Ingest from query (.set, .append, .set-or-append, .set-or-replace)

These commands execute a query or a control 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.

Syntax

.set [async] tableName [with (propertyName = propertyValue [, ...])] <| queryOrCommand

.append [async] tableName [with (propertyName = propertyValue [, ...])] <| queryOrCommand

.set-or-append [async] tableName [with (propertyName = propertyValue [, ...])] <| queryOrCommand

.set-or-replace [async] tableName [with (propertyName = propertyValue [, ...])] <| queryOrCommand

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
async	string		If specified, the command will return and continue 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 control command whose results will be used as data to ingest.

Note

Only .show control commands are supported.

Supported ingestion properties

Property	Type	Description
creationTime	string	The datetime value, formatted as an ISO8601 string, to use at the creation time of the ingested data extents. If unspecified, now() will be 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.
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.
folder	string	The folder to assign to the table. If the table already exists, this property will overwrite the table's folder.
ingestIfNotExists	string	If specified, ingestion won't succeed if the table already has data tagged with an ingest-by: tag with the same value.
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.
distributed	bool	If true, the command will ingest from all nodes executing the query in parallel. Default is false. See performance tips below.
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 will preserve the schema unless one of extend_schema or recreate_schema ingestion properties is set to true.
• .set-or-append and .append commands will preserve the schema unless the extend_schema ingestion property is set to true.
• 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.

Performance tips

• Data ingestion is a resource-intensive operation that might affect concurrent activities on the cluster, 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.
• Set the distributed flag to true if the amount of data being 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.

Character limitation

The command will fail 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.

Run the query

.set stored_query_result Texas <| search ['State']:'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 has been created more than 30 days earlier. 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 created extent(s) 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