Describe a dataset or table — db

Add documentation metadata to a dataset (hive mode) or table (DuckLake mode). Metadata includes description, owner, and tags.

In hive mode, you can set public = TRUE to publish the metadata to a shared catalog folder, making it discoverable organisation-wide without granting access to the underlying data.

Usage

db_describe(
  section = NULL,
  dataset = NULL,
  schema = "main",
  table = NULL,
  description = NULL,
  owner = NULL,
  tags = NULL,
  public = NULL
)

Arguments

section: Section name (hive mode only)
dataset: Dataset name (hive mode only)
schema: Schema name (DuckLake mode, default "main")
table: Table name (DuckLake mode only)
description: Free-text description of the dataset/table
owner: Owner name or team responsible for this data
tags: Character vector of tags for categorization
public: Logical. If TRUE, publish metadata to the shared catalog folder. If FALSE, remove from catalog. If NULL (default), keep current public status and auto-sync if already public. (Hive mode only)

Value

Invisibly returns the metadata list

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Hive mode
db_connect()
db_describe(
  section = "Trade",
  dataset = "Imports",
  description = "Monthly import values by country and commodity code",
  owner = "Trade Section",
  tags = c("trade", "monthly", "official"),
  public = TRUE
)

# DuckLake mode
db_lake_connect()
db_describe(
  table = "imports",
  description = "Monthly import values",
  owner = "Trade Section"
)
} # }