Announcing DuckDB 1.5.0
8 hours ago
- #release
- #database
- #features
- DuckDB 1.5.0, codenamed 'Variegata', is released with new features including a friendly CLI, VARIANT type, and built-in GEOMETRY type.
- The CLI has been reworked with a new color scheme, dynamic prompts, a pager, and convenience features like accessing the last result with '_'.
- A new PEG parser is introduced for better suggestions and error messages, currently experimental and opt-in.
- The VARIANT type is now supported, allowing storage of different types in the same column with better compression and query performance.
- New functions include read_duckdb for reading databases without attaching them and Azure writes for copying data to Azure Blob or ADLSv2 storage.
- An ODBC scanner extension is introduced, enabling querying of remote endpoints.
- Lakehouse formats (DuckLake, Delta Lake, Iceberg) have received updates, including VARIANT type support and table properties in CREATE TABLE statements.
- The network stack for the httpfs extension has changed from httplib to curl for better stability and security.
- Lambda syntax has been updated to Python-style (lambda x: x + 1), with the old arrow syntax (x -> x + 1) deprecated.
- The spatial extension has significant changes, including flipping axis order for consistency and moving GEOMETRY type into core DuckDB.
- Optimizations include non-blocking checkpointing for concurrent operations and improvements in aggregate functions.
- Distribution improvements include Python pip installation, a Windows install script (beta), and CLI support for Linux with musl libc.
- Extension sizes have been reduced, with some extensions seeing a 30-60% decrease in size.