Hi all,

I am looking for a local database that is easily accessible via the command line.

It can be SQL or non-SQL

Whats my use case? I want to use it kinda like a second brain. A place to save my notes, my todo lists, my book reading lists, links / articles to read later, etc.

I want it to be a good CLI citizen so that I can script its commands to create simpler abstractions, rather than writing out the full queries every time.

Maybe sqlite is what I need, but is that ideal for my use case?

  • pe1uca@lemmy.pe1uca.dev
    1·
    4 months ago

    I can’t imagine this flow working with any DB without an UI to manage it.
    How are you going to store all that in an easy yet flexible way to handle all with SQL?

    A table for notes?
    What fields would it have? Probably just a text field.
    Creating it is simple: insert “initial note”… How are you going to update it? A simple update to the ID won’t work since you’ll be replacing all the content, you’d need to query the note, copy it to a text editor and then copy it back to a query (don’t forget to escape it).
    Then probably you want to know which is your oldest note, so you need to include created_at and updated_at fields.
    Maybe a title per note is a nice addition, so a new field to add title.

    What about the todo lists? Will they be stored in the same notes table?
    If so, then the same problem, how are you going to update them? Include new items, mark items as done, remove them, reorder them.
    Maybe a dedicated table, well, two tables, list metadata and list items.
    In metadata almost the same fields as notes, but description instead of text. The list items will have status and text.

    Maybe you can reuse the todo tables for your book list and links/articles to read.

    so that I can script its commands to create simpler abstractions, rather than writing out the full queries every time.

    This already exists, several note taking apps which wrap around either the filesystem or a DB so you only have to worry about writing your ideas into them.
    I’d suggest to not reinvent the wheel unless nothing satisfies you.

    What are the pros of using a DB directly for your use case?
    What are the cons of using a note taking app which will provide a text editor?

    If you really really want to use a DB maybe look into https://github.com/zadam/trilium
    It uses sqlite to store the notes, so maybe you can check the code and get an idea if it’s complicated or not for you to manually replicate all of that.
    If not, I’d also recommend obsidian, it stores the notes in md files, so you can open them with any software you want and they’ll have a standard syntax.