Bigtable Basics

Bigtable SQL Guide for Agents

This document outlines key aspects of Google Bigtable's SQL dialect which extends GoogleSQL to support a multi-version wide-column data model. Bigtable currently only supports SELECT statements over single tables i.e. JOIN and UNION operations are not supported with the exception of JOINs with UNNEST(array) to support working with nested objects.

Table of Contents

• Bigtable SQL Data Structures [L19-L190]

  • Columns [L21-L42]

  • Primitive types [L43-L65]

  • Timestamps [L66-L124]

  • Row keys [L125-L157]

  • Maps [L158-L164]

  • Protocol buffers (protos) [L165-L181]

  • Functions and operators [L182-L190]

Bigtable SQL Data Structures

Columns

Unless table metadata indicates otherwise, columns are of Map type which hold versioned key-value pairs. In legacy Bigtable APIs, SQL maps correspond to column families.

• Access Pattern: You cannot select a column directly as a scalar value. You must access the specific key within the column family.

• Correct Syntax Example:

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  -- CORRECT: Use map-like bracket notation for the column qualifier.
  SELECT cf1['text'] FROM messages;

• Incorrect Syntax Example:

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  -- INCORRECT: Dot notation is not supported and will fail.
  SELECT cf1.text FROM messages;

Primitive types

There is often no type information associated with column values. You should infer the type from the name of the column and include an explicit cast in generated SQL queries.

• Example: SELECT CAST(info['address'] AS STRING) AS address FROM table_name

• Example: SELECT CAST(CAST(info['age'] AS STRING) AS INT64) AS age FROM table_name

• Example: SELECT SAFE_CAST(info['address'] AS STRING) FROM table_name;

• Example: SELECT TO_INT64(cf['age']) as age FROM table_name

• Example: SELECT CAST(CAST(cf['checkin_date'] AS STRING) AS DATE) AS checkin_date FROM table_name

• Example: SELECT TIMESTAMP(CAST(CAST(cf['checkin_date'] AS STRING) AS DATE)) AS checkin_date_time FROM table_name

• Example: SELECT CAST(CAST(cf['is_booked'] AS STRING) AS BOOL) AS is_booked FROM table_name - if "true" or "false" was stored

• Example: SELECT CAST(TO_INT64(cf['is_booked']) AS BOOL) AS is_booked FROM table_name - if 1 or 0 was stored`

• Example: SELECT CAST(SAFE_CONVERT_BYTES_TO_STRING(cf['is_booked']) AS BOOL) AS is_booked from table_name, if "true" or "false" was stored

Timestamps

By default Bigtable returns the latest value of each column when use with a standard SELECT statement. You can use different flags explained below to get prior versions. Using any flag other than "as_of" and "with_history => FALSE" will return timestamp-value pairs. SQL interface exposes Bigtable timestamps as SQL TIMESTAMP type. This section doesn't contain the exhaustive list of all version management flags, for more details refer to the Google Cloud documentation.

• Access Pattern: To retrieve values as of a certain point in time (on or immediately prior to the provided timestamp), use the as_of flag.

SELECT * FROM table_name(as_of => TIMESTAMP("2025-03-28 14:13:40-0400"))

• Access Pattern: To retrieve all versions treat table name as a table-valued function and set the with_history flag to TRUE.

SELECT * FROM table_name(with_history => TRUE)

• Access Pattern: To retrieve last 5 versions treat table name as a table-valued function and use the with_history flag.

SELECT * FROM table_name(with_history => TRUE, latest_n => 5)

• Access Pattern: To retrieve a range of timestamps treat table name as a table-valued function and use the before, after, after_or_equal, and before_or_equal flags.

SELECT * FROM table_name(with_history => true, after => TIMESTAMP("2025-03-28 14:13:40-0400"), before_or_equal => TIMESTAMP("2025-03-28 14:15:10-04:00"))

• Access Pattern: Convert timestamped values into a flat table and perform time bucketing and aggregations.

SELECT TIMESTAMP_TRUNC(_timestamp, HOUR) AS hourly, AVG(temp_versioned) AS average_temperature FROM
UNPACK((SELECT metrics['temperature'] AS temp_versioned FROM sensorReadings(with_history => true, after => TIMESTAMP('2023-01-14T23:00:00.000Z'), before => TIMESTAMP('2023-01-21T01:00:00.000Z'))
WHERE _key LIKE 'sensorA%'))
GROUP BY 1

Row keys

Each Bigtable row is identified with a unique key. Bigtable SQL interface has a pseudo-column named _key that is used to query by row key.

Standard Scans (Opaque Key)

Success with Bigtable depends on translating logical queries into efficient physical scans.

• Point Lookup: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE _key = 'row_key'

• Prefix Scan: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE STARTS_WITH(_key, 'prefix#')

• Range Scan: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE _key >= 'start#key' AND _key < 'end#key'

• Fuzzy Match: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE _key LIKE '%#pattern#%' (Warning: Causes full table scan)

Querying with Structured Row Keys

If a Structured Row Key is defined for the table (see schema_design.md), you can reference segments directly by name in the WHERE clause. This allows for cleaner, more expressive queries.

• Syntax: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE segment_name = 'value'

• Example: If your structure defines tenant_id and timestamp, you can query: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE tenant_id = '123' AND timestamp > 1713300000

Agent Action: When generating queries that are not looking for exact matches (point lookups), key ranges, or prefixes, warn the user that the query will result in a full table scan.

Maps

Inspect qualifiers within a column family.

• Example: SELECT MAP_KEYS(cf1) FROM table_name

• Example: SELECT MAP_ENTRIES(cf1) FROM table_name

Protocol buffers (protos)

Some users prefer to serialize data to protobufs and store them as blobs in Bigtable. Protobufs reduce the storage footprint and are often faster to read, advantageous for data that is not frequently updated. Protobufs can be directly queried using SQL after their schemas are registered using gcloud bigtable schema-bundles create.

• Example: If you have profile proto that has attributes user_name, gender and birth_year registered under accounts bundle with package_name publisher stored under family user, column qualifier info you can query:

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  SELECT CAST(user['info'] AS accounts.publisher.profile).user_name FROM accounts;

Functions and operators

Bigtable offers a wide range of SQL functions and operators and conditional expressions.