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trino_parity

Native Trino-compatible scalar functions (trino_*) for the cases where DuckDB's built-ins diverge from Trino on Unicode and byte-level inputs — Trino's simple per-code-point case mapping, code-point reverse, Java-whitespace trim, NFC normalize, and raw-bytes xxhash64/sha512/hmac_sha256

Maintainer(s): apatrida

Compatibility Matrix

This table covers all DuckDB releases that have not reached end-of-life, including LTS releases, and shows the 2 most recent patch releases of each. Older patch releases are not listed, but the extension may be available for them as well.

Platform 1.4.4 1.4.5 1.5.5 1.5.6 2.0.0
Linux AMD64
Linux ARM64
macOS AMD64
macOS ARM64
Windows AMD64
Windows ARM64
WebAssembly

Installing and Loading

INSTALL trino_parity FROM community;
LOAD trino_parity;

Example

INSTALL trino_parity FROM community;
LOAD trino_parity;

-- Trino's upper()/lower() are simple per-code-point mappings
-- (Character.toUpperCase(int)), so German sharp-S is unchanged —
-- DuckDB's built-in upper() gives 'STRAẞE' (U+1E9E):
SELECT trino_upper('straße');     -- 'STRAßE'

-- Unicode 16 data includes case pairs absent from older ICU snapshots:
SELECT trino_lower(chr(11311)) = chr(11359) AS glagolitic_unicode16; -- true

-- Java whitespace trim: tab / LF / CR / FF / VT are stripped
-- (DuckDB's built-in trim() only strips spaces):
SELECT trino_trim(E'\tx\n');       -- 'x'

-- Code-point reverse (DuckDB's built-in reverse is grapheme-aware):
SELECT trino_reverse('a😀b');     -- 'b😀a'

-- The catalog of functions this extension provides:
SELECT trino_name, arg_count, category FROM trino_meta();  -- 10 rows

-- Discover descriptions, argument names, runnable examples and categories:
SELECT function_name, parameters, description, examples, categories
FROM duckdb_functions()
WHERE starts_with(function_name, 'trino_');  -- 10 scalars + trino_meta

About trino_parity

trino_parity provides native trino_<name>(...) scalar functions for the specific cases where DuckDB's built-ins diverge from Trino's documented behaviour on Unicode and byte-level inputs.

Version 0.5.2 targets DuckDB 2.0.0 and adds SQL catalog documentation for all ten scalars and the trino_meta() table macro in duckdb_functions(): implementation-grounded descriptions, meaningful scalar argument names (including HMAC's data, key order), runnable examples and short categories. Function behavior, signatures and the ten-row, three-column trino_meta() result are unchanged. The legacy v1.5.6 source remains preserved in the descriptor's variegata pin; this update selects new source only for 2.0.

The extension vendors ICU 76.1 / Unicode 16.0, fixing newer case mappings and NFC normalization data missing from the previous Unicode 13 snapshot. The compatibility target is Trino 483 on JDK 25. Matching version labels alone does not guarantee parity with other Trino/JDK combinations.

It is designed to be loaded server-side by anything that pushes Trino-shaped predicates down to DuckDB. If a Trino connector naively pushes WHERE lower(name) = 'apple' down to DuckDB, the filter runs with different Unicode semantics in each engine, and rows visible to Trino can silently disappear from the result. This extension supplies only the functions where that actually happens — where DuckDB's built-in genuinely diverges and a native C++ reimplementation is required to match Trino. For the large majority of Trino functions DuckDB's built-in is already equivalent (or a trivial rename / operator / one-line rewrite), so a caller emits those directly against DuckDB — no extension needed.

Concrete divergences fixed

Function DuckDB built-in Trino spec trino_* result
upper('ß') (U+00DF) 'ẞ' (U+1E9E, utf8proc special case) 'ß' unchanged (simple per-code-point mapping) matches Trino
reverse('cafe'+U+0301) grapheme-aware code-point-only matches Trino
trim (tab/LF/CR/FF/VT) not stripped Java Character.isWhitespace strips them matches Trino
xxhash64(varbinary) no direct built-in XXH64, big-endian bytes matches Trino

Function inventory

trino_meta() catalogs the ten native functions the extension provides:

  • String (ICU): trino_lower/1, trino_upper/1, trino_reverse/1, trino_trim/1, trino_ltrim/1, trino_rtrim/1, trino_normalize/1 — simple per-code-point case mapping (Trino's Character.toUpperCase(int) model — no SpecialCasing expansions or final-sigma rule), code-point reverse, and Character.isWhitespace trim, via statically-linked ICU 76.1 vendored into the binary (so Unicode behaviour is independent of the host DuckDB build).
  • Hash (vendored): trino_xxhash64/1, trino_sha512/1, trino_hmac_sha256/2 — over raw VARBINARY, self-contained (no dependency on the crypto / hashfuncs community extensions). Empty HMAC keys are rejected with Empty key, matching Trino; empty messages and nonempty binary keys remain supported.

The ten-function catalog and three-column trino_meta() schema are unchanged. Validation against pinned OpenJDK 25 covers all 1,112,064 valid Unicode scalar values and 99,825 NFC conformance column checks, with zero mismatches. See the Unicode 16 validation report for provenance, commands, and the limits of that validation. These checks also pass on final DuckDB 2.0.0; see the 2.0 readiness report.

Aligned Trino functions (e.g. length, abs, year, substring, regexp_extract) are intentionally NOT shipped — a caller emits them as bare DuckDB SQL. The full per-function Trino↔DuckDB mapping and the empirical audits that justify each decision are in the repository's docs/.

Source and full divergence catalog: https://github.com/brikk/duckdb-trino-parity-extension

Added Functions

function_name function_type description comment examples
trino_hmac_sha256 scalar Computes HMAC-SHA256 over raw data bytes with the supplied raw key bytes and returns a 32-byte BLOB, accepting empty data but rejecting an empty key with 'Empty key' as Trino does. NULL [trino_hmac_sha256('abc'::BLOB, 'key'::BLOB)]
trino_lower scalar Converts each Unicode code point to its simple lowercase mapping using ICU 76.1 (Unicode 16), matching Trino 483 on JDK 25 without contextual rules or multi-code-point expansion. NULL [trino_lower('İSTANBUL')]
trino_ltrim scalar Removes leading Java Character.isWhitespace code points, leaving trailing whitespace and non-breaking spaces (U+00A0, U+2007, U+202F) intact as Trino does. NULL [trino_ltrim(chr(9) || 'hello')]
trino_meta table_macro Lists the ten native Trino-parity scalar functions as trino_name, arg_count and category, excluding passthrough functions and this table macro. NULL [SELECT * FROM trino_meta()]
trino_normalize scalar Normalizes a string to NFC using ICU 76.1 (Unicode 16), matching Trino's default normalization form with no form-selector overload. NULL [trino_normalize('cafe' || chr(769))]
trino_reverse scalar Reverses the Unicode code-point sequence, not grapheme clusters, preserving the UTF-8 bytes within each code point as Trino does. NULL [trino_reverse('cafe' || chr(769))]
trino_rtrim scalar Removes trailing Java Character.isWhitespace code points, leaving leading whitespace and non-breaking spaces (U+00A0, U+2007, U+202F) intact as Trino does. NULL [trino_rtrim('hello' || chr(10))]
trino_sha512 scalar Computes SHA-512 over raw bytes and returns the 64-byte digest as a BLOB, matching Trino's varbinary output. NULL [trino_sha512('abc'::BLOB)]
trino_trim scalar Removes leading and trailing Java Character.isWhitespace code points, leaving non-breaking spaces (U+00A0, U+2007, U+202F) intact as Trino does. NULL [trino_trim(chr(9) || 'hello' || chr(10))]
trino_upper scalar Converts each Unicode code point to its simple uppercase mapping using ICU 76.1 (Unicode 16), matching Trino 483 on JDK 25 without contextual rules or multi-code-point expansion (ß stays ß). NULL [trino_upper('straße')]
trino_xxhash64 scalar Computes xxHash64 over raw bytes with seed 0 and returns the hash as an eight-byte big-endian BLOB, matching Trino's varbinary output. NULL [trino_xxhash64('abc'::BLOB)]

Overloaded Functions

This extension does not add any function overloads.

Added Types

This extension does not add any types.

Added Settings

name description input_type scope aliases typed_value
temp_directory Set the directory to which temporary files are written. VARCHAR GLOBAL [] post.db.tmp
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