Beacon

Appearance

CREATE VIEW ​

sql
CREATE VIEW north_atlantic AS
    SELECT * FROM ocean_profiles
    WHERE latitude BETWEEN 0 AND 70

A view is a saved SELECT statement that behaves like a table. It holds no data — Beacon runs the query on the fly whenever the view is referenced. Views are persisted and survive restarts.

Syntax ​

sql
CREATE [OR REPLACE] VIEW <view_name> AS
    <select_statement>

OR REPLACE ​

Redefine an existing view without dropping it first:

sql
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW north_atlantic AS
    SELECT * FROM ocean_profiles
    WHERE latitude BETWEEN 0 AND 70
      AND longitude BETWEEN -80 AND 0

Querying over a table function ​

Views work over table functions as well as external tables — useful when you want to expose a specific file set as a named table:

sql
CREATE VIEW argo_2024 AS
    SELECT *
    FROM read_netcdf(['argo/2024/**/*.nc'])
    WHERE time >= '2024-01-01'

Harmonizing datasets with UNION ALL BY NAME ​

Use a view to expose multiple datasets with different schemas as a single unified table. See UNION ALL BY NAME for how column matching and type widening work.

sql
CREATE VIEW all_profiles AS
    SELECT * FROM read_netcdf(['argo/**/*.nc'])
    UNION ALL BY NAME
    SELECT * FROM read_netcdf(['wod/**/*.nc'])

DROP TABLE ​

Remove a view from the catalog:

sql
DROP TABLE north_atlantic

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS north_atlantic

INFO

DROP TABLE removes both external tables and views — there is no separate DROP VIEW statement.