_{Jamie Balfour's}Personal blog

ZEQL, pronounced as zequel - like sequel, is very similar to SQL, but it can be used on lists, maps, records and database queries. There are also plans for ZEQL to support conversion to SQL. 

Whilst ZEQL is not finished yet, and really nowhere near finished, it's started to take shape.

Where ZEQL comes in handy is speed; it's considerably faster than using a loop to iterate a list, as it compiles directly to native code. 

$a_words = from $word in $words
  where string_contains($word, "a")
  select $word

In addition to this syntax, it supports chained functions, commonly known as fluent interface method chaining, including where (has existed for a while now), select and order_by.

$a_words = $words.where($word => string_contains($word, "a")).select($word => $word)