Input

The super command and the super db load commands take input arguments.

A super db -c query can refer to HTTP inputs but not file-system paths or stdin.

The inputs for the super command may be specified either

• within the query itself, e.g., using a from operator or a SQL FROM clause,
• as command-line arguments indicated by one more <path> parameters, or
• from standard input when the <path> argument is specified as dash (-).

The super db load command does not run a query and takes input only as <path> arguments.

A <path> argument can be

• standard input or
• file-system path relative to the directory in which super runs, or
• HTTP, HTTPS, or S3 URLs.

Command-line <path> arguments are treated as if a from operator precedes the provided query, e.g.,

super -c "FROM example.json | SELECT a,b,c"

is equivalent to

super -c "SELECT a,b,c" example.json

and both are equivalent to the classic SQL

super -c "SELECT a,b,c FROM example.json"

When multiple input files are specified, they are processed in the order given as if the data were provided by a single, concatenated FROM clause.

If no input is specified, the query is fed a single null value analogous to SQL’s default input of a single empty row of an unnamed table. This provides a convenient means to run standalone examples or compute results like a calculator, e.g.,

super -s -c '1+1'

is shorthand for values 1+1 and emits

2

Format Detection

In general, super just works when it comes to automatically inferring the data formats of its inputs.

For files with a well known extension (like .json, .parquet, .sup etc.), the format is implied by the extension.

For standard input or files without a recognizable extension, super attempts to detect the format by reading and parsing some of the data.

To override these format inference heuristics, -i may be used to specify the input formats of command-line files or the (format) option of a data source specified in a from operator.

When -i is used, all of the input files must have the same format. Without -i, each file format is determined independently so you can mix and match input formats.

For example, suppose this content is in a file sample.csv:

a,b
1,foo
2,bar

and this content is in sample.json

{"a":3,"b":"baz"}

then the command

super -s sample.csv sample.json

would produce this output in the default SUP format

{a:1.,b:"foo"}
{a:2.,b:"bar"}
{a:3,b:"baz"}

Note that the line format cannot be automatically detected and requires -i or (format line) for reading.

Note

Parquet and CSUP require a seekable input and cannot be operated upon when read on standard input.