Company
Date Published
Author
George MacKerron
Word count
1551
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

Neon's SQL Editor has been upgraded to support Postgres's introspection commands, like the psql backslash commands, through a serverless driver that operates in web environments without raw TCP connections. Initially, these commands, implemented in the psql client C code, were not supported in the web-based SQL Editor, leading to syntax errors. To address this, the C code for these commands was translated into JavaScript using regular expressions, allowing them to function in the browser. This development involved parsing SQL queries in the client-side to handle introspection commands separately and creating an open-source package to efficiently identify comments and statement-terminating semicolons in SQL strings. Users can now utilize these introspection commands in the Neon console, with additional features like viewing underlying SQL queries when running commands. The initiative reflects a pragmatic approach to integrating Postgres features into Neon’s web-based tools, aiming to enhance user experience and efficiency in managing database queries.