What causes "SQL statement is not a read-only query" in siyuan-note/siyuan?

Use only single read-only SELECT statements (WITH ... SELECT is fine if supported by the pre-check)

SQL statement is not a read-only query

Error message

SQL statement is not a read-only query

What it means

After confirming the statement is non-empty, checkReadonlyStatement requires it to be a read-only query (SELECT/EXPLAIN etc.) via isReadonlyQueryStatement before it is prepared. Any statement that is not recognized as a read-only query is rejected, preventing writes through APIs meant for querying. The kernel deliberately rejects anything that could mutate data.

Solutions

Use only single read-only SELECT statements (WITH ... SELECT is fine if supported by the pre-check)
Perform writes through the proper kernel APIs/transactions instead of the query path
Check isReadonlyQueryStatement's accepted syntax and align your statement with it

Example fix

// before
stmt := "DELETE FROM blocks WHERE id = '...'"
err := sql.CheckReadonlyStatement(stmt)
// after
stmt := "SELECT * FROM blocks WHERE id = '...'"
err := sql.CheckReadonlyStatement(stmt)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const first = stmt.trim().split(/\s+/)[0]?.toUpperCase();
if (!["SELECT", "WITH", "EXPLAIN"].includes(first)) throw new Error("only read-only SELECT allowed");

Try / catch

try {
  await runQuery(stmt);
} catch (e) {
  if (String(e.message).includes("not a read-only query")) showUserError("SELECT queries only");
  else throw e;
}

Prevention

Restrict query builders to producing single SELECT statements
Never concatenate user input into write statements for read paths
Use the kernel's dedicated transaction APIs for writes

When it happens

Trigger: Passing INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE/DROP/ALTER/ATTACH or even PRAGMA through CheckReadonlyStatement/CheckAssetContentReadonlyStatement/CheckReadonlyStatementInBox; also CTEs or syntax variants that the textual pre-check fails to recognize as a query.

Common situations: A caller tries to modify siyuan.db through the SQL query API; a plugin builds a write statement; a multi-statement string like 'SELECT 1; DROP TABLE' is rejected.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/712a4410f16ac18c. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/sql/stmt_validate.go:203

}

// CheckReadonlyStatementInBox 在指定笔记本对应的数据库连接上检查 SQL 是否只读。
func CheckReadonlyStatementInBox(stmt, boxID string) error {
	targetDB := db
	if boxDB := GetEncryptedDB(boxID); nil != boxDB {
		targetDB = boxDB
	} else if IsEncryptedBoxFn != nil && IsEncryptedBoxFn(boxID) {
		return errors.New("encrypted box db not opened for box " + boxID)
	}
	return checkReadonlyStatement(stmt, targetDB)
}

func checkReadonlyStatement(stmt string, targetDB *sql.DB) error {
	if strings.TrimSpace(stmt) == "" {
		return errors.New("SQL statement is empty")
	}
	if !isReadonlyQueryStatement(stmt) {
		return errors.New("SQL statement is not a read-only query")
	}
	if nil == targetDB {
		return errors.New("database is nil")
	}
	ctx := context.Background()
	conn, err := targetDB.Conn(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer conn.Close()

	return conn.Raw(func(dc any) error {
		sqliteConn, ok := dc.(*sqlite3.SQLiteConn)
		if !ok {
			return fmt.Errorf("SQL driver connection type is unexpected: %T", dc)
		}
		ds, err := sqliteConn.Prepare(stmt)
		if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to 9f775e8a12)