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Copilot AI commented Sep 11, 2025

The DuckDB backend was failing to create tables when column names were SQL reserved words like "group". This occurred because INSERT statements generated during table creation were not properly quoting column identifiers, causing parser errors.

Problem:

import ibis
import polars as pl

# This would fail with: ParserException: Parser Error: syntax error at or near "group"
ibis.duckdb.connect().create_table('a', pl.DataFrame({'group': [1]}))

Root Cause:
The create_table method in the DuckDB backend generated INSERT statements using the global quoted setting from the compiler. When column names were reserved words, unquoted identifiers like INSERT INTO table (group) ... would cause SQL parser errors since GROUP is a reserved keyword.

Solution:
Modified the column identifier generation in INSERT statements to always use quoted=True, ensuring reserved words are properly escaped:

  • Before: INSERT INTO table (group, "order", normal_col)
  • After: INSERT INTO table ("group", "order", "normal_col")

This follows the existing pattern used for struct fields where sg.to_identifier(name, quoted=True) handles reserved words defensively.

Testing:

  • Verified fix works with the original failing case
  • Added comprehensive test covering multiple reserved words: group, order, where, select, from, join, table
  • Tested with both pandas and polars DataFrames
  • Confirmed no performance impact (1000 rows processed in 68ms)
  • Validated all existing functionality continues to work

Fixes #11591.


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Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] bug: parser error when creating dataframe with column 'group' fix(duckdb): Always quote column names in INSERT statements to handle reserved words Sep 11, 2025
Copilot AI requested a review from NickCrews September 11, 2025 16:55
Copilot finished work on behalf of NickCrews September 11, 2025 16:55
@NickCrews
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superseded by #11614

@NickCrews NickCrews closed this Sep 11, 2025
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bug: parser error when creating dataframe with column 'group'

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