Syntax

Use the EXPORT statements to export data specified by a SELECT statement, as in the following example:

=> EXPORT TO PARQUET(directory='webhdfs:///data/sales_data')
   AS SELECT * FROM public.sales;
 Rows Exported
---------------
         14336
(1 row)

The directory argument specifies where to write the files and is required. You must have permission to write to the output directory. The directory must not already exist. You can export to HDFS, S3, GCS, Azure, or the Linux file system. For additional considerations specific to object stores, see Exporting to object stores. If you export to the local Linux file system (not a shared NFS mount) you must take some additional steps; see Exporting to the Linux file system.

You can use EXPORT statements to write queries across multiple tables in Vertica and export the results. With this approach you can take advantage of powerful, fast query execution in Vertica while making the results available to other clients:

=> EXPORT TO ORC(directory='webhdfs:///data/sales_by_region')
   AS SELECT sale.price, sale.date, store.region
   FROM public.sales sale
   JOIN public.vendor store ON sale.distribID = store.ID;
 Rows Exported
---------------
         23301
(1 row)

Data types

All exporters can export scalar types. All except EXPORT TO DELIMITED also support primitive arrays. The JSON and Parquet exporters also support the ARRAY and ROW types in any combination:

=> SELECT * FROM restaurants;
       name        | cuisine |       location_city        |                                     menu
-------------------+---------+----------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Bob's pizzeria    | Italian | ["Cambridge","Pittsburgh"] | [{"item":"cheese pizza","price":null},{"item":"spinach pizza","price":10.5}]
 Bakersfield Tacos | Mexican | ["Pittsburgh"]             | [{"item":"veggie taco","price":9.95},{"item":"steak taco","price":10.95}]
(2 rows)

=> EXPORT TO JSON (directory='/output/json') AS SELECT * FROM restaurants;
 Rows Exported
---------------
             2
(1 row)

=> \! cat /output/json/*.json
{"name":"Bob's pizzeria","cuisine":"Italian","location_city":["Cambridge","Pittsburgh"],"menu":[{"item":"cheese pizza","price":null},{"item":"spinach pizza","price":10.5}]}
{"name":"Bakersfield Tacos","cuisine":"Mexican","location_city":["Pittsburgh"],"menu":[{"item":"veggie taco","price":9.95},{"item":"steak taco","price":10.95}]}

Query

EXPORT statements rewrite the query you specify, because the export is done by a user-defined transform function (UDTF). Because of this rewrite, there are some restrictions on the query you supply.

The query can contain only a single outer SELECT statement. For example, you cannot use UNION:

=> EXPORT TO PARQUET(directory = '/mnt/shared_nfs/accounts/rm')
   OVER(PARTITION BY hash)
   AS
   SELECT 1 as account_id, '{}' as json, 0 hash
   UNION ALL
   SELECT 2 as account_id, '{}' as json, 1 hash;
ERROR 8975:  Only a single outer SELECT statement is supported
HINT:  Please use a subquery for multiple outer SELECT statements

Instead, rewrite the query to use a subquery:

=> EXPORT TO PARQUET(directory = '/mnt/shared_nfs/accounts/rm')
   OVER(PARTITION BY hash)
   AS
   SELECT
    account_id,
    json
   FROM
   (
     SELECT 1 as account_id, '{}' as json, 0 hash
     UNION ALL
     SELECT 2 as account_id, '{}' as json, 1 hash
   ) a;
 Rows Exported
---------------
             2
(1 row)

To use composite statements such as UNION, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT, rewrite them as subqueries.

When exporting data you can use an OVER() clause to partition and sort the data as described in Partitioning and sorting data. Partitioning and sorting can improve query performance. If you partition the data, you cannot specify schema and table names in the SELECT statement. In this case, specify only the column name.

All exporters have a required directory parameter. All allow you to specify a compression type, and each exporter has format-specific parameters. See the parameter descriptions on the individual reference pages: EXPORT TO PARQUET, EXPORT TO ORC, EXPORT TO JSON, and EXPORT TO DELIMITED.