Programming/Kdb/Installing kdb

Kdb+/q

Downloading

Kdb+/q can be downloaded from https://kx.com/developers/download-licenses/.

In particular, there are two free versions of kdb+/q: the 32 Bit Personal Edition and the 64 Bit Personal Edition (On-Demand).

Both editions are licensed for personal use.

The 32 Bit Personal Edition:

• is permitted to run on-premises;
• is permitted to run on cloud;
• provides access to KX Fusion interfaces and integrations;
• provides access to community support;
• Linux/Mac/Windows/Raspberry pi versions are available.

The main limitation of the 32 Bit Personal Edition and, more generally, of any 32-bit program, is that it can only ever use up to 4 GB of memory. That's due to the 32-bit address space, since 2^32 = 4,294,967,296 bytes. For some use cases this may be a serious limitation.

The 64 Bit Personal Edition (On-Demand):

• requires "always on" internet connection;
• is permitted to run on-premises;
• is compatible with KX Developer and KX Dashboards Direct;
• provides access to KX Fusion interfaces and integrations;
• provides access to community support;
• gives regular access to upgrades;
• Linux/Mac/Windows versions are available.

The 32 Bit Personal Edition can be downloaded immediately, whereas for the 64 Bit Personal Edition (On-Demand) you would need to request a license. Both editions are available via https://kx.com/developers/download-licenses/.

Installing

On Windows, it is customary to install kdb+/q under C:\, so you end up with the following directory structure:

• C:\
  • q
    • w32
      • q.exe
    • q.k
    • q.q
    • README.txt
    • s.k
    • sp.q
    • trade.q

Integrated development environments (IDEs)

There is no one-size-fits-all IDE for kdb+/q. Therefore we recommend that the reader download some/all of the tools listed above and give them a try.

Q Insight Pad (Windows-only)

Q Insight Pad (sometimes referred to simply as qPad) by Oleg G. Zakharov is a kdb+ client, written in C++ to run under Windows; as a result, it is fast, memory-efficient and easy to use. The author makes a special emphasis on providing a Windows-style GUI that is visual, simple and intuitive.

Q Insight Pad provides simple but useful visualization capabilities.

An unregistered but fully functional version (working with free versions of q) can be downloaded for free from http://www.qinsightpad.com/.

This version expires every 3 months. If you want to license Q Insight Pad for use in your organization, contact the author: http://www.qinsightpad.com/contact.html.

qStudio

qStudio by TimeStored is an intelligent code editor for kdb+/q that provides:

• q syntax highlighting;
• q code completion;
• ability to query servers direct from the editor;
• server browser for viewing server objects;
• charts for displaying your data;
• database management tools to modify your database structure;
• a data loader for importing large data files easily;
• language programming tools to increase programmer productivity:
  • qDoc for generating HTML documentation;
  • qUnit — a unit testing framework for kdb.

qStudio can be downloaded from http://www.timestored.com/qstudio/.

qStudio Pro can be purchased from http://www.timestored.com/qstudio/buy.

This application requires a Java Runtime Environment 1.8.0_66 or above.

Studio for kdb+

Studio for kdb+ is a rapid development environment for kdb+. In the style of commonly used SQL clients, it allows you to

• connect to kdb+ processes;
• execute selected text from the editor window;
• view results as tables, charts, or classic console style.

The editor component is based on the NetBeans editor component, and includes the following features:

• find/search/replace;
• cut/copy/paste;
• undo/redo;
• syntax highlighting for the q language;
• most recent files menu.

Additionally, the application features:

• export to Excel;
• drag and drop;
• immediate charting of grid data.

Studio for kdb+ is free, provided under the Apache 2 license, and can be downloaded from https://github.com/CharlesSkelton/studio.

The program is portable and comes in the form of a JAR file. You need the Java runtime environment (JRE) to run it:

java -jar studio.jar