works, it becomes annoying when it doesn't work.

Yes, completion could be better on those edge cases, though I haven't gotten much into that code myself. It is possible that we could improve it by further switching to the sqlglot library from sqlparse for parsing the SQL.

[dbolser]

One thing I miss from 'regular' terminal is Ctrl-r for searching backwards in commands.

Ah, do you have fzf installed, and is your Ctrl-r using a fancy interactive fuzzy search? I've been wondering if there should be separate keybindings for classic Ctrl-r vs the fuzzy search. We definitely need to document here.

Not that I'm aware of...
Command 'fzf' not found, but can be installed with:

Oh.. a big annoyance is if I copy an SQL out of mycli (select it and expect to paste it with middle mouse button), it includes line breaks

Agreed, but there is a workaround: append \clip to your query and it will get copied to the clipboard without the breaks.

k

Finally, the autocomplete is so good when it works, it becomes annoying when it doesn't work.

Yes, completion could be better on those edge cases, though I haven't gotten much into that code myself. It is possible that we could improve it by further switching to the sqlglot library from sqlparse for parsing the SQL.

Cool.

[rolandwalker]

One thing I miss from 'regular' terminal is Ctrl-r for searching backwards in commands.

Ah, do you have fzf installed, and is your Ctrl-r using a fancy interactive fuzzy search? I've been wondering if > there should be separate keybindings for classic Ctrl-r vs the fuzzy search. We definitely need to document here.

Not that I'm aware of...
Command 'fzf' not found, but can be installed with:

So, it turns out I don't understand the ctrl-r annoyance. The key is supposed to do an incremental reverse search, or, if fzf is installed, a fuzzy reverse search (subject to the new configuration section).

But, this also might be a case where we are limited to just the two general behaviors, because they come from dependencies. You might try the fzf version! You can indeed just keep hitting ctrl-r to cycle backwards, but it is a lot more featureful than that.

Finally, the autocomplete is so good when it works, it becomes annoying when it doesn't work.

We might be able to add a keystroke to force autocomplete to make an attempt when it otherwise wouldn't try.

[rolandwalker]

A couple of relevant PRs

• Bind ctrl-r/alt-r to previous-item in fzf search #1279
• Make control-r reverse search style configurable #1278

[dbolser]

OK, I don't have fzf installed, but ctrl-r doesn't search back in the history if I repeatedly press ctrl-r in mycli like it does in bash. I guess this is a bug for me?

[rolandwalker]

Yes, seems like a bug for you, and a very strange one, because ctrl-r is not one of the key sequences that terminals usually have trouble with. It usually sends a literal 0x12 control character. And, it is working for you in bash/readline.

To clarify, you are saying that when you press ctrl-r in mycli, absolutely nothing happens?