Quick Tips · Tip 02 · 0:22
How to run SQL on a CSV file without a database
DuckDB queries the file directly, no server and no import step: group 1,200 rows of sales.csv by region and West leads at 17,264. It works on Parquet files too.
Key moments
What you’ll needPython 3.10+, DuckDB
What you’ll need
- python.org/downloads →
Python 3.10 or newerRuns the code. Check yours with python3 --version. - code.visualstudio.com →
VS Code or CursorEither works; so does any editor you like. - git-scm.com/downloads →
gitOptional for a tip: to keep your own copy of the code. 
DuckDB 1.0+SQL on files and tables, no database serverpip install "duckdb>=1.0"
Set it up
- 1Make a virtual environmentIt keeps this project's packages separate from the rest of your computer.
python3 -m venv .venv source .venv/bin/activate
- 2Install the package
pip install "duckdb>=1.0"
- 3Run itSave the snippet below as query.py. It reads sales.csv from the video's demo data, which isn't published, so point it at your own file.
python3 query.py
query.pyOpen on GitHub →
import duckdb
duckdb.sql("""
SELECT region, SUM(amount) AS revenue
FROM 'sales.csv'
GROUP BY region ORDER BY revenue DESC
""").show()Transcript
Stop loading CSVs into a database to query them. DuckDB needs no server. SQL reads the file directly. Group by region, and show.
Run it. 1,200 rows, three totals. West leads: $17K. Query the file.
Skip the server.
Read the lesson on GitHub →- #duckdb
- #sql
- #python
- #dataengineering
