sqlfmt▍
sqlfmt blog
Practical posts on writing cleaner SQL and fixing the errors your database gives back.
By Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 8, 2026
PostgreSQL's “column X does not exist” error is one of its most literal messages — but it still trips people up over case folding, table aliases, and columns that exist on a different table than the one being queried.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 8, 2026
SQL Server's “Conversion failed when converting the varchar value … to data type int” (Msg 245) means a string in your data, or your query, doesn't actually look like the number or date you're trying to convert it to.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 8, 2026
A CREATE TABLE statement is the schema every future query has to live with — formatted well, it doubles as documentation. Here's a consistent, readable way to lay out columns, constraints, and keys.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 8, 2026
Inconsistent naming — orders vs order, customer_id vs customerId, is_active vs active_flag — costs a team more review time than almost any formatting choice. Here's a standard worth adopting before the schema outgrows a cheap fix.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 8, 2026
“Add 7 days” is DATEADD in SQL Server, DATE_ADD in MySQL and BigQuery, a raw interval in PostgreSQL, and a modifier string in SQLite — the same operation, four unrelated shapes. Here's the working syntax for each dialect's core date functions.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 8, 2026
A subquery buried inline in a WHERE clause or FROM list is unreadable the moment it grows past one line. Here's how to indent, align, and alias nested SELECTs so the outer query's structure stays visible.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 2, 2026
A pre-commit hook that formats and validates SQL catches bad queries before they ever reach a pull request — earlier and cheaper than CI. Here's a working setup using the sqlfmt API.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 2, 2026
SQLite's "no such table" error almost never means real data loss — it usually points to the wrong database file, an uncommitted transaction, or a missing ATTACH prefix. Here's how to diagnose it.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 2, 2026
SQL Server's Msg 208, "Invalid object name," covers six distinct causes — from schema mismatches to temp tables that fell out of scope. Here's how to tell them apart and fix each one.
Read postBy Sharon Ben-Moshe · Aug 2, 2026
MySQL error 1054, "Unknown column 'x' in ...", covers five distinct causes — from simple typos to referencing a SELECT alias too early. Here's how to tell them apart.
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