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Friendly CLI

Along with our Friendly SQL, we provide friendly CLI features.

Dark/Light Mode

The CLI automatically detects whether the terminal is using a dark or light background and adjusts syntax highlighting colors accordingly. The mode can also be set manually using the .highlight_mode command:

.highlight_mode dark

.highlight_mode light

To use a mix of colors suitable for both dark and light backgrounds:

.highlight_mode mixed

The mode can also be selected when launching the CLI using the -dark-mode and -light-mode command line arguments:

duckdb -dark-mode

duckdb -light-mode

8-Bit Colors

Since DuckDB 1.5, the CLI supports 8-bit colors corresponding to Xterm system colors:

.display_colors

darkred1 red darkred2 red3 red4 red1 brightred indianred1 ...

Dynamic Prompt

The default prompt is the following:

{max_length:50}{highlight_element:prompt_connect}{setting:connect_name_prefix}{highlight_element:prompt}{setting:current_database_and_schema}{color:reset} D

While the session is connected to a remote database with CONNECT, {setting:connect_name_prefix} shows the remote database's name (or its URI, e.g., quack:localhost, for CONNECT 'uri' and -connect); otherwise it is empty.

Return the Result of the Last Query Using _

You can use the _ (underscore) table to query the result of the last query:

SELECT 42 AS x;

┌───────┐
│   x   │
│ int32 │
├───────┤
│    42 │
└───────┘

FROM _;

┌───────┐
│   x   │
│ int32 │
├───────┤
│    42 │
└───────┘

If the last query did not return a result (e.g., because it performed an update operation), the CLI throws an error:

Binder Error:
Failed to query last result "_": no result available
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