Operators

This page lists every operator and reserved token in GDQL — segues, logical connectors, comparisons, date forms, era aliases, and output formats. Use it as a lookup table when you’re not sure which token to reach for.

Segue / sequence#

Connects two song names inside a WHERE clause.

Chains are exact: "A" > "B" > "C" only matches shows where all three appear in that order, adjacent in the setlist.

Not a real segue. The > operator means “next song in the setlist”, not “segued into musically.” Real segue data is hard to source at scale. The SETLIST display marks a few well-known transitions, but query matching is purely positional. Help us improve the data.

Logical#

Combine conditions inside a WHERE clause.

AND binds tighter than OR. There is no parenthesization yet — keep complex queries simple, or break them into separate statements.

Comparisons#

Used in WITH LENGTH and LENGTH(...) conditions. Duration data is sourced from archive.org recordings (~48% coverage).

Set position tokens#

Used inside WHERE to filter by where a song appeared.

Dates and date ranges#

Era aliases#

Named eras the Dead community uses. Spelled exactly as shown (case-insensitive).

Mind the gap. There is no built-in alias for the Keith Godchaux years (1971–1979). To query that stretch — including Cornell ‘77 and the rest of the late-’70s run — use an explicit year range: SHOWS FROM 1976-1978 or SHOWS FROM 1971-1978.

Sorting and limiting#

ORDER BY and LIMIT work on most query types. Sort fields are a fixed whitelist — case-insensitive, never quoted.

Add ASC (default) or DESC after the field. LIMIT n caps the row count and is silently capped at 1000 — asking for LIMIT 5000 returns 1000 rows. There is no offset or pagination.

SHOWS FROM 1977 ORDER BY DATE DESC LIMIT 10;
SONGS ORDER BY TIMES_PLAYED DESC LIMIT 20;
PERFORMANCES OF "Dark Star" ORDER BY LENGTH DESC LIMIT 5;

ORDER BY VENUE, ORDER BY CITY, and other ad-hoc fields are not supported — the parser rejects anything outside the whitelist above.

Output formats#

After AS in SHOWS, SETLIST, and PERFORMANCES:

Examples in context#

Segue tokens in WHERE#

SHOWS WHERE "Scarlet Begonias" > "Fire on the Mountain";  -- segue (>)
SHOWS WHERE "Scarlet Begonias" >> "Fire on the Mountain";  -- with break (>>)

Logical in WHERE#

SHOWS WHERE PLAYED "Dark Star" AND PLAYED "Saint Stephen";  -- AND
SHOWS WHERE SET1 OPENED "Jack Straw" OR SET1 OPENED "Bertha";  -- OR
SHOWS WHERE PLAYED "Dark Star" AND NOT PLAYED "Saint Stephen";  -- NOT

Dates and eras#

SHOWS FROM 1977;  -- single year
SHOWS FROM 77-80;  -- year range
SETLIST FOR 5/8/77;  -- specific date
SETLIST 1977-05-08;  -- YYYY-MM-DD, FOR is optional
SHOWS FROM PRIMAL;  -- named era
SHOWS BEFORE 1976;
SHOWS AFTER 1985;

Output formats#

SHOWS FROM 1977 LIMIT 3 AS TABLE;
SHOWS FROM 1977 LIMIT 3 AS JSON;
SHOWS FROM 1977 LIMIT 3 AS CSV;
SHOWS FROM 1977 LIMIT 3 AS SETLIST;
SONGS WITH LYRICS("rose") AS COUNT;  -- COUNT format

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