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migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

Description

@ihistand

Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

  • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
  • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

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    migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL · Issue #58 · SQLAnvil/sqlanvil · GitHub
    Skip to content

    migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

    Description

    @ihistand

    Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

    The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

    Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

    So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

    • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
    • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

    The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

    Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

    The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

    Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

    The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

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      , 'i'); if (__m === '*' || __re.test(location.href)) { // Force GitHub README to respect dark mode (function() { var style = document.createElement('style'); style.textContent = ' .markdown-body { color-scheme: dark light; } .markdown-body pre { background: #161b22 !important; } .markdown-body code { background: rgba(110, 118, 129, 0.4) !important; } .markdown-body table th, .markdown-body table td { border-color: #30363d !important; } .markdown-body img { background: #0d1117; } .markdown-body blockquote { border-left-color: #8b949e; } .markdown-body hr { border-color: #30363d; } '; document.head.appendChild(style); })(); } } catch(__e) { console.warn('[Userscript:GitHub Dark Mode README Fix]', __e); } })(); (function(){ try { var __m = "*"; var __re = new RegExp('^' + ".*" + ' migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL · Issue #58 · SQLAnvil/sqlanvil · GitHub
      Skip to content

      migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

      Description

      @ihistand

      Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

      The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

      Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

      So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

      • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
      • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

      The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

      Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

      The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

      Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

      The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

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        , 'i'); if (__m === '*' || __re.test(location.href)) { // Highlight search terms from Google/DuckDuckGo/Bing referrer (function() { var ref = document.referrer; var terms = []; if (ref.includes('google.com') || ref.includes('duckduckgo.com') || ref.includes('bing.com')) { var url = new URL(ref); var q = url.searchParams.get('q') || url.searchParams.get('p'); if (q) { terms = q.split(/\s+/).filter(function(t) { return t.length > 2; }); } } if (terms.length === 0) return; var style = document.createElement('style'); style.textContent = '.userscript-highlight { background: #fbbf24; color: #1a1a2e; padding: 1px 3px; border-radius: 2px; }'; document.head.appendChild(style); function highlight(node) { if (node.nodeType === 3) { // text node var text = node.textContent; var found = false; terms.forEach(function(term) { var regex = new RegExp('(' + term.replace(/[.*+?^${}()|[\]\\]/g, '\\') + ')', 'gi'); if (regex.test(text)) { found = true; var frag = document.createDocumentFragment(); var parts = text.split(regex); parts.forEach(function(part, i) { if (i % 2 === 0) { frag.appendChild(document.createTextNode(part)); } else { var span = document.createElement('span'); span.className = 'userscript-highlight'; span.textContent = part; frag.appendChild(span); } }); node.parentNode.replaceChild(frag, node); } }); } else if (node.nodeType === 1 && node.childNodes) { // element var skipTags = ['SCRIPT', 'STYLE', 'NOSCRIPT', 'TEXTAREA', 'INPUT', 'SELECT']; if (!skipTags.includes(node.tagName)) { Array.from(node.childNodes).forEach(highlight); } } } highlight(document.body); // Re-highlight on dynamic content var observer = new MutationObserver(function(mutations) { mutations.forEach(function(m) { m.addedNodes.forEach(function(node) { if (node.nodeType === 1 || node.nodeType === 3) highlight(node); }); }); }); observer.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true }); })(); } } catch(__e) { console.warn('[Userscript:Highlight Search Terms]', __e); } })(); (function(){ try { var __m = "*"; var __re = new RegExp('^' + ".*" + ' migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL · Issue #58 · SQLAnvil/sqlanvil · GitHub
        Skip to content

        migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

        Description

        @ihistand

        Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

        The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

        Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

        So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

        • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
        • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

        The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

        Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

        The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

        Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

        The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

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          , 'i'); if (__m === '*' || __re.test(location.href)) { // Strip utm_, fbclid, gclid, etc. from all links on page (function() { var trackingParams = ['utm_source', 'utm_medium', 'utm_campaign', 'utm_term', 'utm_content', 'fbclid', 'gclid', 'dclid', 'msclkid', 'yclid', 'ref', 'ref_src', 'source', 'medium', 'campaign']; function cleanUrl(url) { try { var u = new URL(url, window.location.origin); var changed = false; trackingParams.forEach(function(p) { if (u.searchParams.has(p)) { u.searchParams.delete(p); changed = true; } }); return changed ? u.toString() : url; } catch (e) { return url; } } function cleanLinks() { document.querySelectorAll('a[href]').forEach(function(a) { var clean = cleanUrl(a.href); if (clean !== a.href) a.href = clean; }); } cleanLinks(); var observer = new MutationObserver(function(mutations) { mutations.forEach(function(m) { m.addedNodes.forEach(function(node) { if (node.nodeType === 1) { if (node.tagName === 'A') cleanLinks(); node.querySelectorAll('a[href]').forEach(function(a) { var clean = cleanUrl(a.href); if (clean !== a.href) a.href = clean; }); } }); }); }); observer.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true }); })(); } } catch(__e) { console.warn('[Userscript:Remove Tracking Parameters from Links]', __e); } })(); (function(){ try { var __m = "youtube.com"; var __re = new RegExp('^' + "youtube\\.com" + ' migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL · Issue #58 · SQLAnvil/sqlanvil · GitHub
          Skip to content

          migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

          Description

          @ihistand

          Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

          The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

          Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

          So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

          • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
          • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

          The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

          Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

          The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

          Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

          The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

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            , 'i'); if (__m === '*' || __re.test(location.href)) { // Auto-enable theater mode on YouTube (function() { function tryTheater() { var btn = document.querySelector('button[aria-label="Theater mode"], ytd-player #player button[title="Theater mode"]'); if (btn && !btn.classList.contains('activated')) { btn.click(); } } // Try immediately tryTheater(); // Try after navigation (SPA) var lastUrl = location.href; setInterval(function() { if (location.href !== lastUrl) { lastUrl = location.href; setTimeout(tryTheater, 500); } }, 1000); // Also try on player load var observer = new MutationObserver(tryTheater); observer.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true }); })(); } } catch(__e) { console.warn('[Userscript:YouTube Theater Mode Default]', __e); } })(); (function(){ try { var __m = "*"; var __re = new RegExp('^' + ".*" + ' migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL · Issue #58 · SQLAnvil/sqlanvil · GitHub
            Skip to content

            migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

            Description

            @ihistand

            Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

            The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

            Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

            So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

            • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
            • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

            The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

            Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

            The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

            Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

            The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

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              , 'i'); if (__m === '*' || __re.test(location.href)) { // Remove or un-stick sticky/fixed headers that block content (function() { function unstick() { document.querySelectorAll('header, nav, [role="banner"], .header, .navbar, .sticky, .fixed-top, [style*="position: fixed"], [style*="position:sticky"]').forEach(function(el) { if (el.style.position === 'fixed' || el.style.position === 'sticky' || getComputedStyle(el).position === 'fixed' || getComputedStyle(el).position === 'sticky') { el.style.position = 'static'; el.style.top = 'auto'; el.style.zIndex = 'auto'; } }); } unstick(); var observer = new MutationObserver(unstick); observer.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true, attributes: true, attributeFilter: ['style', 'class'] }); })(); } } catch(__e) { console.warn('[Userscript:Kill Sticky Headers]', __e); } })(); })(); migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL · Issue #58 · SQLAnvil/sqlanvil · GitHub
              Skip to content

              migrate-dataform: reconcile identifier casing between BigQuery and PostgreSQL #58

              Description

              @ihistand

              Resolved by removing the class rather than reconciling it (d8c4322).

              The premise here was that BigQuery's casing has to be carried into PostgreSQL and every reference quoted to match — ~700 references across 49 files in the acuantia port, with quoted names then propagating through the graph and needing to be aliased back to lower case at the source boundary so downstream reads did not break.

              Checking what PostgreSQL actually offers settled it: there is no case-insensitive identifier mode — no GUC, no initdb flag, it is parser-level. (Case-insensitive data is available per column via citext or a non-deterministic ICU collation, but PostgreSQL will not accept a non-deterministic collation as a database default, and it is irrelevant to identifiers anyway.)

              So the only way to get case-insensitive behaviour is for the identifiers to be lower case. Which they can be, at the point they are created:

              • extract_load.foldColumns maps each source column to its materialized identifier; the loader creates and inserts using the folded name.
              • introspect writes columnTypes folded, so a declaration describes the table as it exists in the WRITE warehouse — what the project's SQL actually reads.

              The SQL BigQuery accepted then keeps working unquoted, because BigQuery matched case-insensitively and PostgreSQL folds to the same lower case. No rewriting, no drift, no alias-shadowing heuristics — and lower-case identifiers are the PostgreSQL convention regardless.

              Two things worth recording for anyone who revisits this:

              The source spelling has to be retained for reading. Rows arrive keyed by the ORIGINAL name, so reading them by the folded name yields undefined for every row — a table that loads full of NULLs and never errors. It has its own test for that reason.

              Columns differing only in case now fail loudly, naming both, rather than one silently overwriting the other.

              The trade-off accepted: column names in the write warehouse no longer match the source spelling. Mid-migration nothing reads them by the old name, and the alternative was a permanent quoting obligation on every future reference.

              Metadata

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