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quote

models/schema.yml
version: 2

models:
- name: model_name
columns:
- name: column_name
quote: true | false

Definition

The quote field can be used to enable or disable quoting for column names.

Default

The default quoting value is false

Explanation

This is particularly relevant to those using Snowflake, where quoting can be particularly fickle.

This property is useful when:

  • A source table has a column that needs to be quoted to be selected, for example, to preserve column casing
  • A seed was created with quote_columns: true (docs) on Snowflake
  • A model uses quotes in the SQL, potentially to work around the use of reserved words
select user_group as "group"

Without setting quote: true:

  • Schema tests applied to this column may fail due to invalid SQL
  • Documentation may not render correctly, e.g. group and "group" may not be matched as the same column name.

Example

Add tests to a quoted column in a source table

This is especially relevant if using Snowflake:

version: 2

sources:
- name: stripe
tables:
- name: payment
columns:
- name: orderID
quote: true
tests:
- not_null

Without quote: true, the following error will occur:

$ dbt test -s source:stripe.*
Running with dbt=0.16.1
Found 7 models, 22 tests, 0 snapshots, 0 analyses, 130 macros, 0 operations, 0 seed files, 4 sources

13:33:37 | Concurrency: 4 threads (target='learn')
13:33:37 |
13:33:37 | 1 of 1 START test source_not_null_stripe_payment_order_id............ [RUN]
13:33:39 | 1 of 1 ERROR source_not_null_stripe_payment_order_id................. [ERROR in 1.89s]
13:33:39 |
13:33:39 | Finished running 1 tests in 6.43s.

Completed with 1 error and 0 warnings:

Database Error in test source_not_null_stripe_payment_order_id (models/staging/stripe/src_stripe.yml)
000904 (42000): SQL compilation error: error line 3 at position 6
invalid identifier 'ORDERID'
compiled SQL at target/compiled/jaffle_shop/schema_test/source_not_null_stripe_payment_orderID.sql

This is because dbt is trying to run:

select count(*)
from raw.stripe.payment
where orderID is null

Instead of:

select count(*)
from raw.stripe.payment
where "orderID" is null

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