(This change will be in the upcoming v0.11.0 release)

Taking a page from compilers like rustc, I’ve spent some time improving error messages to make them look nicer and be more helpful. Fortunately, SQLite has improved their error reporting as well by adding sqlite3_error_offset(). This function can point to the part of the SQL statement that was in error. As an example of the improvement, a SQL file that contained the following content:

-- This is a test
SELECT abc),
rtrim(def)
FROM mytable;

Would report an error like the following on startup in v0.10.1:

error:/Users/tstack/.config/lnav/formats/installed/test.sql:2:near ")": syntax error

Now, you will get a clearer error message with a syntax-highlighted code snippet and a pointer to the part of the code that has the problem:

Inside the TUI, a panel has been added at the bottom to display these long-form error messages. The panel will disappear after a short time or when input is received. Here is an example showing an error for an invalid regular expression: