Acquire / file · All operations

Read another file format

Read any other file format (SAS, SPSS, Stata, PDF, YAML, logs).

Status

In arcform

Not built yet

arcform does not do this yet. Its place on the roadmap

Shape of the result
a new table, from no input table
Level
needs a DuckDB extension

Variants

Read another specialised format

Read one of the many formats that only one or two tools support, such as mailboxes, MARC, HL7 or Protocol Buffers.

What other tools call it

Meridian's classification; an independent blind rating agreed on 86.2% of 312 rows (exact class, version 2).

Alteryx Designer (5)
  • Allocate Inputread 2026-09-27

    Select geographies and variables from an installed Allocate demographic dataset

  • Blob Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read whole files such as images or media as binary objects, one file or a list of files

  • Image Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read image and PDF files into the workflow as binary objects

  • PDF to Textread 2026-09-27

    Extract text from PDF files, using OCR where pages are images

  • Profile Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read a behaviour Profile Set file as input

Apache Hop (7)
  • Apache Tikaread 2026-09-27

    Extract text content and metadata from documents of many formats with Apache Tika

  • De-Serialize From Fileread 2026-09-27

    Read rows and metadata from a binary Hop serialised file

  • Load file content in memoryread 2026-09-27

    Load the whole content of each file into a single field

  • Properties file Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read key and value pairs from Java properties or INI files

  • SAS inputread 2026-09-27

    Read SAS sas7bdat data files

  • Yaml Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read YAML from files or a field and emit rows

  • vCard Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read vCard files and emit contact fields as rows

Apache NiFi (9)
  • CEFReaderread 2026-09-27

    Read Common Event Format (CEF) events into records

  • GrokReaderread 2026-09-27

    Read unstructured text such as log files into records with Grok patterns

  • ParseEvtxread 2026-09-27

    Parse a Windows Event Log (evtx) file and write it out as XML

  • ProtobufReaderread 2026-09-27

    Read a Protocol Buffers message from binary format into records

  • StandardProtobufReaderread 2026-09-27

    Read Protocol Buffers messages into records, with several schema access strategies

  • Syslog5424Readerread 2026-09-27

    Read RFC 5424 syslog data into records

  • SyslogReaderread 2026-09-27

    Read RFC 5424 or RFC 3164 syslog messages into records

  • TailFileread 2026-09-27

    Tail a text file, or a list of them, ingesting new lines as they are written

  • YamlTreeReaderread 2026-09-27

    Read YAML into records by walking the document tree

Apache SeaTunnel (1)
  • Protobuf Formatread 2026-09-27

    Read and write Kafka messages in Protocol Buffers

AWS Glue (2)
  • Ion (read)read 2026-09-27

    Read Ion data from Amazon S3 and other supported connection types

  • grokLog (read)read 2026-09-27

    Read grokLog data from Amazon S3 and other supported connection types

Azure Data Factory (2)
DuckDB (2)
  • read_blobread 2026-09-27

    read_blob table function

  • read_textread 2026-09-27

    read_text table function

Duckle (6)
EasyMorph (5)
KNIME Analytics Platform (8)
mlpack (18)
  • ARFFread 2026-09-27

    Load mixed categorical and numeric data from .arff; loading only

  • ArmaBinread 2026-09-27

    Load or save numeric data in Armadillo's packed arma_binary format

  • BMPread 2026-09-27

    Load or save image data as BMP

  • CoordASCIIread 2026-09-27

    Load or save a sparse matrix as a coordinate list in text

  • GIFread 2026-09-27

    Load image data from a GIF; loading only

  • HDF5read 2026-09-27

    Load or save numeric data as HDF5; needs Armadillo built with HDF5 support

  • JPGread 2026-09-27

    Load or save image data as JPEG

  • MP3read 2026-09-27

    Load audio samples from an mp3 file

  • PGMread 2026-09-27

    Load or save a matrix as a PGM image with values 0 to 255

  • PICread 2026-09-27

    Load image data from a PICtor file; loading only

  • PNGread 2026-09-27

    Load or save image data as PNG

  • PNMread 2026-09-27

    Load image data from a Portable Anymap file; loading only

  • PPMread 2026-09-27

    Load or save a matrix as a PPM image with values 0 to 255

  • PSDread 2026-09-27

    Load image data from a Photoshop file; loading only

  • RawBinaryread 2026-09-27

    Load or save packed binary numbers with no header or size information

  • TGAread 2026-09-27

    Load or save image data as TGA

  • WAVread 2026-09-27

    Load or save audio samples as a wave file

  • mlpack_image_converterread 2026-09-27

    Load a set of images into one dataset matrix, or unpack a matrix back into image files

OpenRefine (6)
Pentaho Data Integration (10)
  • Copybook Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read binary data files laid out by a fixed-length COBOL copybook definition

  • De-serialize from fileread 2026-09-27

    Read rows from a serialised data cube file

  • ESRI Shapefile Readerread 2026-09-27

    Read shapes and attributes from an ESRI shapefile and its linked DBF file

  • HL7 Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read data from HL7 healthcare message streams

  • LDIF Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read entries from LDIF files

  • Load file content in memoryread 2026-09-27

    Load the content of a file into memory as a field

  • Property Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read key and value pairs from properties files

  • SAS Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read SAS sas7bdat files

  • XBase inputread 2026-09-27

    Read records from an XBase DBF file

  • Yaml Inputread 2026-09-27

    Read YAML from a file or field and emit rows

Polars (3)
  • DataFrame.deserializeread 2026-09-27

    Read a frame back from Polars' own serialised form

  • read_linesread 2026-09-27

    Read the lines of a text file into one string column

  • scan_linesread 2026-09-27

    Lazily read the lines of a text file into one string column

Power Query M (2)
  • Pdf.Tablesread 2026-09-27

    Extract the tables found in a PDF file

  • RData.FromBinaryread 2026-09-27

    Read the data frames of an RData file into a record of tables

RapidMiner Studio (19)
  • Process Images from Webcamread 2026-09-27

    Capture video frames from a webcam and run a subprocess on each frame

  • Read ARFFread 2026-09-27

    Read a Weka ARFF file into a table

  • Read BibTeXread 2026-09-27

    Read BibTeX bibliography entries into a table

  • Read Binaryread 2026-09-27

    Read fixed-length packed binary records into a table using a format string

  • Read C4.5read 2026-09-27

    Read data and column metadata from C4.5 .names and .data files

  • Read DASYLabread 2026-09-27

    Read a DASYLab measurement data file into a table

  • Read Documentread 2026-09-27

    Read a file as a text document, optionally discarding XML or HTML tags

  • Read Hyper Fileread 2026-09-27

    Read a table from a Tableau .hyper extract file

  • Read Imageread 2026-09-27

    Read an image from disk or a file object

  • Read Image from Webcamread 2026-09-27

    Capture a single image from a webcam

  • Read Office Fileread 2026-09-27

    Read a Word or PowerPoint file as a text document

  • Read SASread 2026-09-27

    Read a SAS data file into a table

  • Read SPSSread 2026-09-27

    Read an SPSS file into a table

  • Read Stataread 2026-09-27

    Read a Stata data file into a table

  • Read Videoread 2026-09-27

    Read the frames of a video file as a collection of images

  • Read dBaseread 2026-09-27

    Read a dBase file into a table

  • Retrieveread 2026-09-27

    Load a stored object (data table, model, result) from the repository into the process

  • Retrieve from Custom Extensionread 2026-09-27

    Load a stored object packaged inside a custom extension

  • Retrieve from Fileread 2026-09-27

    Deserialise a stored object (data, model, result) from a file object

Tableau Prep (1)
Talend (7)
  • tApacheLogInputread 2026-09-27

    Read the access log file of an Apache HTTP server into rows

  • tExtractEDIFieldread 2026-09-27

    Read an EDIFACT message file, convert it to XML and extract fields with XPath queries

  • tFileInputARFFread 2026-09-27

    Read an ARFF file row by row into fields

  • tFileInputLDIFread 2026-09-27

    Read an LDIF file row by row into fields

  • tFileInputPropertiesread 2026-09-27

    Read a text file of key = value lines into rows

  • tFileInputRawread 2026-09-27

    Read the whole content of a file into a single output column

  • tQVDInputread 2026-09-27

    Read data from QVD files

VisiData (48)
Yggdrasil Decision Forests (6)

Background

In DuckDB, extensions can enhance its functionality by providing support for additional file formats, along with new types and domain-specific functionality.[1] A file format is the way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file, from its bit and byte layout to organisation such as tabular structure.[2] A file format may be standardised, as a proprietary or an open standard, or it can be an ad hoc convention.[2]

When to use it

Some file formats have a published specification, but such a document is not available for every format, sometimes because the format is considered a trade secret.[2] Sometimes a file format is defined de facto by the behaviour of the program that accesses the file.[2] Without a specification, a developer might reverse engineer a file format by inspecting files in it, or acquire the specification for a fee and under a non-disclosure agreement.[2] Because those approaches cost time and money, file formats with publicly available specifications tend to be supported by more programs.[2] Where a format has no published specification, treat any reader as one interpretation of the file, and check a few values against the program that wrote it. (Meridian's view) Keep the original file beside the table you read from it, so the reading can be repeated when a better reader appears. (Meridian's view)

The method

Both users and applications need to identify a file's format so that the file can be used appropriately, and the methods for identification vary by operating system.[2] One popular method, used by many operating systems, indicates the format of a file with a suffix of its file name, known as the extension.[2] Since there is no standardised list of filename extensions, more than one format can use the same extension.[2] Indicating a format by its extension means users and applications can be tricked into treating a file as a different format simply by renaming it.[2]

A file's format may also be indicated inside the file itself, often at its beginning, which is relatively easy for users and applications to read.[2] When a file starts with a relatively small datum that only indicates its format, that datum is often called a magic number.[2] When a reader refuses a file, look at the file's first bytes before trusting its name. (Meridian's view)

Sources

  1. [1]Extensions – DuckDBdocumentation
  2. [2]File format - Wikipediasecondary source

Used in

One Protocol uses this operation: