Programming/Kdb/Installing kdb
Kdb+/q
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/.
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
