Dialects API Reference

A dialect is the one place a database's quirks live: placeholder syntax, identifier quoting, upsert form, pagination, and DDL. Quark picks one for you from the driver name, so most applications never touch this API.

You need it in two cases — overriding a mis-detected dialect, and registering a dialect of your own. See Dialects for the engine-by-engine support table.

Built-In Constructors

postgres := quark.PostgreSQL()
mysql := quark.MySQL()
mariadb := quark.MariaDB()
sqlite := quark.SQLite()
mssql := quark.MSSQL()
oracle := quark.Oracle()

Constructor	Name()
quark.PostgreSQL()	postgres
quark.MySQL()	mysql
quark.MariaDB()	mariadb
quark.SQLite()	sqlite
quark.MSSQL()	mssql
quark.Oracle()	oracle

Interface

type Dialect interface {
    Name() string
    Placeholder(index int) string
    Quote(identifier string) string
    Placeholders(n int) []string
    LimitOffset(limit, offset int) string
    SupportsReturning() bool
    Returning(columns ...string) string
    SupportsLastInsertID() bool
    LastInsertIDQuery(table, pkColumn string) string
    CurrentTimestamp() string
    BuildRoutineQuery(routine string, argCount int) string
    BuildProcedureCall(procedure string, argCount int) string
    JSONExtract(column, path string) (sql string, args []any, err error)
    AlterTableAddColumn(table, column, dataType string) string
    AlterTableDropColumn(table, column string) string
    AlterTableAlterColumn(table, column, newDataType string) string
    RenameColumn(table, oldName, newName string) string
    RenameTable(oldName, newName string) string
    SupportsTransactionalDDL() bool
    LockSuffix(opts LockOptions) (tableHint, suffix string, err error)
    UpsertSQL(conflictCols, updateCols []string, argOffset int) string
}

Placeholder Examples

Dialect	Placeholder
PostgreSQL	$1, $2
MySQL / MariaDB	?
SQLite	?
SQL Server	@p1, @p2
Oracle	:1, :2

Returning and Insert IDs

Dialect	Preferred generated-ID path
PostgreSQL	RETURNING
SQLite	RETURNING
MariaDB	RETURNING
MySQL	LastInsertId
SQL Server	SCOPE_IDENTITY()
Oracle	RETURNING ... INTO handling in Quark write path

Upsert

Dialect	Shape
PostgreSQL	ON CONFLICT (...) DO UPDATE SET ...
SQLite	ON CONFLICT (...) DO UPDATE SET ...
MySQL / MariaDB	ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE ...
SQL Server	MERGE built by Quark's CRUD layer.
Oracle	MERGE built by Quark's CRUD layer.

Detection

d, err := quark.DetectDialect("postgres")
d, err = quark.DetectDialectByName("mariadb")

DetectDialectByName first checks custom dialect registrations, then falls back to built-in detection.

Custom Dialects

quark.RegisterDialect("cockroach", myDialect)

d, err := quark.DetectDialectByName("cockroach")
if err != nil {
    return err
}

client, err := quark.New("pgx", dsn, quark.WithDialect(d))

Custom dialects must implement the full Dialect interface. A partial dialect will fail at compile time if assigned to a quark.Dialect variable.