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Snowquery

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Overview

Run SQL queries on Snowflake, Redshift, Postgres, SQLite, or a local DuckDB database from R using a single function: queryDB().

snowquery now also supports streaming remote query results directly into a local DuckDB file for fast, repeatable, low‑cost analysis.

Installation

# The easiest way to get snowquery
install.packages("snowquery")

# Or you can get the development version from GitHub
# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("mermelstein/snowquery")

Redshift notes

Redshift is currently only available on the development version of this package. See installation instructions above.

When connecting to a Redshift DWH you might need to specify an SSL connection. You can do this with a sslmode='require' connection variable or by passing that to the queryDB() function directly.

Snowflake notes

Because Snowflake’s driver requires a ton of fiddling in order to make it work for R. It sucks. A lot.

To sum up the current experience of running SQL against Snowflake from:

That’s why the snowquery package takes the Snowflake python connector and leverages it in the background to run queries from R.

Documentation

For more information on using snowquery, please see the package website.

Requirements

Base R dependencies are installed automatically via the DESCRIPTION. Additional runtime needs:

  1. DuckDB caching: duckdb (installed automatically when you install the package, but you may also install manually with install.packages("duckdb")).
  2. Snowflake: A Python 3 runtime accessible to reticulate. The package will automatically install / upgrade snowflake-connector-python[pandas] the first time you run a Snowflake query. No manual pip install is required in normal use.
  3. Redshift / Postgres: Handled through RPostgres (already imported). If you need SSL, set sslmode in the YAML or pass it directly.
  4. SQLite: Provide a file path in the credential YAML (see below).

If the package cannot find a working Python, you’ll receive an actionable error explaining what to install.

Credentials

For all db connections you will need a YAML file called snowquery_creds.yaml at ~/snowquery_creds.yaml with one or more named connections:

---
my_snowflake_dwh:
  db_type: snowflake
  account: your_account
  warehouse: your_wh
  database: your_db
  user: your_user          # note: key is 'user' not 'username' for snowflake
  password: your_pw
  role: your_role

my_redshift_dwh:
  db_type: redshift
  host: redshift-cluster.host.aws.com
  port: 5439
  database: analytics
  username: rs_user
  password: rs_pw
  sslmode: require

my_postgres_db:
  db_type: postgres
  host: localhost
  port: 5432
  database: pg_db
  username: pg_user
  password: pg_pw

my_sqlite_db:
  db_type: sqlite
  database: /path/to/local.sqlite

my_duckdb_local:
  db_type: duckdb   # connects to the default analytics.duckdb file in working dir

This follows a named connection format, where you can have multiple named connections in the same file. For example you might have a my_snowflake_dwh connection and a my_snowflake_admin connection, each with their own credentials.

This package looks for the credential file at this location: ~/snowquery_creds.yaml. If it is in any other location it will not work. If the package cannot locate the file you will receive an error like: cannot open file '/expected/path/to/file/snowquery_creds.yaml': No such file or directory. You can manually pass credentials to the queryDB() function but it is recommended to use the YAML file.

You are now ready to query away!

Usage

Load this library in your R environment with library(snowquery).

Basic Remote Query

queryDB("SELECT * FROM MY_AWESOME_TABLE", conn_name='my_snowflake_dwh')

or

# Query Snowflake and get results as a data frame
results <- queryDB("SELECT * FROM my_large_table LIMIT 1000", conn_name = "my_snowflake_dwh")

or

# You can also pass in credentials manually
results <- queryDB("SELECT * FROM my_table",
                   db_type='snowflake',
                   username='my_username',
                   password='my_password',
                   account='my_account',
                   database='my_database',
                   warehouse='my_warehouse',
                   role='my_role',
                   timeout=30)
print(results)

Caching to DuckDB

Provide cache_table_name to stream results into the local DuckDB file analytics.duckdb:

# Cache a Snowflake query (streaming batches when possible)
queryDB(
  "SELECT * FROM MY_SCHEMA.BIG_FACT_TABLE WHERE load_date >= '2025-09-01'",
  conn_name = "my_snowflake_dwh",
  cache_table_name = "big_fact_local",
  overwrite = TRUE
)
# message: Successfully cached 1234567 rows to DuckDB table 'big_fact_local' (analytics.duckdb).

# Cache a Postgres query (uses dplyr/dbplyr lazy streaming under the hood)
queryDB(
  "SELECT id, event_ts, metric FROM events WHERE event_ts >= now() - interval '7 days'",
  conn_name = "my_postgres_db",
  cache_table_name = "recent_events",
  overwrite = TRUE
)

Key behaviors: * Snowflake path streams using fetch_pandas_batches() when available; otherwise falls back to a single fetch. * Postgres / Redshift path uses a lazy dplyr table registered into DuckDB for efficient transfer. * overwrite = TRUE creates/replaces the DuckDB table; set overwrite = FALSE to append (for Snowflake append happens batch‑by‑batch; for Postgres/Redshift you can modify logic as needed). * You cannot cache from a DuckDB source (db_type == 'duckdb').

Querying the Local DuckDB Cache

Add a DuckDB connection to the YAML (see my_duckdb_local example above) and query cached tables:

local_summary <- queryDB(
  "SELECT COUNT(*) AS n_rows FROM big_fact_local",
  conn_name = "my_duckdb_local"
)
local_summary

You can also use DBI or dplyr directly:

library(DBI)
duck_con <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb(), dbdir = "analytics.duckdb")
DBI::dbGetQuery(duck_con, "SELECT * FROM recent_events LIMIT 5")
DBI::dbDisconnect(duck_con, shutdown = TRUE)

There is one function you need: queryDB(). It will take a SQL query as a string parameter and run it on the db.

For example:

library(snowquery)

query <- "SELECT * FROM MY_AWESOME_TABLE"
result_dataframe <- queryDB(query, conn_name='my_snowflake_dwh')
print(result_dataframe)

or

library(snowquery)

queryDB("SELECT * FROM MY_AWESOME_TABLE", conn_name='my_snowflake_dwh')

or

library(snowquery)
# You can also pass in credentials manually
result <- queryDB("SELECT * FROM my_table",
                   db_type='snowflake',
                   username='my_username',
                   password='my_password',
                   account='my_account',
                   database='my_database',
                   warehouse='my_warehouse',
                   role='my_role',
                   timeout=30)
print(result)

DuckDB Caching Notes

Workflow: 1. Pull once from a remote DWH. 2. Iterate locally against DuckDB for joins, aggregations, prototyping. 3. Refresh by re‑running with overwrite = TRUE, or append with overwrite = FALSE (Snowflake / append path: ensure schema consistency).

Why DuckDB? * Fast analytical execution (vectorized / columnar). * Lightweight (no server to run). * Plays nicely with data frames and dplyr (dbplyr translations work out of the box for Postgres/Redshift streaming path).

Limitations / Notes: * Snowflake streaming depends on connector feature availability; falls back to full fetch if batch iterator missing. * Appending from heterogenous schemas is not validated automatically. * No explicit indexing (internal zone maps generally sufficient). * Caching from a DuckDB source is intentionally blocked (it is already local).

Planned (future): progress display, verbosity flag, helper to enumerate cached tables.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
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