External Files (read_csv / read_json)

read_csv(path) and read_json(path) are table functions, use them anywhere a table name goes (FROM, JOIN, CREATE TABLE ... AS SELECT) to query an external file alongside blocks, no separate import step:

SELECT name, age FROM read_csv('people.csv') WHERE age > 26;
SELECT name FROM read_json('people.jsonl') WHERE active = true;

-- Persist as a custom table
CREATE TABLE people AS SELECT * FROM read_csv('people.csv');

read_csv parses RFC 4180 (quoted fields, embedded commas/quotes/newlines); the first row is the header. read_json expects one JSON object per line (JSON Lines): the column set is the union of every line’s keys, in first-seen order. In both, numeric-looking values support arithmetic/comparison (WHERE age > 26), and a short/missing cell becomes NULL rather than erroring. Parquet is not supported (would need a large parquet/Arrow dependency); an unrecognized table function name (including read_parquet) is rejected with a clear error rather than silently misparsed.