Ingest from query (.set, .append, .set-or-append, .set-or-replace)
Applies to: ✅ Microsoft Fabric ✅ Azure Data Explorer
These commands execute a query or a management command and ingest the results of the query into a table. The difference between these commands is how they treat existing or nonexistent tables and data.
Command | If table exists | If table doesn't exist |
---|---|---|
.set |
The command fails | The table is created and data is ingested |
.append |
Data is appended to the table | The command fails |
.set-or-append |
Data is appended to the table | The table is created and data is ingested |
.set-or-replace |
Data replaces the data in the table | The table is created and data is ingested |
To cancel an ingest from query command, see cancel operation
.
Note
Ingest from query is a direct ingestion. As such, it does not include automatic retries. Automatic retries are available when ingesting through the data management service. Use the ingestion overview document to decide which is the most suitable ingestion option for your scenario.
Permissions
To perform different actions on a table, specific permissions are required:
- To add rows to an existing table using the
.append
command, you need a minimum of Table Ingestor permissions. - To create a new table using the various
.set
commands, you need a minimum of Database User permissions. - To replace rows in an existing table using the
.set-or-replace
command, you need a minimum of Table Admin permissions.
For more information on permissions, see Kusto role-based access control.
Syntax
(.set
| .append
| .set-or-append
| .set-or-replace
) [async
] tableName [with
(
propertyName =
propertyValue [,
...])
] <|
queryOrCommand
Learn more about syntax conventions.
Parameters
Name | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
async | string |
If specified, the command returns immediately and continues ingestion in the background. Use the returned OperationId with the .show operations command to retrieve the ingestion completion status and results. |
|
tableName | string |
✔️ | The name of the table to ingest data into. The tableName is always related to the database in context. |
propertyName, propertyValue | string |
One or more supported ingestion properties used to control the ingestion process. | |
queryOrCommand | string |
✔️ | The text of a query or a management command whose results are used as data to ingest. Only .show management commands are supported. |
Performance tips
- Set the
distributed
property totrue
if the amount of data produced by the query is large, exceeds 1 GB, and doesn't require serialization. Then, multiple nodes can produce output in parallel. Don't use this flag when query results are small, since it might needlessly generate many small data shards. - Data ingestion is a resource-intensive operation that might affect concurrent activities on the database, including running queries. Avoid running too many ingestion commands at the same time.
- Limit the data for ingestion to less than 1 GB per ingestion operation. If necessary, use multiple ingestion commands.
Supported ingestion properties
Property | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
distributed |
bool |
If true , the command ingests from all nodes executing the query in parallel. Default is false . See performance tips. |
creationTime |
string |
The datetime value, formatted as an ISO8601 string, to use at the creation time of the ingested data extents. If unspecified, now() is used. When specified, make sure the Lookback property in the target table's effective Extents merge policy is aligned with the specified value. |
extend_schema |
bool |
If true , the command may extend the schema of the table. Default is false . This option applies only to .append , .set-or-append , and set-or-replace commands. This option requires at least Table Admin permissions. |
recreate_schema |
bool |
If true , the command may recreate the schema of the table. Default is false . This option applies only to the .set-or-replace command. This option takes precedence over the extend_schema property if both are set. This option requires at least Table Admin permissions. |
folder |
string |
The folder to assign to the table. If the table already exists, this property overwrites the table's folder. |
ingestIfNotExists |
string |
If specified, ingestion fails if the table already has data tagged with an ingest-by: tag with the same value. For more information, see ingest-by: tags. |
policy_ingestiontime |
bool |
If true , the Ingestion Time Policy will be enabled on the table. The default is true . |
tags |
string |
A JSON string that represents a list of tags to associate with the created extent. |
docstring |
string |
A description used to document the table. |
persistDetails |
A Boolean value that, if specified, indicates that the command should persist the detailed results for retrieval by the .show operation details command. Defaults to false . |
with (persistDetails=true) |
Schema considerations
.set-or-replace
preserves the schema unless one ofextend_schema
orrecreate_schema
ingestion properties is set totrue
..set-or-append
and.append
commands preserve the schema unless theextend_schema
ingestion property is set totrue
.- Matching the result set schema to that of the target table is based on the column types. There's no matching of column names. Make sure that the query result schema columns are in the same order as the table, else data will be ingested into the wrong columns.
Caution
If the schema is modified, it happens in a separate transaction before the actual data ingestion. This means the schema may be modified even when there is a failure to ingest the data.
Character limitation
The command fails if the query generates an entity name with the $
character. The entity names must comply with the naming rules, so the $
character must be removed for the ingest command to succeed.
For example, in the following query, the search
operator generates a column $table
. To store the query results, use project-rename to rename the column.
.set Texas <| search State has 'Texas' | project-rename tableName=$table
Examples
Create a new table called RecentErrors in the database that has the same schema as LogsTable and holds all the error records of the last hour.
.set RecentErrors <|
LogsTable
| where Level == "Error" and Timestamp > now() - time(1h)
Create a new table called "OldExtents" in the database that has a single column, "ExtentId", and holds the extent IDs of all extents in the database that were created more than 30 days ago. The database has an existing table named "MyExtents". Since the dataset is expected to be bigger than 1 GB (more than ~1 million rows) use the distributed flag
.set async OldExtents with(distributed=true) <|
MyExtents
| where CreatedOn < now() - time(30d)
| project ExtentId
Append data to an existing table called "OldExtents" in the current database that has a single column, "ExtentId", and holds the extent IDs of all extents in the database that have been created more than 30 days earlier.
Mark the new extent with tags tagA
and tagB
, based on an existing table named "MyExtents".
.append OldExtents with(tags='["TagA","TagB"]') <|
MyExtents
| where CreatedOn < now() - time(30d)
| project ExtentId
Append data to the "OldExtents" table in the current database, or create the table if it doesn't already exist. Tag the new extent with ingest-by:myTag
. Do so only if the table doesn't already contain an extent tagged with ingest-by:myTag
, based on an existing table named "MyExtents".
.set-or-append async OldExtents with(tags='["ingest-by:myTag"]', ingestIfNotExists='["myTag"]') <|
MyExtents
| where CreatedOn < now() - time(30d)
| project ExtentId
Replace the data in the "OldExtents" table in the current database, or create the table if it doesn't already exist. Tag the new extent with ingest-by:myTag
.
.set-or-replace async OldExtents with(tags='["ingest-by:myTag"]', ingestIfNotExists='["myTag"]') <|
MyExtents
| where CreatedOn < now() - time(30d)
| project ExtentId
Append data to the "OldExtents" table in the current database, while setting the extents creation time to a specific datetime in the past.
.append async OldExtents with(creationTime='2017-02-13T11:09:36.7992775Z') <|
MyExtents
| where CreatedOn < now() - time(30d)
| project ExtentId
Return output
Returns information on the extents created because of the .set
or .append
command.
Example output
ExtentId | OriginalSize | ExtentSize | CompressedSize | IndexSize | RowCount |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
23a05ed6-376d-4119-b1fc-6493bcb05563 | 1291 | 5882 | 1568 | 4314 | 10 |