Disabling sqlfmt

If you would like sqlfmt to ignore a file, or part of a file, you can add -- fmt: off and -- fmt: on comments to your code (or # fmt: off on MySQL or BigQuery). sqlfmt will not change any code between those comments; a single -- fmt: off at the top of a file will keep the entire file intact.

The example below will not change after being formatted with sqlfmt:

-- fmt: off
select 1, 2, 3
       4, 5, 6
       7, 8, 9
-- fmt: on
from my_table
where something is true -- fmt: off
group by 1, 2, 3
        4, 5, 6
       7, 8, 9

You can also configure sqlfmt to exclude certain paths and directories. You can do this on the command line using the --exclude option (multiple times if necessary), or in a pyproject.toml file. The argument passed to --exclude should be a string that will be compiled into a recursive glob; pyproject.toml takes a list of strings.

These are equivalent:

sqlfmt . --exclude target/**/* --exclude dbt_packages/**/*

pyproject.toml

[tool.sqlfmt]
exclude=["target/**/*", "dbt_packages/**/*"]

tip

String literals in TOML files must be quoted!