EdgeQL is a next-generation query language designed to match SQL in power and surpass it in terms of clarity, brevity, and intuitiveness. It’s used to query the database, insert/update/delete data, modify/introspect the schema, manage transactions, and more.
Design goals
EdgeQL is a spiritual successor to SQL designed with a few core principles in mind.
Compatible with modern languages. A jaw-dropping amount of effort has been spent attempting to bridge the gap between the relational paradigm of SQL and the object-oriented nature of modern programming languages. EdgeDB sidesteps this problem by modeling data in an object-relational way.
Strongly typed. EdgeQL is inextricably tied to EdgeDB’s rigorous object-oriented type system. The type of all expressions is statically inferred by EdgeDB.
Designed for programmers. EdgeQL prioritizes syntax over keywords; It uses
{ curly braces } to define scopes/structures and the assignment
operator
:= to set values. The result is a query language that looks more
like code and less like word soup.
Easy deep querying. EdgeDB’s object-relational nature makes it painless
to write deep, performant queries that traverse links, no JOINs required.
Composable. Unlike SQL, EdgeQL’s syntax is readily composable; queries can be cleanly nested without worrying about Cartesian explosion.
For a detailed writeup on the design of SQL, see We Can Do Better Than SQL on the EdgeDB blog.
Follow along
The best way to learn EdgeQL is to play with it! Use the online EdgeQL shell to execute any and all EdgeQL snippets in the following pages. Or follow the Quickstart to spin up an EdgeDB instance on your computer, then open an interactive shell.