Joing lists containing Hebrew in Tcl? - sqlite

Question

I'm using Tcl 8.6.11, SQLite 3.35.5., and Manjaro Linux KDE.
I'm trying to take a verse in Hebrew and write it one word per row in a data table. This is one
verse, for example.
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
The goal was to write the data to a list and then join the list as the values part of a SQL insert statement. As you can see, each [lindex $l n] prints as expected but the [join $l ,] starting at the second element places the Hebrew in the first position instead of the last, causing the SQL statement to fail.
How can I get each component of the [join $l ,] to be ordered as they are in the [lindex $l n]?
Thank you.
set l {}
set sql { select * from src_original where type_no=0 and book_no < 40 limit 1}
dbws eval $sql origLang {
set i 0
foreach { x } $origLang(original) { lappend l "($origLang(book_no),$origLang(chapter_no),$origLang(verse_no),[incr i],$x)" }
}
puts [lindex $l 0]; # (1,1,1,1,בְּרֵאשִׁית)
puts [lindex $l 1]; # (1,1,1,2,בָּרָא)
puts [lindex $l 2]; # (1,1,1,3,אֱלֹהִים)
puts [lindex $l 3]; # (1,1,1,4,אֵת)
puts [lindex $l 4]; # (1,1,1,5,הַשּׁמַיִם)
puts [lindex $l 5]; # (1,1,1,6,וְאֵת)
puts [lindex $l 6]; # (1,1,1,7,הָאָֽרֶץ׃)
set v [join $l ,]; # (1,1,1,1,בְּרֵאשִׁית),(1,1,1,2,בָּרָא),(1,1,1,3,אֱלֹהִים),(1,1,1,4,אֵת),(1,1,1,5,הַשּׁמַיִם),(1,1,1,6,וְאֵת),(1,1,1,7,הָאָֽרֶץ׃)
set r "insert into vowel_pts (book_no, chapter_no, verse_no, index_no, word) values $v"
dbws eval $r
Thank you for examples and suggestions. I'd still like to understand whether or not join resulted in an out of order SQL statement, but, after looking at the SQL provided by #Shawn, I tried using the SQLite JSON extension and the following also works. If the limitations in the where clause of the arr_vp table are removed, such that all the words from every verse in the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament are written as an individual row, it completes in a few seconds on my ten-year old average laptop, as #DonalFellows suggested. Thanks again.
with
arr_vp as (
select book_no, chapter_no, verse_no,
'["' || replace(original,' ', '","' ) || '"]' as t
from src_original
where book_no=1
and chapter_no=1
and verse_no < 3
and type_no=0
)
select a.book_no, a.chapter_no, a.verse_no,
(key+1) as index_no,
j.value as vowel_pts
from arr_vp a,
json_each( ( select t
from arr_vp r
where r.book_no=a.book_no
and r.chapter_no=a.chapter_no
and r.verse_no=a.verse_no ) ) as j
where j.type = 'text';

Answer 1

As always with SQL, use parameters in a prepared statement instead of trying to add values directly into a query string at runtime. Something like:
# Populate an array of dicts
set l {}
set sql {select * from src_original where type_no=0 and book_no < 40 limit 1}
dbws eval $sql origLang {
set i 0
foreach x $origLang(original) {
lappend l [dict create book_no $origLang(book_no) \
chapter_no $origLang(chapter_no) \
verse_no $origLang(verse_no) \
index_no [incr i] \
word $x]
}
}
# And insert them one at a time.
foreach w $l {
dict with w {
dbws eval {
INSERT INTO vowel_pts(book_no, chapter_no, verse_no, index_no, word)
VALUES ($book_no, $chapter_no, $verse_no, $index_no, $word)
}
}
}
See the documentation for more about embedding (unevaluated) variable names in a SQL statement and binding values to them.
I did manage to come up with a way to do it in just core Sqlite3, assuming a standard space character separates words, that I think will work:
dbws eval {
WITH verse AS (SELECT * FROM src_original WHERE type_no = 0 AND book_no < 40 LIMIT 1),
words AS
(SELECT book_no, chapter_no, verse_no,
substr(original || ' ', 1, instr(original || ' ', ' ') - 1) AS word,
substr(original || ' ', instr(original || ' ', ' ') + 1) AS original,
1 AS index_no
FROM verse
UNION ALL
SELECT book_no, chapter_no, verse_no,
substr(original, 1, instr(original, ' ') - 1),
substr(original, instr(original, ' ') + 1),
index_no + 1
FROM words WHERE length(original) > 0)
INSERT INTO vowel_pts(book_no, chapter_no, verse_no, index_no, word)
SELECT book_no, chapter_no, verse_no, index_no, word FROM words
}

Answer 2

The join command does not alter the order of characters in memory. However, the rendering of mixed left-to-right and right-to-left scripts on the screen is… well, all over the place.
But since you're just doing this to move data from the database to the database, find a way to not bring the data itself into Tcl. It'll be astonishingly faster and safer too.