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@lancedb/lancedb / Exports / Table

Class: Table

A Table is a collection of Records in a LanceDB Database.

A Table object is expected to be long lived and reused for multiple operations. Table objects will cache a certain amount of index data in memory. This cache will be freed when the Table is garbage collected. To eagerly free the cache you can call the close method. Once the Table is closed, it cannot be used for any further operations.

Closing a table is optional. It not closed, it will be closed when it is garbage collected.

Table of contents

Constructors

Properties

Methods

Constructors

constructor

new Table(inner): Table

Construct a Table. Internal use only.

Parameters

Name Type
inner Table

Returns

Table

Defined in

table.ts:69

Properties

inner

Private Readonly inner: Table

Defined in

table.ts:66

Methods

add

add(data, options?): Promise\<void>

Insert records into this Table.

Parameters

Name Type Description
data Data Records to be inserted into the Table
options? Partial\<AddDataOptions> -

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:105


addColumns

addColumns(newColumnTransforms): Promise\<void>

Add new columns with defined values.

Parameters

Name Type Description
newColumnTransforms AddColumnsSql[] pairs of column names and the SQL expression to use to calculate the value of the new column. These expressions will be evaluated for each row in the table, and can reference existing columns in the table.

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:261


alterColumns

alterColumns(columnAlterations): Promise\<void>

Alter the name or nullability of columns.

Parameters

Name Type Description
columnAlterations ColumnAlteration[] One or more alterations to apply to columns.

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:270


checkout

checkout(version): Promise\<void>

Checks out a specific version of the Table

Any read operation on the table will now access the data at the checked out version. As a consequence, calling this method will disable any read consistency interval that was previously set.

This is a read-only operation that turns the table into a sort of "view" or "detached head". Other table instances will not be affected. To make the change permanent you can use the [Self::restore] method.

Any operation that modifies the table will fail while the table is in a checked out state.

To return the table to a normal state use [Self::checkout_latest]

Parameters

Name Type
version number

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:317


checkoutLatest

checkoutLatest(): Promise\<void>

Ensures the table is pointing at the latest version

This can be used to manually update a table when the read_consistency_interval is None It can also be used to undo a [Self::checkout] operation

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:327


close

close(): void

Close the table, releasing any underlying resources.

It is safe to call this method multiple times.

Any attempt to use the table after it is closed will result in an error.

Returns

void

Defined in

table.ts:85


countRows

countRows(filter?): Promise\<number>

Count the total number of rows in the dataset.

Parameters

Name Type
filter? string

Returns

Promise\<number>

Defined in

table.ts:152


createIndex

createIndex(column, options?): Promise\<void>

Create an index to speed up queries.

Indices can be created on vector columns or scalar columns. Indices on vector columns will speed up vector searches. Indices on scalar columns will speed up filtering (in both vector and non-vector searches)

Parameters

Name Type
column string
options? Partial\<IndexOptions>

Returns

Promise\<void>

Example

// If the column has a vector (fixed size list) data type then
// an IvfPq vector index will be created.
const table = await conn.openTable("my_table");
await table.createIndex(["vector"]);

Example

// For advanced control over vector index creation you can specify
// the index type and options.
const table = await conn.openTable("my_table");
await table.createIndex(["vector"], I)
  .ivf_pq({ num_partitions: 128, num_sub_vectors: 16 })
  .build();

Example

// Or create a Scalar index
await table.createIndex("my_float_col").build();

Defined in

table.ts:184


delete

delete(predicate): Promise\<void>

Delete the rows that satisfy the predicate.

Parameters

Name Type
predicate string

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:157


display

display(): string

Return a brief description of the table

Returns

string

Defined in

table.ts:90


dropColumns

dropColumns(columnNames): Promise\<void>

Drop one or more columns from the dataset

This is a metadata-only operation and does not remove the data from the underlying storage. In order to remove the data, you must subsequently call compact_files to rewrite the data without the removed columns and then call cleanup_files to remove the old files.

Parameters

Name Type Description
columnNames string[] The names of the columns to drop. These can be nested column references (e.g. "a.b.c") or top-level column names (e.g. "a").

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:285


isOpen

isOpen(): boolean

Return true if the table has not been closed

Returns

boolean

Defined in

table.ts:74


listIndices

listIndices(): Promise\<IndexConfig[]>

List all indices that have been created with Self::create_index

Returns

Promise\<IndexConfig[]>

Defined in

table.ts:350


query

query(): Query

Create a Query Builder.

Queries allow you to search your existing data. By default the query will return all the data in the table in no particular order. The builder returned by this method can be used to control the query using filtering, vector similarity, sorting, and more.

Note: By default, all columns are returned. For best performance, you should only fetch the columns you need. See [Query::select_with_projection] for more details.

When appropriate, various indices and statistics based pruning will be used to accelerate the query.

Returns

Query

A builder that can be used to parameterize the query

Example

// SQL-style filtering
//
// This query will return up to 1000 rows whose value in the `id` column
// is greater than 5.  LanceDb supports a broad set of filtering functions.
for await (const batch of table.query()
                         .filter("id > 1").select(["id"]).limit(20)) {
 console.log(batch);
}

Example

// Vector Similarity Search
//
// This example will find the 10 rows whose value in the "vector" column are
// closest to the query vector [1.0, 2.0, 3.0].  If an index has been created
// on the "vector" column then this will perform an ANN search.
//
// The `refine_factor` and `nprobes` methods are used to control the recall /
// latency tradeoff of the search.
for await (const batch of table.query()
                   .nearestTo([1, 2, 3])
                   .refineFactor(5).nprobe(10)
                   .limit(10)) {
 console.log(batch);
}

Example

// Scan the full dataset
//
// This query will return everything in the table in no particular order.
for await (const batch of table.query()) {
  console.log(batch);
}

Defined in

table.ts:238


restore

restore(): Promise\<void>

Restore the table to the currently checked out version

This operation will fail if checkout has not been called previously

This operation will overwrite the latest version of the table with a previous version. Any changes made since the checked out version will no longer be visible.

Once the operation concludes the table will no longer be in a checked out state and the read_consistency_interval, if any, will apply.

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:343


schema

schema(): Promise\<Schema\<any>>

Get the schema of the table.

Returns

Promise\<Schema\<any>>

Defined in

table.ts:95


update

update(updates, options?): Promise\<void>

Update existing records in the Table

An update operation can be used to adjust existing values. Use the returned builder to specify which columns to update. The new value can be a literal value (e.g. replacing nulls with some default value) or an expression applied to the old value (e.g. incrementing a value)

An optional condition can be specified (e.g. "only update if the old value is 0")

Note: if your condition is something like "some_id_column == 7" and you are updating many rows (with different ids) then you will get better performance with a single [merge_insert] call instead of repeatedly calilng this method.

Parameters

Name Type Description
updates Record\<string, string> | Map\<string, string> the columns to update Keys in the map should specify the name of the column to update. Values in the map provide the new value of the column. These can be SQL literal strings (e.g. "7" or "'foo'") or they can be expressions based on the row being updated (e.g. "my_col + 1")
options? Partial\<UpdateOptions> additional options to control the update behavior

Returns

Promise\<void>

Defined in

table.ts:137


vectorSearch

vectorSearch(vector): VectorQuery

Search the table with a given query vector.

This is a convenience method for preparing a vector query and is the same thing as calling nearestTo on the builder returned by query.

Parameters

Name Type
vector unknown

Returns

VectorQuery

See

Query#nearestTo for more details.

Defined in

table.ts:249


version

version(): Promise\<number>

Retrieve the version of the table

LanceDb supports versioning. Every operation that modifies the table increases version. As long as a version hasn't been deleted you can [Self::checkout] that version to view the data at that point. In addition, you can [Self::restore] the version to replace the current table with a previous version.

Returns

Promise\<number>

Defined in

table.ts:297