Azure Synapse SQL - Insert

Owned by Kalpana Malladi, created
Last updated: Aug 30, 2024
8 min read

In this article

Overview

You can use this Snap to insert new records into database tables. The Snap executes an SQL Insert statement with the specified values. Key-value pairs are used to insert columns and their respective values into the table columns. Missing columns from the document results in inserting null values into them.

Snap Type

The Azure Synapse SQL Insert Snap is a WRITE-type Snap that inserts new records into a SQL database table.

Prerequisites

  • Valid client ID.

  • A valid database account with the required permissions.

Support for Ultra Pipelines

Works in Ultra Pipelines. 

Limitations

Known Issues

None.

Snap Views

Type

Format

Number of Views

Examples of Upstream and Downstream Snaps

Description

Type

Format

Number of Views

Examples of Upstream and Downstream Snaps

Description

Input 

Document

 

  • Min: 1

  • Max: 2

  • Mapper

  • JSON Generator

  • CSV Parser

The second input view can be added to use the metadata of the source table as a document so that the table is created in SQL with a similar schema as the source table. The metadata is not used if the table already exists.

Output

Document

  • Min: 0

  • Max: 1

  • JSON Generator

The Snap outputs one document for every record written, therefore any document processing Snap can be used downstream. 

If an output view is available, then the original document that was used to create the statement is written to the output with the status of the insert executed.

Error

Error handling is a generic way to handle errors without losing data or failing the Snap execution. You can handle the errors that the Snap might encounter when running the Pipeline by choosing one of the following options from the When errors occur list under the Views tab. The available options are:

  • Stop Pipeline Execution: Stops the current Pipeline execution when the Snap encounters an error.

  • Discard Error Data and Continue: Ignores the error, discards that record, and continues with the remaining records.

  • Route Error Data to Error View: Routes the error data to an error view without stopping the Snap execution.

Learn more about Error handling in Pipelines.

Snap Settings

  • Asterisk (*): Indicates a mandatory field.

  • Suggestion icon (): Indicates a list that is dynamically populated based on the configuration.

  • Expression icon (): Indicates whether the value is an expression (if enabled) or a static value (if disabled). Learn more about Using Expressions in SnapLogic.

  • Add icon (): Indicates that you can add fields in the field set.

  • Remove icon (): Indicates that you can remove fields from the field set.

Field Name

Field Type

Description

Field Name

Field Type

Description

Label*

Default Value: Azure Synapse SQL - Insert
Example: Azure_Synapse_SQL_Insert

String

Specify the name for the Snap. You can modify this to be more specific, especially if you have more than one of the same Snap in your Pipeline.

 

Schema Name

Default Value: None
Example: dbo

String/Expression

Specify the database schema name. If it is not defined, then the suggestion for the Table Name will retrieve all tables names of all schemas. The property is suggestible and will retrieve available database schemas during suggest values.

Table Name*

Default Value: None
Example: dbo.people

String/Expression

Specify the name of a table to which the records are to be inserted.

Create table if not present

Default Value: Deselected

Checkbox

Select this checkbox to create the target table if it does not exist:

  • If a second input view is configured for the Snap and it contains a document with schema (metadata) of the source table, the Snap creates the new (target) table using the same schema (metadata). However, if the schema comes from a different database, the Snap might fail with the Unable to create table:"<table_name>" error because of data type incompatibility.

  • In the absence of a second input view (the schema/metadata document), the Snap creates a table based on the data types of the columns generated from the first row of the input document (first input view).

Because of implementation details, a newly created table is not visible to subsequent database Snaps during runtime validation. If you must immediately use the newly updated data, use a child Pipeline that you invoke through a Pipeline Execute Snap.

Number of Retries

Default Value: Deselected

String/Expression

Specify the maximum number of attempts to be made to receive a response. The request is terminated if the attempts do not result in a response.

Retry Interval (seconds)

Default Value: 1
Example: 10

String/Expression

Specify the time period between two successive retry requests. A retry happens only when the previous attempt resulted in an exception. 

Enable identity insert

Default Value: Deselected

Checkbox

Select this checkbox to insert values from the input document into the target table identity column. Ensure that the target table contains an identity column. If you do not select this checkbox, then do not enter any value for the identity column in the input document.

Snap Execution

Default Value: 
Example: Validate & Execute

Dropdown list

Select one of the three modes in which the Snap executes. Available options are:

  • Validate & Execute: Performs limited execution of the Snap, and generates a data preview during Pipeline validation. Subsequently, performs full execution of the Snap (unlimited records) during Pipeline runtime.

  • Execute only: Performs full execution of the Snap during Pipeline execution without generating preview data.

  • Disabled: Disables the Snap and all Snaps that are downstream from it.

Table Creation

If the table does not exist when the Snap tries to do the insert, and the Create table if not present field is selected, a new table is created with the columns and data types required to hold the values in the first input document. If you would like the table to be created with the same schema as a source table, you can connect the second output view of a Select Snap to the second input view of this Snap. The extra view in the Select and Bulk Load Snaps are used to pass metadata about the table, effectively allowing you to replicate a table from one database to another.

The table metadata document that is read in by the second input view contains a dump of the JDBC DatabaseMetaData class. The document can be manipulated to affect the CREATE TABLE statement that is generated by this Snap. For example, to rename the name column to full_name, you can use a Mapper Snap that sets the path $.columns.name.COLUMN_NAME to full_name.  The document contains the following fields:

  • columns - Contains the result of the getColumns() method with each column as a separate field in the object. Changing the COLUMN_NAME value will change the name of the column in the created table. Note that if you change a column name, you do not need to change the name of the field in the row input documents. The Snap will automatically translate from the original name to the new name. For example, when changing from name to full_name, the name field in the input document is put into the "full_name" column. You can also drop a column by setting the COLUMN_NAME value to null or the empty string.  The other fields of interest in the column definition are:

    • TYPE_NAME - The type to use for the column.  If this type is not known to the database, the DATA_TYPE field is used as a fallback.  If you want to explicitly set a type for a column, set the DATA_TYPE field.

    • _SL_PRECISION - Contains the result of the getPrecision() method.  This field is used with the _SL_SCALE field for setting the precision and scale of a DECIMAL or NUMERIC field.

    • _SL_SCALE - Contains the result of the getScale() method.  This field is used with the _SL_PRECISION field for setting the precision and scale of a DECIMAL or NUMERIC field.

  • primaryKeyColumns - Contains the result of the getPrimaryKeys() method with each column as a separate field in the object.

  • declaration - Contains the result of the getTables() method for this table. The values in this object are just informational. The target table name is taken from the Snap property.

  • importedKeys - Contains the foreign key information from the getImportedKeys() method. The generatedCREATE TABLE statement will include FOREIGN KEY constraints based on the contents of this object. Note that you will need to change the PKTABLE_NAME value if you changed the name of the referenced table when replicating it.

  • indexInfo - Contains the result of the getIndexInfo() method for this table with each index as a separated field in the object.  Any UNIQUE indexes in here will be included in the CREATE TABLE statement generated by this Snap.

This Snap will not automatically fix some errors encountered during table creation because it requires user intervention to resolve correctly. For example, if the source table contains a column with a type that does not have a direct mapping in the target database, the Snap fails to execute. You then need to add a Mapper Snap to change the metadata document to explicitly set the values needed to produce a valid "CREATE TABLE" statement.

Examples

Inserting Records by Creating a New Table

This example Pipeline demonstrates how to insert data into a table. The table 'employee1' does not exist on the database initially. So, the Snap first creates the table 'Employee1' and then inserts the records read and parsed using the upstream Snaps.

First read the data that you want to insert with a File Reader Snap:

The CSV file contains the following data:

The CSV Parser Snap parses the data from the CSV file in a proper format, ready to be inserted into the database using the Azure Synapse SQL Insert Snap:

Then we pass this data to Azure Synapse SQL Insert Snap to be inserted to a table name 'Employee1' under schema 'dbo':

 

Download this Pipeline. 

Downloads

 

  File Modified

File AzureSynapseSql - Insert.slp

Jul 08, 2022 by Sandhya Sriram

Snap Pack History

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