Having predicate call external tool?

[Manouchehri]

trafficstars

Is there a way, directly or indirectly, to have a CodeQL query use an external tool?

predicate isCurrentYear(string year) {
  year = cmd("date +%Y")
}

[aibaars]

There is no direct way. However, you can

• define an external predicate,
• run the command before running the query
• save the command output in a CSV file
• pass the flag --external=<pred>=<file.csv> when running the query

$ codeql database run-queries --help
 ...
      --external=<pred>=<file.csv>
                             A CSV file that contains rows for external predicate <pred>. Multiple --external options can be supplied.

[rvermeulen]

Hi @Manouchehri,

I'm closing this issue because it seems @aibaars provided you with next steps to import data into a query at runtime.

An alternative to external predicates are data extensions.

If you have further questions, feel free to re-open this issue.