Add Cloud Spanner and BigQuery support

What do you want to change?

Just as sqlc supports PostgreSQL dialect, there is a similar binding for ZetaSQL dialect in https://github.com/goccy/go-zetasql

The ZetaSQL dialect is used by both GCP Cloud Spanner and BigQuery.

What database engines need to be changed?

ZetaSQL

What programming language backends need to be changed?

Go

This is a great idea. Unlike a few other engines, ZetaSQL has a full parser that's easy to import. I'll need to play around with it to make sure that it builds on all our supported platforms.

I removed the accepted label as we aren't planning on working on this in the short term. Still excited about it!

@kyleconroy

@kyleconroy how hard would you say this is given we could reuse the ZetaSQL parser? I would really like to have Spanner support with SQLc. And would you accept a PR if I have some time to spare on this?

Hum, I see you're trying to remove CGO dependencies to be able to run on Windows and golang ZetaSQL is a CGO dependency, so this probably won't fly ...

Here is a potential non CGO replacement for the query parser. It's probably just for Spanner though, not BigQuery
https://github.com/cloudspannerecosystem/memefish

feat: Add Cloud Spanner engine PoC for sqlc

ZetaSQL is not only non-CGO; it also cannot be used to parse Spanner GoogleSQL DDL because Spanner GoogleSQL DDL is not compatible with ZetaSQL DDL. For example, cloud-spanner-emulator uses ZetaSQL for query/DML parsing, but relies on its own DDL parser for DDL operations:
https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/cloud-spanner-emulator/tree/master/backend/schema/parser

Currently, I believe memefish is the most feature-complete parser for Spanner GoogleSQL.
In addition, memefish provides all the necessary functionality to implement a Spanner GoogleSQL engine for sqlc.

FYI:
I've created a proof-of-concept implementation for sqlc Spanner support by vibe-coding.
If there is interest, I'm happy to reimplement it to fit your contribution policy.

Disclaimer: I'm a contributor to memefish.

@apstndb

@apstndb would you mind creating a pull request?

@bramoudith-sc

@bramoudith-sc
I think this project doesn't accept a PR of new engine currently.

Seeing if we can re-envigorate this thread - there have been a few changes to GoogleSQL support since this was raised.

Usage

I primarily use GoogleSQL for Spanner, though this would also be useful for BigQuery users. The main functionality of sqlc I utilise is the sqlc generate (not using sqlc cloud). At this stage, not making much use out of the sqlc analysis functionality.

Would be awesome if this could be incrementally released starting with the generate functionality and following up with analysis integration.

Useful Libraries

Since the last update on this issue, GoogleSQL has consolidated with ZetaSQL

https://github.com/google/googlesql
https://github.com/goccy/go-googlesql (Go Wrapper) - it doesn't appear to be CGO

GoogleSQL Documentation

General reference for GoogleSQL https://docs.cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/reference/standard-sql/overview
Parity between PostgreSQL and GoogleSQL https://docs.cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/reference/dialect-differences

Happy to Help

Please let me know how I can help with implementing this functionality, happy to submit a PR or doing some alpha testing!

If you'd like to try out a very early version of BigQuery and Spanner support, you can build sqlc from main and use the new sqlc parse and sqlc analyze commands. I'll be wiring it up to code gen soon.

@kyleconroy

@kyleconroy

Great work.

In general, I think building an implementation that passes all tests based on the .test files in google/googlesql is a good approach.

However, there seems to be one unresolved issue with this approach: Spanner GoogleSQL DDL is, in fact, not the same as GoogleSQL DDL.

https://docs.cloud.google.com/spanner/docs/migrating-primary-keys?hl=en#migrate-bit-reversed-key-columns

$ echo 'CREATE TABLE MyFirstTable (
  Id INT64 GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY (START COUNTER WITH 11000),
  Name STRING(MAX),
) PRIMARY KEY (Id)
' | mise x go:github.com/sqlc-dev/sqlc/cmd/sqlc@main -- sqlc parse --dialect googlesql
Error: parse error: Syntax error: Expected keyword WITH but got identifier "COUNTER" [at 2:52]

spanner_legacy_ddl.test does not track the current Spanner DDL syntax, so many constructs will need to be implemented by referring to other sources, such as the Cloud Spanner emulator.

@apstndb

@apstndb I believe this should now be fixed, as I've expanded statement support in our parser. Please try out the code generation on main, which was added in #4621

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Add Cloud Spanner and BigQuery support #1505

What do you want to change?

What database engines need to be changed?

What programming language backends need to be changed?

Usage

Useful Libraries

GoogleSQL Documentation

Happy to Help

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Add Cloud Spanner and BigQuery support #1505

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What do you want to change?

What database engines need to be changed?

What programming language backends need to be changed?

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kyleconroy commented on Mar 24, 2022

kyleconroy commented on Sep 22, 2023

matdurand commented on Mar 20, 2025

matdurand commented on Mar 20, 2025

matdurand commented on Mar 21, 2025

apstndb commented on Aug 7, 2025

bramoudith-sc commented on Oct 22, 2025

apstndb commented on Oct 22, 2025

timtatt commented on Jun 13, 2026

Usage

Useful Libraries

GoogleSQL Documentation

Happy to Help

kyleconroy commented on Aug 18, 2026

apstndb commented on Aug 18, 2026

kyleconroy commented on Oct 14, 2026

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