When using the convert function on a JSON column, the result of the conversion function must be a string. If the return value is either a dict (object) or a list (array), the convert call will error out with an unhelpful user defined function exception.

It makes sense that since the original column value was a string and required conversion to data structures, the result should be converted back into a JSON string as well. However, other functions auto-convert to JSON string representation, so the fact that convert doesn't could be surprising.

At least the documentation should note this requirement, because the sqlite error messages won't readily reveal the issue.

Jf only sqlite's JSON column type meant something :)

When I'm generating a derived table in python, I often drop the table and create it from scratch. However, the first time I generate the table, it doesn't exist, so the drop raises an exception. That means more boilerplate.

I was going to submit a pull request that adds an "if_exists" option to the drop method of tables and views.

However, for a utility like sqlite_utils, perhaps the "IF EXISTS" SQL semantics is what you want most of the time, and thus should be the default.

What do you think?

enable_fts and its related methods only work on tables, not views.

Could those methods and possibly others move up to the Queryable superclass?

I just read that sqlite has a transitive closure table extension using a virtual table in order to represent trees:

https://charlesleifer.com/blog/querying-tree-structures-in-sqlite-using-python-and-the-transitive-closure-extension/

Even without this extension, though, a util to build a transitive closure table would allow trees to be queried easily. Since it relies on self-referential foreign keys, the relationships might even be able to be automatically detected.

I just upgraded from 0.49 to 0.50.1 and found that the links on column headers are broken.

If I inspect the source, they have a leading "//" (without host or port) rather than including base_url like other links on the page do. The links in the "gears" menu for each column do work.

I don't have custom templates for my project.

Faceted search uses JSON array elements as facets rather than the arrays. However, if a search is "Apply"ed (using the Apply button), the array itself rather than its elements used.

To reproduce: https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/facetable?_sort=pk&_facet=created&_facet=tags&_facet_array=tags

Press "Apply", which might be done when removing a filter. Notice that the "tags" facet values are now arrays, not array elements. It appears the "&_facet_array=tags" element of the query string is dropped.

If the input to sqlite-utils insert includes a column that is a JSON array or object, sqlite-utils query will introduce an extra level of quoting on output:

```

echo '[{"key": ["one", "two", "three"]}]' | sqlite-utils insert t.db t -

sqlite-utils t.db 'select * from t'

[{"key": "[\"one\", \"two\", \"three\"]"}]

sqlite3 t.db 'select * from t'

["one", "two", "three"] ```

This might require an imperfect solution, since sqlite3 doesn't have a JSON type. Perhaps fields that start with [" or {" and end with "] or "} could be detected, with a flag to turn off that behavior for weird text fields (or vice versa).

Hey there,

Have you considered providing apsw support as an alternative to stock python sqlite3? I use apsw because it keeps up with sqlite3 and is straightforward to bring in extensions like FTS5. FTS really accelerates the kind of searching often done by web clients.

I may be able to help (it shouldn't be much code), but there are a couple of stylistic questions that come up when supporting an optional package. Also, apsw is tricky in that it doesn't have a pypi package (author says limitations in providing options to setup.py).