MSSQL

Microsoft SQL Server support with T-SQL dialect parsing, parameter syntax, and type mappings across all 10 languages.

Overview

MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server) is a widely used enterprise relational database. Scythe supports T-SQL dialect parsing; you write $N placeholders in your SQL and each backend translates them to its driver’s native parameter binding convention (see Placeholder syntax).

Engine alias

scythe.toml

[[sql]]
engine = "mssql"  # or "sqlserver"

Supported backends

Backend	Language	Driver
rust-tiberius	Rust	tiberius
python-pyodbc	Python	pyodbc
typescript-mssql	TypeScript	mssql (tedious)
typescript-kysely	TypeScript	Kysely
go-database-sql	Go	database/sql (with engine = "mssql")
java-jdbc	Java	JDBC (Microsoft JDBC Driver)
kotlin-jdbc	Kotlin	JDBC (Microsoft JDBC Driver)
csharp-sqlclient	C#	Microsoft.Data.SqlClient
ruby-tiny-tds	Ruby	tiny_tds
php-pdo	PHP	PDO (sqlsrv driver)
elixir-tds	Elixir	tds

java-r2dbc and kotlin-r2dbc do not support MSSQL – their supported_engines list is postgresql, mysql, mariadb, sqlite.

Configuration

scythe.toml

[[sql]]
name = "main"
engine = "mssql"
schema = ["schema.sql"]
queries = ["queries/"]

[[sql.gen]]
backend = "csharp-sqlclient"
output = "src/generated"

Type mapping table

MSSQL Type	Neutral Type	Notes
INT	int32
BIGINT	int64
SMALLINT	int16
TINYINT	int16	Unsigned 0-255
BIT	bool
REAL	float32
FLOAT	float64
DECIMAL / NUMERIC	decimal	Precision is stripped
MONEY / SMALLMONEY	decimal
VARCHAR / NVARCHAR / CHAR / NCHAR	string
TEXT / NTEXT	string	Deprecated in MSSQL
VARBINARY / BINARY / IMAGE	bytes
UNIQUEIDENTIFIER	uuid
DATE	date
TIME	time
DATETIME / DATETIME2 / SMALLDATETIME	datetime
DATETIMEOFFSET	datetime_tz
XML	string

Placeholder syntax

Write positional $N placeholders in your SQL. Each backend translates them to its driver’s native convention – placeholder style is per-backend, not uniform across MSSQL:

Backend	Placeholder style
rust-tiberius, csharp-sqlclient, typescript-mssql, typescript-kysely	@p1, @p2, …
python-pyodbc, java-jdbc, kotlin-jdbc, go-database-sql	?
ruby-tiny-tds	@1, @2, …
elixir-tds	:p1, :p2, …
php-pdo	?

-- Written as:
SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE id = $1;

-- csharp-sqlclient generates:
SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE id = @p1;

Docker setup

docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=YourStrong@Passw0rd' \
  -p 1433:1433 --name mssql \
  mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest

Notes

• T-SQL dialect – Scythe parses T-SQL syntax including TOP, OUTPUT, MERGE, and OFFSET FETCH.
• IDENTITY columns – Scythe strips the IDENTITY(seed, step) clause when parsing. Unlike PostgreSQL’s SERIAL, IDENTITY alone does not imply NOT NULL: the column is nullable unless it also declares NOT NULL or PRIMARY KEY.
• OUTPUT clause – MSSQL uses OUTPUT INSERTED.* instead of RETURNING. Scythe handles this translation.
• String types – NVARCHAR and VARCHAR both map to string. No distinction is made between Unicode and non-Unicode strings in the neutral type system.