BBF

Read the files

text

read_bbf(glob_paths)

Beacon reads Beacon Binary Format files.

sql

SELECT * FROM read_bbf('bbf/**/*.bbf')

Check the columns and the types before you write a query:

sql

SELECT * FROM read_bbf('data/*.bbf') LIMIT 0;

Inspect a schema compares the _schema functions, SUMMARIZE, DESCRIBE and LIMIT 0, and says what each one costs.

The Beacon Binary Format (BBF) is the columnar format of Beacon. It suits the queries of earth science and oceanography.

Full object storage support, with authenticated access.
Chunk-level predicate pruning, like the row group filter of Parquet.
Fast for repeated range queries over coordinate columns such as time, depth, latitude and longitude.

Convert your NetCDF files to BBF with the beacon-binary-format-toolbox. This makes queries over a large collection much faster.

sql

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE my_table
STORED AS BBF
LOCATION 'path/to/files';

See Create External Tables for the full DDL. See Data Sources for the full read model.