qStudio on PeachQ

qStudio is a free, Apache-licensed SQL and q editor for Windows, macOS and Linux. It connects to a q process over IPC, highlights q, completes names from the server, shows results as tables and charts them with one click.

Setup

qStudio needs Java 8 or later. Check with java -version.

Start PeachQ listening on a port. On Linux x64 with glibc:

curl -fL https://peachq.org/download/peachq-linux-x64-duckdb.tar.gz -o peachq.tar.gz
tar -xzf peachq.tar.gz
./q -p 5000

Create a small table to query:

trade:([]time:.z.p+0D00:00:01*til 100;sym:100?`AAPL`MSFT`GOOG;price:100+100?10f;size:100?1000)

Leave that process running. Install qStudio from the qStudio download page, which has a Windows installer, a macOS app and a jar for Linux, and start it.

Connect to PeachQ

1. Open Server and choose Add Server.
2. Set the type to kdb, the host to localhost and the port to 5000. Leave the username and password empty; PeachQ does not check them by default.
3. Click Add. The server tree on the left lists trade under Tables.

Run a query

Type a query in the editor and press Ctrl+Q to run the statement under the cursor, or select text and press Ctrl+E. On macOS use Cmd in place of Ctrl.

select avg price,sum size by sym from trade

The result panel shows the keyed table. Grouping without aggregating returns nested columns, which the result viewer shows in full:

select price by sym from trade

Chart a time series

Run a query that returns a time column first and numeric columns after it:

select time,price from trade where sym=`AAPL

Open the Chart panel and choose Time Series. qStudio plots price against time. The chart panel redraws for each new result, so edit the query and run it again to compare symbols.

Browse the server

The Server Tree lists tables, functions and variables defined in the process. Expanding trade shows its columns and types, and double-clicking a table runs a query that previews it.