CREATE TABLE reference

To create a new table in the database, the CREATE TABLE keywords followed by column definitions are used.

Syntax

To create a table by manually entering parameters and settings:

note

Checking table metadata can be done via the tables() and table_columns() functions which are described in the meta functions documentation page.

To create a table by cloning the metadata of an existing table:

IF NOT EXISTS

An optional IF NOT EXISTS clause may be added directly after the CREATE TABLE keywords to indicate that a new table should be created if one with the desired table name does not already exist.

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS test_table(price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP) timestamp(ts);

Table name

Internally the table name is used as a directory name on the file system. It can contain both ASCII and Unicode characters. The table name must be unique and an error is returned if a table already exists with the requested name. Table names containing spaces or period . character must be enclosed in double quotes, for example:

CREATE TABLE "example out of.space" (a INT);

INSERT INTO "example out of.space" values (1);

Column name

As with table names, the column name is used for file names internally. Although it does support both ASCII and Unicode characters, character restrictions specific to the file system still apply. Tables may have up to 2,147,483,647 columns.

note

Column names must be unique within each table and must not contain a period . character.

Type definition

When specifying a column, a name and type definition must be provided. The symbol type may have additional optional parameters applied.

Symbols

Optional keywords and parameters may follow the symbol type which allow for further optimization on the handling of this type. For more information on the benefits of using this type, see the symbol overview.

Symbol capacity

CAPACITY is an optional keyword used when defining a symbol type on table creation to indicate how many distinct values this column is expected to have. When distinctValueEstimate is not explicitly specified, a default value of cairo.default.symbol.capacity is used.

distinctValueEstimate - the value used to size data structures for symbols.

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL CAPACITY 128, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP),

INDEX (symb) timestamp(ts);

The symbol capacity is not to be confused with index capacity described in column indexes below.

CREATE TABLE my_table

(symb SYMBOL capacity 128 NOCACHE INDEX capacity 256, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP)

timestamp(ts);

Symbol caching

CACHE | NOCACHE is used to specify whether a symbol should be cached. The default value is CACHE unless otherwise specified.

CREATE TABLE my_table

(symb SYMBOL CAPACITY 128 NOCACHE, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP)

timestamp(ts);

Casting types

castDef - casts the type of a specific column. columnRef must reference existing column in the selectSql

CREATE TABLE test AS (SELECT CAST(x as DOUBLE) x FROM long_sequence(10));

Column indexes

Index definitions (indexDef) are used to create an index for a table column. The referenced table column must be of type symbol.

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP),

INDEX (symb) TIMESTAMP(ts);

An index capacity may be provided for the index by defining the index storage parameter, valueBlockSize:

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP),

INDEX (symb CAPACITY 128) TIMESTAMP(ts);

-- equivalent to

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL INDEX CAPACITY 128, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP),

TIMESTAMP(ts);

See Index for more information about index capacity.

CREATE TABLE AS

When SQL (selectSQL) is SELECT * FROM tab or any arbitrary SQL result, the selected column names and their data type will be cloned to the new table.

Create table as select

CREATE TABLE new_table AS(

SELECT

rnd_int() a,

rnd_double() b,

rnd_symbol('ABB', 'CDD') c

FROM

long_sequence(100)

WHERE false

);

The data type of a column can be changed:

Clone an existing wide table and change type of cherry-picked columns

CREATE TABLE new_table AS (SELECT * FROM source_table WHERE false),

CAST(price AS LONG),

CAST(instrument as SYMBOL);

Here we changed type of price (assuming it was INT) to LONG and changed type of sym to symbol and created an index.

Designated timestamp

The timestamp function allows for specifying which column (which must be of timestamp type) should be a designated timestamp for the table. For more information, see the designated timestamp reference.

The designated timestamp column cannot be changed after the table has been created.

Partitioning

PARTITION BY allows for specifying the partitioning strategy for the table. Tables created via SQL are not partitioned by default (NONE) and tables can be partitioned by one of the following:

• NONE: the default when partition is not defined.
• YEAR
• MONTH
• WEEK
• DAY
• HOUR

The partitioning strategy cannot be changed after the table has been created.

WAL table parameter

It is possible to create a WAL table, allowing concurrent data ingestion and modification through multiple interfaces:

• WAL creates a WAL table. When a WAL table is created, the table must has a partition that is not NONE.
• BYPASS WAL creates a non-WAL table.
• When neither option is specified, the server configuration, cairo.wal.enabled.default, is used:
  • true: creates a WAL table.
  • false: creates a non-WAL table.

WITH table parameter

The parameter influences how often commits of out-of-order data occur. It may be set during table creation using the WITH keyword.

maxUncommittedRows - defines the maximum number of uncommitted rows per-table to keep in memory before triggering a commit for a specific table.

The purpose of specifying maximum uncommitted rows per table is to reduce the occurrences of resource-intensive commits when ingesting out-of-order data.

The global setting for the same parameter is cairo.max.uncommitted.rows.

Setting out-of-order table parameters via SQL

CREATE TABLE my_table (timestamp TIMESTAMP) TIMESTAMP(timestamp)

PARTITION BY DAY WITH maxUncommittedRows=250000;

Checking the values per-table may be done using the tables() function:

List all tables

SELECT id, name, maxUncommittedRows FROM tables();

id	name	maxUncommittedRows
1	my_table	250000
2	device_data	10000

Table target volume

The IN VOLUME clause is used to create a table in a different volume than the standard. The table is created in the specified target volume, and a symbolic link is created in the table's standard volume to point to it.

The use of the comma (,) depends on the existence of the WITH clause:

• If the WITH clause is present, a comma is mandatory before IN VOLUME:

  CREATE TABLE my_table (i symbol, ts timestamp), index(i capacity 32) WITH maxUncommittedRows=7, IN VOLUME SECONDARY_VOLUME;

• If no WITH clause is used, the comma must not be added for the IN VOLUME segment:

  CREATE TABLE my_table (i symbol, ts timestamp) IN VOLUME SECONDARY_VOLUME;

The use of quotation marks (') depends on the alias:

• If the alias contains spaces, the quotation marks are required:

  CREATE TABLE my_table (i symbol, ts timestamp), index(i capacity 32) IN VOLUME 'SECONDARY VOLUME';

• If the alias does not contain spaces, no quotation mark is necessary:

  CREATE TABLE my_table (i symbol, ts timestamp), index(i capacity 32) IN VOLUME SECONDARY_VOLUME;

Description

The table behaves the same way as if it had been created in the standard (default) volume, with the exception that DROP TABLE removes the symbolic link from the standard volume but the content pointed to is left intact in its volume. A table using the same name in the same volume cannot be created again as a result, it requires manual intervention to either remove or rename the table's directory in its volume.

Configuration

The secondary table target volume is defined by cairo.volumes in server.conf. The default setting contains an empty list, which means the feature is not enabled.

To enable the feature, define as many volume pairs as you need, with syntax alias -> volume-root-path, and separate different pairs with a comma. For example:

cairo.volumes=SECONDARY_VOLUME -> /Users/quest/mounts/secondary, BIN -> /var/bin

Additional notes about defining the alias and volume root paths:

• Aliases are case-insensitive.
• Volume root paths must be valid and exist at bootstrap time and at the time when the table is created.
• Aliases and/or volume root paths can be single quoted, it is not required.

QuestDB 6.5.5 and earlier versions

From QuestDB 6.6 onwards, the database adjusts relevant settings automatically and provides optimal ingestion speed.

• commitLag - equivalent to cairo.commit.lag expects a value with a modifier to specify the unit of time for the value:

  unit	description
  us	microseconds
  s	seconds
  m	minutes
  h	hours
  d	days

For more information on commit lag and the maximum uncommitted rows, see the guide for out-of-order commits and ILP commit strategy.

CREATE TABLE LIKE

The LIKE keyword clones the table schema of an existing table without copying the data. Table settings and parameters such as designated timestamp, symbol column indexes, and index capacity will be cloned, too.

Create table like

CREATE TABLE new_table (LIKE my_table);

Examples

The following examples demonstrate creating tables from basic statements, and introduce features such as partitioning and designated timestamps. For more information on the concepts introduced to below, see

• designated timestamp reference on electing a timestamp column
• partition documentation which describes how partitions work in QuestDB
• symbol reference for using the symbol data type

This example will create a table without a designated timestamp and does not have a partitioning strategy applied.

Basic example

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP, s STRING);

The same table can be created and a designated timestamp may be specified.

Adding a designated timestamp

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP, s STRING)

TIMESTAMP(ts);

Adding a partitioning strategy by DAY

CREATE TABLE my_table(symb SYMBOL, price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP, s STRING)

TIMESTAMP(ts)

PARTITION BY DAY;

Adding parameters for symbol type

CREATE TABLE

my_table(symb SYMBOL CAPACITY 256 NOCACHE INDEX CAPACITY 1048576,

price DOUBLE, ts TIMESTAMP, s STRING)

TIMESTAMP(ts)

PARTITION BY DAY;

Let's assume we imported a text file into the table taxi_trips_unordered and now we want to turn this data into time series through ordering trips by pickup_time, assign dedicated timestamp and partition by month:

Create table as select with data manipulation

CREATE TABLE taxi_trips AS(

SELECT * FROM taxi_trips_unordered ORDER BY pickup_time

) TIMESTAMP(pickup_time)

PARTITION BY MONTH;