sql2csv(1) · carta

Overview

Executes arbitrary commands against a SQL database and outputs the results as a CSV:

usage: sql2csv [-h] [-v] [-l] [-V] [--db CONNECTION_STRING] [--query QUERY]
               [-e ENCODING] [-H]
               [FILE]
Execute a SQL query on a database and output the result to a CSV file.
positional arguments:
  FILE                  The file to use as the SQL query. If FILE and --query
                        are omitted, the query is piped data via STDIN.
optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --db CONNECTION_STRING
                        A SQLAlchemy connection string to connect to a
                        database.
  --engine-option ENGINE_OPTION ENGINE_OPTION
                        A keyword argument to SQLAlchemy's create_engine(), as
                        a space-separated pair. This option can be specified
                        multiple times. For example: thick_mode True
  --execution-option EXECUTION_OPTION EXECUTION_OPTION
                        A keyword argument to SQLAlchemy's
                        execution_options(), as a space-separated pair. This
                        option can be specified multiple times. For example:
                        stream_results True
  --query QUERY         The SQL query to execute. Overrides FILE and STDIN.
  -e ENCODING, --encoding ENCODING
                        Specify the encoding of the input query file.
  -H, --no-header-row   Do not output column names.

Examples

Load sample data into a table using csvsql and then query it using sql2csv:

csvsql --db "sqlite:///dummy.db" --tables "test" --insert examples/dummy.csv
sql2csv --db "sqlite:///dummy.db" --query "select * from test"

Load data about financial aid recipients into PostgreSQL. Then find the three states that received the most, while also filtering out empty rows:

createdb recipients
csvsql --db "postgresql:///recipients" --tables "fy09" --insert examples/realdata/FY09_EDU_Recipients_by_State.csv
sql2csv --db "postgresql:///recipients" --query "select * from fy09 where \"State Name\" != '' order by fy09.\"TOTAL\" limit 3"

You can even use it as a simple SQL calculator (in this example an in-memory SQLite database is used as the default):

sql2csv --query "select 300 * 47 % 14 * 27 + 7000"

The connection string accepts parameters. For example, to set the encoding of a MySQL database:

sql2csv --db 'mysql://user:pass@host/database?charset=utf8' --query "SELECT myfield FROM mytable"

History

Arch Linux 2026-11-01: the text shown here
Debian 13 (Trixie)
Debian 12 (Bookworm)
Debian 11 (Bullseye)

--db until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --encoding until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --help until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --linenumbers until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --no-header-row until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --query until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --verbose until Debian 12 (Bookworm); --version until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -H until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -V until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -e until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -h until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -l until Debian 12 (Bookworm); -v until Debian 12 (Bookworm).