metabase / metabase/metabase

Support `Nested` columns in ClickHouse

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Database/Clickhouse Type:New Feature
Dominant language
Clojure
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

**Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.**
It's quite common to represent more complex vector data in ClickHouse using [`Nested`](https://clickhouse.com/docs/sql-reference/data-types/nested-data-structures/nested) columns. These are very similar to other database engines e.g. [BigQuery](https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/2662)

Current behavior is to display an error with the column name (and no other information).

I am creating an issue here because the previously reported issue https://github.com/ClickHouse/metabase-clickhouse-driver/issues/307 is now obsolete, with support for ClickHouse having moved to this repository.

**Describe the solution you'd like**

Support nested (and repeated, eventually) fields for display and querying in ClickHouse.

**Describe alternatives you've considered**

If support is hard to do, it would be good to see an improved error message that nested columns are not supported (and instructions to users on how to filter them out in their queries).

**How important is this feature to you?**

This would be nice to have - our data source is in ClickHouse and we can use tools to access and manipulate the data there without going through Metabase.

**Additional context**

https://github.com/ClickHouse/metabase-clickhouse-driver/issues/252 seems to have some prior discussion about what it would take to support this.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading the prior discussion in ClickHouse issue 252 and the obsolete driver issue 307 to understand the existing constraints. No repository files, tests, or entry points are named in this issue. Done means nested columns can be displayed and queried in ClickHouse, or the limitation is clearly reported with guidance for excluding them.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
clickhouse, clojure
Domain
databases
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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