URL: http://<db.host>:<db.port>/create/table/external
Input Parameter Description
Name of the table to be created, in [schema_name.]table_name format, using standard name resolution rules and meeting table naming criteria.
A list of file paths from which data will be sourced;For paths in KiFS, use the URI prefix of kifs:// followed by the path to a file or directory. File matching by prefix is supported, e.g. kifs://dir/file would match dir/file_1 and dir/file_2. When prefix matching is used, the path must start with a full, valid KiFS directory name.If an external data source is specified in datasource_name, these file paths must resolve to accessible files at that data source location. Prefix matching is supported. If the data source is hdfs, prefixes must be aligned with directories, i.e. partial file names will not match.If no data source is specified, the files are assumed to be local to the database and must all be accessible to the gpudb user, residing on the path (or relative to the path) specified by the external files directory in the Kinetica configuration file. Wildcards (*) can be used to specify a group of files. Prefix matching is supported, the prefixes must be aligned with directories.If the first path ends in .tsv, the text delimiter will be defaulted to a tab character. If the first path ends in .psv, the text delimiter will be defaulted to a pipe character (|).
Not implemented yet.The default value is an empty map ( {} ).
Options from /create/table, allowing the structure of the table to be defined independently of the data source.The default value is an empty map ( {} ).
Show create_table_options
Show create_table_options
no_error_if_exists
If true, prevents an error from occurring if the table already exists and is of the given type. If a table with the same name but a different type exists, it is still an error.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
is_replicated
Affects the distribution scheme for the table’s data. If true and the given table has no explicit shard key defined, the table will be replicated. If false, the table will be sharded according to the shard key specified in the given type_id, or randomly sharded, if no shard key is specified. Note that a type containing a shard key cannot be used to create a replicated table.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
foreign_keys
Semicolon-separated list of foreign keys, of the format ‘(source_column_name [, …]) references target_table_name(primary_key_column_name [, …]) [as foreign_key_name]’.
foreign_shard_key
Foreign shard key of the format ‘source_column references shard_by_column from target_table(primary_key_column)’.
partition_type
Partitioning scheme to use.
- RANGE: Use range partitioning.
- INTERVAL: Use interval partitioning.
- LIST: Use list partitioning.
- HASH: Use hash partitioning.
- SERIES: Use series partitioning.
partition_keys
Comma-separated list of partition keys, which are the columns or column expressions by which records will be assigned to partitions defined by partition_definitions.
partition_definitions
Comma-separated list of partition definitions, whose format depends on the choice of partition_type. See range partitioning, interval partitioning, list partitioning, hash partitioning, or series partitioning for example formats.
is_automatic_partition
If true, a new partition will be created for values which don’t fall into an existing partition. Currently, only supported for list partitions.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
chunk_size
Indicates the number of records per chunk to be used for this table.
chunk_column_max_memory
Indicates the target maximum data size for each column in a chunk to be used for this table.
chunk_max_memory
Indicates the target maximum data size for all columns in a chunk to be used for this table.
is_result_table
Indicates whether the table is a memory-only table. A result table cannot contain columns with text_search data-handling, and it will not be retained if the server is restarted.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
strategy_definition
The tier strategy for the table and its columns.
compression_codec
The default compression codec for this table’s columns.
Optional parameters.The default value is an empty map ( {} ).
Show options
Show options
bad_record_table_name
Name of a table to which records that were rejected are written. The bad-record-table has the following columns: line_number (long), line_rejected (string), error_message (string). When error_handling is abort, bad records table is not populated.
bad_record_table_limit
A positive integer indicating the maximum number of records that can be written to the bad-record-table.The default value is
10000.bad_record_table_limit_per_input
For subscriptions, a positive integer indicating the maximum number of records that can be written to the bad-record-table per file/payload. Default value will be bad_record_table_limit and total size of the table per rank is limited to bad_record_table_limit.
batch_size
Number of records to insert per batch when inserting data.The default value is
50000.column_formats
For each target column specified, applies the column-property-bound format to the source data loaded into that column. Each column format will contain a mapping of one or more of its column properties to an appropriate format for each property. Currently supported column properties include date, time, and datetime. The parameter value must be formatted as a JSON string of maps of column names to maps of column properties to their corresponding column formats, e.g., ’{ “order_date” : { “date” : “%Y.%m.%d” }, “order_time” : { “time” : “%H:%M:%S” } }’.See default_column_formats for valid format syntax.
columns_to_load
Specifies a comma-delimited list of columns from the source data to load. If more than one file is being loaded, this list applies to all files.Column numbers can be specified discretely or as a range. For example, a value of ‘5,7,1..3’ will insert values from the fifth column in the source data into the first column in the target table, from the seventh column in the source data into the second column in the target table, and from the first through third columns in the source data into the third through fifth columns in the target table.If the source data contains a header, column names matching the file header names may be provided instead of column numbers. If the target table doesn’t exist, the table will be created with the columns in this order. If the target table does exist with columns in a different order than the source data, this list can be used to match the order of the target table. For example, a value of ‘C, B, A’ will create a three column table with column C, followed by column B, followed by column A; or will insert those fields in that order into a table created with columns in that order. If the target table exists, the column names must match the source data field names for a name-mapping to be successful.Mutually exclusive with columns_to_skip.
columns_to_skip
Specifies a comma-delimited list of columns from the source data to skip. Mutually exclusive with columns_to_load.
compression_type
Source data compression type.The default value is
auto.- none: No compression.
- auto: Auto detect compression type.
- gzip: gzip file compression.
- bzip2: bzip2 file compression.
datasource_name
Name of an existing external data source from which data file(s) specified in input parameter filepaths will be loaded.
default_column_formats
Specifies the default format to be applied to source data loaded into columns with the corresponding column property. Currently supported column properties include date, time, and datetime. This default column-property-bound format can be overridden by specifying a column property and format for a given target column in column_formats. For each specified annotation, the format will apply to all columns with that annotation unless a custom column_formats for that annotation is specified.The parameter value must be formatted as a JSON string that is a map of column properties to their respective column formats, e.g., ’{ “date” : “%Y.%m.%d”, “time” : “%H:%M:%S” }’. Column formats are specified as a string of control characters and plain text. The supported control characters are ‘Y’, ‘m’, ‘d’, ‘H’, ‘M’, ‘S’, and ‘s’, which follow the Linux ‘strptime()’ specification, as well as ‘s’, which specifies seconds and fractional seconds (though the fractional component will be truncated past milliseconds).Formats for the ‘date’ annotation must include the ‘Y’, ‘m’, and ‘d’ control characters. Formats for the ‘time’ annotation must include the ‘H’, ‘M’, and either ‘S’ or ‘s’ (but not both) control characters. Formats for the ‘datetime’ annotation meet both the ‘date’ and ‘time’ control character requirements. For example, ’{“datetime” : “%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S” }’ would be used to interpret text as “05/04/2000 12:12:11”.
datalake_catalog
Name of an existing datalake(iceberg) catalog used in loading files.
datalake_path
Path of datalake(iceberg) object.
datalake_snapshot
Snapshot ID of datalake(iceberg) object.
error_handling
Specifies how errors should be handled upon insertion.The default value is
abort.- permissive: Records with missing columns are populated with nulls if possible; otherwise, the malformed records are skipped.
- ignore_bad_records: Malformed records are skipped.
- abort: Stops current insertion and aborts entire operation when an error is encountered. Primary key collisions are considered abortable errors in this mode.
external_table_type
Specifies whether the external table holds a local copy of the external data.The default value is
materialized.- materialized: Loads a copy of the external data into the database, refreshed on demand.
- logical: External data will not be loaded into the database; the data will be retrieved from the source upon servicing each query against the external table.
file_type
Specifies the type of the file(s) whose records will be inserted.The default value is
delimited_text.- avro: Avro file format.
- delimited_text: Delimited text file format; e.g., CSV, TSV, PSV, etc.
- gdb: Esri/GDB file format.
- json: JSON file format.
- parquet: Apache Parquet file format.
- shapefile: ShapeFile file format.
flatten_columns
Specifies how to handle nested columns.The default value is
false.- true: Break up nested columns to multiple columns.
- false: Treat nested columns as JSON columns instead of flattening.
gdal_configuration_options
Comma separated list of gdal conf options, for the specific requests: key=value.
ignore_existing_pk
Specifies the record collision error-suppression policy for inserting into a table with a primary key, only used when not in upsert mode (upsert mode is disabled when update_on_existing_pk is false). If set to true, any record being inserted that is rejected for having primary key values that match those of an existing table record will be ignored with no error generated. If false, the rejection of any record for having primary key values matching an existing record will result in an error being reported, as determined by error_handling. If the specified table does not have a primary key or if upsert mode is in effect (update_on_existing_pk is true), then this option has no effect.The default value is
false.- true: Ignore new records whose primary key values collide with those of existing records.
- false: Treat as errors any new records whose primary key values collide with those of existing records.
ingestion_mode
Whether to do a full load, dry run, or perform a type inference on the source data.The default value is
full.- full: Run a type inference on the source data (if needed) and ingest.
- dry_run: Does not load data, but walks through the source data and determines the number of valid records, taking into account the current mode of error_handling.
- type_inference_only: Infer the type of the source data and return, without ingesting any data. The inferred type is returned in the response.
jdbc_fetch_size
The JDBC fetch size, which determines how many rows to fetch per round trip.The default value is
50000.kafka_consumers_per_rank
Number of Kafka consumer threads per rank (valid range 1-6).The default value is
1.kafka_group_id
The group id to be used when consuming data from a Kafka topic (valid only for Kafka datasource subscriptions).
kafka_offset_reset_policy
Policy to determine whether the Kafka data consumption starts either at earliest offset or latest offset.The default value is
earliest.The supported values are:- earliest
- latest
kafka_optimistic_ingest
Enable optimistic ingestion where Kafka topic offsets and table data are committed independently to achieve parallelism.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
kafka_subscription_cancel_after
Sets the Kafka subscription lifespan (in minutes). Expired subscription will be cancelled automatically.
kafka_type_inference_fetch_timeout
Maximum time to collect Kafka messages before type inferencing on the set of them.
layer
Geo files layer(s) name(s): comma separated.
loading_mode
Scheme for distributing the extraction and loading of data from the source data file(s). This option applies only when loading files that are local to the database.The default value is
head.- head: The head node loads all data. All files must be available to the head node.
- distributed_shared: The head node coordinates loading data by worker processes across all nodes from shared files available to all workers. NOTE: Instead of existing on a shared source, the files can be duplicated on a source local to each host to improve performance, though the files must appear as the same data set from the perspective of all hosts performing the load.
- distributed_local: A single worker process on each node loads all files that are available to it. This option works best when each worker loads files from its own file system, to maximize performance. In order to avoid data duplication, either each worker performing the load needs to have visibility to a set of files unique to it (no file is visible to more than one node) or the target table needs to have a primary key (which will allow the worker to automatically deduplicate data). NOTE: If the target table doesn’t exist, the table structure will be determined by the head node. If the head node has no files local to it, it will be unable to determine the structure and the request will fail. If the head node is configured to have no worker processes, no data strictly accessible to the head node will be loaded.
local_time_offset
Apply an offset to Avro local timestamp columns.
max_records_to_load
Limit the number of records to load in this request: if this number is larger than batch_size, then the number of records loaded will be limited to the next whole number of batch_size (per working thread).
num_tasks_per_rank
Number of tasks for reading file per rank. Default will be system configuration parameter, external_file_reader_num_tasks.
poll_interval
If true, the number of seconds between attempts to load external files into the table. If zero, polling will be continuous as long as data is found. If no data is found, the interval will steadily increase to a maximum of 60 seconds.The default value is
0.primary_keys
Comma separated list of column names to set as primary keys, when not specified in the type.
refresh_method
Method by which the table can be refreshed from its source data.The default value is
manual.- manual: Refresh only occurs when manually requested by invoking the refresh action of /alter/table on this table.
- on_start: Refresh table on database startup and when manually requested by invoking the refresh action of /alter/table on this table.
schema_registry_connection_retries
Confluent Schema registry connection timeout (in secs).
schema_registry_connection_timeout
Confluent Schema registry connection timeout (in secs).
schema_registry_max_consecutive_connection_failures
Max records to skip due to SR connection failures, before failing.
max_consecutive_invalid_schema_failure
Max records to skip due to schema related errors, before failing.
schema_registry_schema_name
Name of the Avro schema in the schema registry to use when reading Avro records.
shard_keys
Comma separated list of column names to set as shard keys, when not specified in the type.
skip_lines
Skip a number of lines from the beginning of the file.
start_offsets
Starting offsets by partition to fetch from kafka. A comma separated list of partition:offset pairs.
subscribe
Continuously poll the data source to check for new data and load it into the table.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
table_insert_mode
Insertion scheme to use when inserting records from multiple shapefiles.The default value is
single.- single: Insert all records into a single table.
- table_per_file: Insert records from each file into a new table corresponding to that file.
text_comment_string
Specifies the character string that should be interpreted as a comment line prefix in the source data. All lines in the data starting with the provided string are ignored.For delimited_text file_type only.The default value is
#.text_delimiter
Specifies the character delimiting field values in the source data and field names in the header (if present).For delimited_text file_type only.The default value is
,.text_escape_character
Specifies the character that is used to escape other characters in the source data.An ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘f’, ‘n’, ‘r’, ‘t’, or ‘v’ preceded by an escape character will be interpreted as the ASCII bell, backspace, form feed, line feed, carriage return, horizontal tab, and vertical tab, respectively. For example, the escape character followed by an ‘n’ will be interpreted as a newline within a field value.The escape character can also be used to escape the quoting character, and will be treated as an escape character whether it is within a quoted field value or not.For delimited_text file_type only.
text_has_header
Indicates whether the source data contains a header row.For delimited_text file_type only.The default value is
true.The supported values are:- true
- false
text_header_property_delimiter
Specifies the delimiter for column properties in the header row (if present). Cannot be set to same value as text_delimiter.For delimited_text file_type only.The default value is
|.text_null_string
Specifies the character string that should be interpreted as a null value in the source data.For delimited_text file_type only.The default value is
\N.text_quote_character
Specifies the character that should be interpreted as a field value quoting character in the source data. The character must appear at beginning and end of field value to take effect. Delimiters within quoted fields are treated as literals and not delimiters. Within a quoted field, two consecutive quote characters will be interpreted as a single literal quote character, effectively escaping it. To not have a quote character, specify an empty string.For delimited_text file_type only.The default value is
".text_search_columns
Add ‘text_search’ property to internally inferenced string columns. Comma separated list of column names or ’*’ for all columns. To add ‘text_search’ property only to string columns greater than or equal to a minimum size, also set the text_search_min_column_length
text_search_min_column_length
Set the minimum column size for strings to apply the ‘text_search’ property to. Used only when text_search_columns has a value.
trim_space
If set to true, remove leading or trailing space from fields.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
truncate_strings
If set to true, truncate string values that are longer than the column’s type size.The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
truncate_table
If set to true, truncates the table specified by input parameter table_name prior to loading the file(s).The default value is
false.The supported values are:- true
- false
type_inference_max_records_read
type_inference_mode
Optimize type inferencing for either speed or accuracy.The default value is
speed.- accuracy: Scans data to get exactly-typed and sized columns for all data scanned.
- speed: Scans data and picks the widest possible column types so that ‘all’ values will fit with minimum data scanned.
remote_query
Remote SQL query from which data will be sourced.
remote_query_filter_column
Name of column to be used for splitting remote_query into multiple sub-queries using the data distribution of given column.
remote_query_increasing_column
Column on subscribed remote query result that will increase for new records (e.g., TIMESTAMP).
remote_query_partition_column
Alias name for remote_query_filter_column.
update_on_existing_pk
Specifies the record collision policy for inserting into a table with a primary key. If set to true, any existing table record with primary key values that match those of a record being inserted will be replaced by that new record (the new data will be ‘upserted’). If set to false, any existing table record with primary key values that match those of a record being inserted will remain unchanged, while the new record will be rejected and the error handled as determined by ignore_existing_pk and error_handling. If the specified table does not have a primary key, then this option has no effect.The default value is
false.- true: Upsert new records when primary keys match existing records.
- false: Reject new records when primary keys match existing records.
Output Parameter Description
The Kinetica server embeds the endpoint response inside a standard response structure which contains status information and the actual response to the query. Here is a description of the various fields of the wrapper:‘OK’ or ‘ERROR’
Empty if success or an error message
‘create_table_external_response’ or ‘none’ in case of an error
Empty string
This embedded JSON represents the result of the /create/table/external endpoint:
Empty string in case of an error.
Show data_str
Show data_str
Value of input parameter table_name.
A JSON string describing the columns of the created external table.
The user-defined description associated with the table’s structure.
A mapping of each external table column name to an array of column properties associated with that column.
Number of records inserted into the external table.
Number of records skipped, when not running in abort error handling mode.
[Not yet implemented] Number of records updated within the external table.
Additional information.