---
title: "SQL manual"
sidebarTitle: "Overview"
description: "Analytical SQL over the lakehouse, served through Arrow Flight SQL."
icon: table-list
keywords: ["sql", "flight sql", "query", "analytics", "datafusion", "fts"]
---

LanceDB answers analytical queries in SQL, served over an
[Arrow Flight SQL](https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/FlightSql.html)
endpoint. Any Flight SQL client can reach it, and results come back as Arrow.

The dialect is [DataFusion's](/sql/functions), so the syntax and functions are
the ones that reference documents. What this manual covers is the parts that are
LanceDB's: how a query reaches the engine, how Lance columns appear to it, and
the extensions a lakehouse over multimodal data needs.

## Where a query runs {#execution}

Queries execute on the server. The client sends a statement and receives Arrow
record batches — nothing is converted to pandas or Python objects unless you ask
for it.

Because results are Arrow the whole way, a query that feeds training or
downstream processing does not pay a serialization cost to get there.

## The dialect {#dialect}

Ordinary analytical SQL — `SELECT`, `WHERE`, `GROUP BY`, `ORDER BY`, `LIMIT`,
joins, CTEs and window functions — over Arrow-typed columns.

Two things differ from a warehouse you may be used to, and both come from the
storage being Lance rather than something SQL-shaped:

- **Columns are Arrow types**, not a SQL type system mapped onto storage. A
  vector column is a `FixedSizeList<Float32>` and behaves like one.
- **Row metadata is available as columns** — `_rowid`, `_rowaddr` — but only
  when asked for, so they stay out of `SELECT *`.

Both are covered in [Functions and types](/sql/functions).

## Full-text search {#fts}

Full-text search is a **table function** rather than a predicate, because it
produces relevance alongside the matching rows and a `WHERE` clause has nowhere
to put that:

```sql
SELECT id, text, _score
FROM fts('my_docs', 'puppy')
ORDER BY _score DESC
LIMIT 5
```

`fts()` takes a table name and a query — a bare string, or a JSON query object
for fuzzy, phrase, boolean, boost and multi-match forms. `_score` carries
relevance and behaves like any other column.

Being a relation is what makes it compose: join its result, filter it, aggregate
over it.

## Reference {#reference}

<Card title="Functions and types" icon="calculator" href="/sql/functions">
  The DataFusion dialect and version, how Lance columns map onto it, and what
  LanceDB adds.
</Card>

## What this manual does not cover {#scope}

Connecting a Flight SQL client — drivers, authentication, the endpoint address —
is deployment-specific and documented with the deployment.