recli is a command-line query tool and REPL for RethinkDB, with lots of options to control its output. It supports regular JavaScript syntax and CoffeeScript syntax.
Install recli using npm:
sudo npm install -g recli
This will give you a global recli command. If you prefer or need to install it locally, just drop the "sudo" and "-g". In that case, you can invoke it like so:
node ./node_modules/recli
or
./node_modules/recli/bin/recli.js
You can of course create an alias to be able to type "recli", as if you had recli installed globally, just put something like this in your ~/.bash_profile or equivalent:
alias recli='YOURDIR/node_modules/recli/bin/recli.js'
recli can either take a ReQL expression as an argument or be used as a REPL, which lets you type in ReQL expressions in a special shell and see the results immediately.
Here’s how you would use it from the command line:
$ recli 'r.table("bikes")'
... (JSON output) ...
$ recli 'r.table("bikes").get("123").update({foo: "bar"})'
... (JSON output) ...
If you don’t supply a ReQL expression on the command-line, recli will start a REPL for ReQL queries, like so:
$ recli
recli> r.table("bikes")
... (JSON output) ...
recli> r.table("bikes").get("123").update({foo: "bar"})
... (JSON output) ...
Note that results from queries that return a cursor are automatically converted to arrays and printed as JSON documents.
The default output from recli is a color-coded and pretty-formatted RethinkDB query result. It uses node’s util.inspect method, which means that it is actually a string representation of a Javascript object and NOT (by default) strictly valid JSON:
$ recli 'r.table("heroes")'
[ { hero: 'Magneto',
name: 'Max Eisenhardt',
aka: ['Magnus', 'Erik Lehnsherr', 'Lehnsherr'],
magazine_titles:
[ 'Alpha Flight',
'Avengers',
'Avengers West Coast' ],
appearances_count: 42 },
{ hero: 'Professor Xavier',
name: 'Charles Francis Xavier',
magazine_titles:
[ 'Alpha Flight',
'Avengers',
'Bishop',
'Defenders' ],
appearances_count: 72 },
{ hero: 'Storm',
name: 'Ororo Monroe',
magazine_titles:
[ 'Amazing Spider-Man vs. Wolverine',
'Excalibur',
'Fantastic Four',
'Iron Fist' ],
appearances_count: 72 } ]Note that colors can be disabled by using the -n/--no-colors option.
If you want valid JSON instead, but still nicely indented and readable, use the -j/--json option:
$ recli -j 'r.table("heroes")'
[
{
"hero": "Magneto",
"name": "Max Eisenhardt",
"aka": [
"Magnus",
"Erik Lehnsherr",
"Lehnsherr"
],
"magazine_titles": [
"Alpha Flight",
"Avengers",
"Avengers West Coast"
],
"appearances_count": 42
},
{
"hero": "Professor Xavier",
"name": "Charles Francis Xavier",
"magazine_titles": [
"Alpha Flight",
"Avengers",
"Bishop",
"Defenders"
],
"appearances_count": 72
},
{
"hero": "Storm",
"name": "Ororo Monroe",
"magazine_titles": [
"Amazing Spider-Man vs. Wolverine",
"Excalibur",
"Fantastic Four",
"Iron Fist"
],
"appearances_count": 72
}
]
If you want raw, unformatted and unindented JSON, use the -r/--raw option. This isn’t straight-from-the-wire raw, though, it is the JSON.stringify-ed version of the RethinkDB result data (as returned by the JavaScript driver).
If you prefer to use the CoffeeScript syntax, use the -c/--coffee option:
$ recli -c 'r.table "bikes"'
... (JSON output) ...
You can specify the database, host and port to connect to with the -d/--database, -h/--host and -p/--port options.
Use --help to get the full usage info:
$ recli --help
Usage: recli [options] [ReQL expression]
REPL mode:
If the ReQL expression is omitted, recli will enter REPL mode,
which is a CLI where you can evaluate ReQL expressions.
REQL EXPRESSION:
A ReQL expression is anything that works in RethinkDB's Data
Explorer, for example
r.table('bikes').filter({brand: 'Scott'})
r.table('bikes').get('123').update({foo: 'bar'})
OPTIONAL options:
-c, --coffee Evaluate code as CoffeeScript.
-d, --database DATABASE Default database to perform queries against.
Can be overridden in the ReQL expression.
The default is 'test'.
-f, --file FILE Read options from the supplied YAML config
file. The default is to look for a global
/etc/recli.yml and user overrides in ~/.recli.yml
-h, --host HOST Host to connect to. The default is 'localhost'.
-j, --json Output valid indented JSON instead of pretty-
printing the result.
-n, --no-colors Do not use colors when pretty-printing.
-p, --port PORT TCP port to connect to. The default is 28015.
-r, --raw Print the raw JSON from RethinkDB, with no
formatting applied.
-s, --stream Print a line break delimited JSON stream with one
valid JSON object per line.
-v, --version Print the current version of recli.
Any options specified on the command line take precedence over defaults and configuration file settings.
Note that the --coffee, --file, --json and --raw options also support the --no-<option> syntax, like --no-json. This lets you override all configuration file settings.
recli will look for YAML configuration files in /etc/recli.yml and ~/.recli.yml by default. The user config overrides the global config. You can specify another configuration file by using the -f/--file option, in which case none of the default files are loaded.
The keys and values in the configuration files must match the (long-form) options that can be used on the command line (use true and false for flags):
# set default connection options
database: mydb
host: server1
# output valid JSON by default
json: true
# prefer to use CoffeeScript input
coffee: truerecli remembers commands that you run in the REPL (between sessions), which gives you access to previously run commands by pressing arrow-up. The history is stored in ~/.recli_history. There is currently no way to disable the history feature.
Stian Grytøyr
- Luc Heinrich
- Marshall Cottrell
- StreetStrider
- Howard Tyson