DuckGo: Create DuckDB UDFs in Go/XGo with Ease

DuckGo is a Go library designed to dramatically simplify the process of creating User-Defined Functions (UDFs) for DuckDB. It uses Go's reflection mechanism to seamlessly convert a native Go function into a DuckDB scalar UDF. Additionally, it leverages ixgo to support dynamically loading UDFs from Go/XGo scripts without prior compilation.

Core Features

• Create from Native Go Functions: Directly convert your Go functions (e.g., func(a, b int) int) into DuckDB UDFs.
• Automatic Type Mapping: Automatically handles type conversions between Go and DuckDB, supporting a wide range of data types.
• Variadic Function Support: Seamlessly supports Go's variadic functions.
• Dynamic Script Loading: No compilation needed! Directly load functions from .go or .xgo source files as UDFs.
• Direct Loading from SQL: Provides a helper function to load and register UDFs from scripts directly within SQL queries.
• Panic Handling: Gracefully recovers from panics during UDF execution and converts them into DuckDB errors.

Installation

go get github.com/ma6174/duckgo

Important Note: Regarding Dynamic Scripting

The dynamic script loading feature (provided by the script package) relies on ixgo. Due to how ixgo works, you must add a specific linker flag to disable symbol name checking whenever you build or run code that uses the script package.

Failure to do so will result in a linker error.

Build:

go build -ldflags="-checklinkname=0" .

Run:

go run -ldflags="-checklinkname=0" .

If you import the script package in your own project, make sure to include this flag in your build and run commands.

Usage

Here are a few examples of how to use DuckGo. For complete, runnable code, please see the example directory.

Example 1: Creating a UDF from a Native Go Function

This is the most basic use case. Any regular Go function can be registered.

The core logic involves wrapping the native Go function with udf.BuildScalarUDF and then registering it using duckdb.RegisterScalarUDF.

For the full code, see: example/simple_udf/main.go

Example 2: Loading a UDF from a Go Script

This is one of DuckGo's most powerful features. You can register a function from a Go source file as a UDF without compiling it first.

The script.AddIXGoUDFFromFile function allows you to specify a .go file and the names of the functions you want to load.

For the full code, see: example/script_udf/

Example 3: Loading a UDF Directly via SQL

For even greater flexibility, you can call a helper function from within SQL to load UDFs.

First, enable the feature by calling script.EnableRegisterUDFFromSQL(db). You can then use the add_ixgo_udf function in your SQL queries.

For the full code, see: example/sql_load_udf/

Example 4: Importing an External Package

DuckGo supports importing functions from external packages (e.g., github.com/goccy/go-json) as UDFs. This is made possible by using go generate with qexp to pre-process the external package.

For the full code, see: example/external_package/

Package Overview

• udf: The core package, responsible for converting native Go functions into DuckDB UDFs.
• script: Provides the functionality for dynamically loading UDFs from Go/XGo scripts.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.