This API is used to extract content from a CSV/JSON/Parquet object with Structured Query Language (SQL) statements. During the extraction process, you need to specify the content delimiter and use an appropriate SQL function. COS Select will return the matching extraction result, and you can specify a format to save the result.
For more information about COS Select, please see COS Select Overview. You can also see SELECT Command in Developer Guide to learn about the SQL expressions for COS Select.
Note:
Currently, this API (Select Object Content) supports only virtual-hosted-style requests, but not path-style requests.
Permission restrictions
To use COS Select, you must have the cos:GetObject permission.
The root account has this permission by default.
Sub-accounts need to contact the root account for permission. For more information about permission settings, please see Granting Sub-accounts Access to COS.
Object formats
COS Select supports extracting content from objects in the following formats:
CSV: The object’s data records are separated by a specific delimiter.
JSON: either a JSON file or a JSON list
Parquet: It can contain nested structures.
Note:
To use COS Select, the object must be UTF-8 encoded.
COS Select supports extracting CSV or JSON objects that are compressed with GZIP or bzip2, and Parquet objects that are compressed with GZIP or Snappy.
COS Select supports extracting data from objects encrypted with SSE-COS.
The request parameters select and select-type=2 are required, where the former represents a select request and the latter represents the version of this API.
The following COS Select request extracts all content of a JSON object and saves the result in JSON format:
<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SelectRequest>
<Expression>Select * from COSObject</Expression>
<ExpressionType>SQL</ExpressionType>
<InputSerialization>
<CompressionType>GZIP</CompressionType>
<JSON>
<Type>DOCUMENT</Type>
</JSON>
</InputSerialization>
<OutputSerialization>
<JSON>
<RecordDelimiter>\\n</RecordDelimiter>
</JSON>
</OutputSerialization>
<RequestProgress>
<Enabled>FALSE</Enabled>
</RequestProgress>
</SelectRequest>
The following COS Select request extracts all content of a Parquet object and saves the result in JSON format:
<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>
<SelectRequest>
<Expression>Select * from COSObject</Expression>
<ExpressionType>SQL</ExpressionType>
<InputSerialization>
<CompressionType>GZIP</CompressionType>
<Parquet>
</Parquet>
</InputSerialization>
<OutputSerialization>
<JSON>
<RecordDelimiter>\\n</RecordDelimiter>
</JSON>
</OutputSerialization>
<RequestProgress>
<Enabled>FALSE</Enabled>
</RequestProgress>
</SelectRequest>
Note:
InputSerialization (required) specifies the format of the object to extract. It can be set to CSV, JSON, or Parquet.
OutputSerialization specifies the format to save the extraction result. It can be set to CSV or JSON.
The formats of the object to extract and the extraction result do not need to be the same. For example, you may extract data from a JSON object and save the extraction result in CSV format.
The following table describes all nodes in the request body:
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
Expression
SelectRequest
An SQL expression for the extraction. For example, SELECT s._1 FROM COSObject s extracts the first column of data from a CSV object. For more information about SQL expressions, please see SELECT Command.
String
Yes
ExpressionType
SelectRequest
Expression type. This parameter is an extension. Currently, only SQL expressions and parameters are supported.
String
Yes
InputSerialization
SelectRequest
Format of the object to extract
Container
Yes
OutputSerialization
SelectRequest
Format to save the extraction result
Container
Yes
RequestProgress
SelectRequest
Whether to return the query progress (QueryProgress). If this feature is enabled, COS Select will return the query progress periodically.
Container
No
Content of InputSerialization
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
CompressionType
InputSerialization
Compression type of the object to extract. If the object is not compressed, set this parameter to NONE (default). Otherwise, set it to GZIP or BZIP2, which are the only two compression types supported by COS Select.
String
No
CSV/JSON/PARQUET
InputSerialization
Parameters required for each object format. For example, if the object format is CSV, the delimiter needs to be specified.
Container
Yes
Content of CSV (a subnode of InputSerialization)
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
RecordDelimiter
CSV
A delimiter that separates data records of the CSV object into multiple rows. You can set this parameter to any octal character such as a comma (,), semicolon (:), or tab. The delimiter can be up to 2 bytes, which means that delimiters such as \\r\\n are supported. Default value: \\n
String
No
FieldDelimiter
CSV
A delimiter that separates data records into multiple columns for each row. You can set this parameter to any octal character. This parameter can be up to 1 byte. Default value: ,
String
No
QuoteCharacter
CSV
If a string in the CSV object to extract contains delimiters, you can use this parameter as the escape so that the string will not be interpreted as several parts. The default value is ". For example, if the object contains the string "a, b", the double quotation marks can prevent the string from being interpreted as two separate characters a and b.
String
No
QuoteEscapeCharacter
CSV
If the string to extract contains ", use another " as the escape so that the string can be interpreted. For example, the string """ a , b """ will be parsed as " a , b ". Default value: "
String
No
AllowQuotedRecordDelimiter
CSV
Whether the object contains characters that are identical with the delimiter and need to be escaped with "TRUE: yes (compromises extraction performance) FALSE (default): no
Boolean
No
FileHeaderInfo
CSV
Whether the object to extract contains a column header. Valid values:
NONE: no
USE: yes, and you want to use it for extraction (example: SELECT "name" FROM COSObject)
IGNORE: yes, but you don’t want to use it for extraction (You can still use the column index for extraction, for example, SELECT s._1 FROM COSObject s).
Enum
No
Comments
CSV
Sets a comment column. This character will be added to the first character of the column. If a column is specified as the comment column, COS Select will not analyze it. Default value: #
String
No
Content of JSON (a subnode of InputSerialization)
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
Type
JSON
JSON type. Valid values:
DOCUMENT: The JSON file contains only an independent JSON object that is divided into multiple rows
LINES: Each row in the JSON file contains an independent JSON object.
Enum
Yes
Content of OutputSerialization
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
CSV /JSON
OutputSerialization
Format of the extraction result. Valid values: CSV, JSON
Container
Yes (either CSV or JSON)
Content of CSV (a subnode of OutputSerialization)
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
QuoteFields
CSV
Whether to use " as the escape for the extraction result. Valid values:
ALWAYS: yes
ASNEEDED (default): as needed
String
Yes
RecordDelimiter
CSV
A delimiter that separates data records of the extraction result into multiple rows. You can set this parameter to any octal character such as a comma (,), semicolon (:), or tab. The delimiter can be up to 2 bytes, which means that delimiters such as \\r\\n are supported. Default value: \\n
String
No
FieldDelimiter
CSV
A delimiter that separates data records of the extraction result into multiple columns for each row. You can set this parameter to any octal character. This parameter can be up to 1 byte. Default value: ,
String
No
QuoteCharacter
CSV
If a string in the extraction result contains delimiters, you can use this parameter as the escape so that the string will not be interpreted as several parts in subsequent analysis. The default value is ". For example, if the extraction result contains the string a, b, the double quotation marks can prevent the string from being interpreted as two separate characters a and b. Instead, COS Select will save the string as "a, b".
String
No
QuoteEscapeCharacter
CSV
If a string in the extraction result contains ", use another " as the escape so that the string can be interpreted. For example, the string " a , b" will be saved as """ a , b """. Default value: "
String
No
Content of JSON (a subnode of OutputSerialization)
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
RecordDelimiter
JSON
A delimiter that separates data records of the extraction result into multiple rows. You can set this parameter to any octal character such as a comma (,), semicolon (:), or tab. The delimiter can be up to 2 bytes, which means that delimiters such as \\r\\n are supported. Default value: \\n
String
No
Content of RequestProgress
Node Name
Parent Node
Description
Type
Required
Enabled
RequestProgress
Whether COS Select should return the query progress periodically. Default value: FALSE
Boolean
No
Response
If the extraction is successful, “200 OK” will be returned.
As the size of the response body is unpredictable, COS presents the response body in serialized form, i.e., dividing the response body into multiple parts. The following shows an overview of the returned response body:
<Message 1>
<Message 2>
<Message 3>
......
<Message n>
Pre-response (prelude) and response result (data)
COS cuts the extraction result into multiple parts, each of which is a message. Each message consists of the pre-response (prelude) and response result (data).
The prelude consists of two parts:
Total length of the message
Total length of all headers
The data consists of two parts:
Response header
Response body (payload)
Both the prelude and data end with a 4-byte CRC code encoded in Big Endian. COS Select uses CRC32 to calculate the CRC code. For more information on CRC32, see the RFC documentation. In addition to data, COS Select additionally spends a total of 16 bytes in transferring the prelude and code.
Note:
The integer values in all the messages are transferred in network byte order (i.e., encoded in Big Endian).
The figure below shows what a message and a header consist of. One message may contain multiple headers.
As shown above, each message consists of a prelude, a prelude CRC code (composed of two pieces of information that record the number of bytes), header(s), a payload, and a message CRC code. As can be seen from the above figure, the length of the entire response body is calculated as follows:
Total length of a response body = Length of the prelude + length of the prelude CRC code + length of the payload + length of the header(s) + length of the message CRC code
As the total length of the prelude, the prelude CRC code and the message CRC code is always 16 bytes, the total length of the response body can also be quickly calculated as follows:
Total length of a response body = Length of the payload + length of the header(s) + 16
The following describes the components of the response body in detail:
Component
Description
prelude
Records the total length of each message and the total length of all headers separately. Each record is of 4 bytes, and the total length is 8 bytes:
total byte-length: the total length of the message, which is encoded in Big Endian and of 4 bytes in total with the capacity of the record itself included.
headers byte-length: the total length of all headers, which is encoded in Big Endian and of 4 bytes in total with the capacity occupied by the record excluded.
prelude CRC
A prelude CRC is encoded in Big Endian and contains a total of 4 bytes. It helps the program quickly determine whether the prelude information is correct so as to reduce blocking during buffering.
header
Metadata of the extraction result recorded by the message, such as data type and body format. The length of this part in bytes varies by data type. A header is stored as a key-value (KV) pair and encoded in UTF-8. The metadata recorded in a header can be displayed in any order, but each metadata entry is recorded only once. Depending on the data type, the following headers may appear in the result returned by COS Select:
MessageType Header: This header represents the response type, where the key is ":message-type" and the value can be "error" or "event". "error" indicates that this record is an error message, and "event" indicates that this record is a specific event.
EventType Header: This header records the event type, where the key is ":event-type" and the value can be "Records", "Cont", "Progress", "Stats", or "End". "Records" indicates that the event is the returned extraction record, "Cont" the TCP connection hold, "Progress" the periodically returned extraction result, "Stats" the statistics of the query, and "End" the end of the query.
ErrorCode Header: This header records the error code, where the key is ":error-code" and the value can be an error code listed in Special Error Codes.
ErrorMessage Header: This header records the error message, where the key is ":error-message" and the value can be an error message returned by the server, which can be used to locate the error.
Payload
Records the extraction result or official information related to the request.
Message CRC
CRC code encoded in Big Endian containing a total of 4 bytes.
A message may record multiple headers, and each header consists of the following parts:
Component
Description
Header Name Byte-Length
Records the length of the header name in bytes
Header Name
Header type. Value range: ":message-type", ":event-type", ":error-code", ":error-message"
":message-type" indicates that the header records the response type
":event-type" indicates that the header records the event type
":error-code" indicates that the header records the error code
" :error-message" indicates that the header records the error message.
Header Value Type
Type of the header value, which is always 7 for COS Select, indicating that the type is String
Value String Byte-Length
Length of the header value in bytes, which is always 2 bytes
Header Value String
Body of the header, i.e., the metadata of the payload, where the length of the header value in bytes depends on the response type
COS Select supports the following response types:
Response Type
Description
Records message
An extraction record message, which can contain a single record, a partial record, or multiple records, depending on the number of extraction results. A response body may contain multiple records messages
Continuation message
A connection continuation message that is sent by COS Select periodically to maintain the TCP connection and appears randomly in the response body. It is recommended to make your client able to automatically identify this type of messages and filter them out so as to avoid smudging the extraction results
Progress message
A progress message returned by COS Select periodically to indicate the current query progress
Stats message
A statistics message about the query returned by COS Select after the query ends
End message
An end message indicating that the query has ended and there is no subsequent response data. The query can be considered to have ended only when a message of this type is received
RequestLevelError message
Error message including the error causes. This parameter is returned when a COS Select error occurs during the query. If COS Select returns this message, it will not return an end message.
These response types are as detailed below.
Records message
Header format
A records message contains three types of headers: ":message-type", ":event-type", and ":content-type", as shown below:
Body format
The body of a records message may contain a single record, a partial record, or multiple records, depending on the number of extraction results.
Continuation Message
Header format
A continuation message contains two types of headers: ":message-type" and ":event-type", as shown below:
Body format
A continuation message contains no body content.
Progress message
Header format
A progress message contains three types of headers: ":message-type", ":event-type", and ":content-type", as shown below:
Body format
The body of a progress message is XML text which contains the current query progress, mainly including:
BytesScanned: If the file is compressed, this value represents the size of the file in bytes before it is decompressed; otherwise, this value represents the size of the file in bytes.
BytesProcessed: If the file is compressed, this value represents the size of the file in bytes after it is decompressed; otherwise, this value represents the size of the file in bytes.
BytesReturned: Size of the extraction result currently returned by COS Select in bytes.
Below is a sample:
<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Progress>
<BytesScanned>512</BytesScanned>
<BytesProcessed>1024</BytesProcessed>
<BytesReturned>1024</BytesReturned>
</Progress>
Stats Message
Header format
A stats message contains three types of headers: ":message-type", ":event-type", and ":content-type", as shown below:
Body format
The body of a stats message is XML text which contains the statistics of the current query, mainly including:
BytesScanned: If the file is compressed, this value represents the size of the file in bytes before it is decompressed; otherwise, this value represents the size of the file in bytes.
BytesProcessed: If the file is compressed, this value represents the size of the file in bytes after it is decompressed; otherwise, this value represents the size of the file in bytes.
BytesReturned: Size of the extraction result returned by COS Select in the query in bytes.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Stats>
<BytesScanned>512</BytesScanned>
<BytesProcessed>1024</BytesProcessed>
<BytesReturned>1024</BytesReturned>
</Stats>
End Message
Header format
An end message contains two types of headers: ":message-type" and ":event-type", as shown below:
Body format
An end message contains no body content.
Request Level Error Message
Header format
A request level error message contains three types of headers: ":error-code", ":error-message", and ":message-type", as shown below:
For more information on the error code in a request level error message, see Special Error Codes.
Body format
A request level error message contains no body content.
Special error codes
For common errors related to this request, see Error Codes. The following describes special error codes:
Error Code
Error Message
HTTP Status Code
InvalidXML
The XML is invalid
400 Bad Request
MissingRequiredParameter
The SelectRequest entity is missing a required parameter
400 Bad Request
MissingExpectedExpression
The SQL expression is missing
400 Bad Request
MissingInputSerialization
The input serialization is missing
400 Bad Request
InvalidCompressionFormat
The file is not in a supported compression format. Only GZIP and BZIP2 are supported
400 Bad Request
MissingInputFormat
The input format is missing
400 Bad Request
InvalidFileHeaderInfo
The input FileHeaderInfo is invalid. Only NONE, USE, and IGNORE are supported
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The input RecordDelimiter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The input FieldDelimiter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The input QuoteCharacter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The input AllowQuoteRecordDelimiter of CSV is invalid. Only TRUE and FALSE are supported
400 Bad Request
InvalidJsonType
The JsonType is invalid. Only DOCUMENT and LINES are supported
400 Bad Request
MissingOutputSerialization
The output serialization is missing
400 Bad Request
MissingOutputFormat
The output format is missing
400 Bad Request
InvalidQuoteFields
The QuoteFields is invalid. Only ALWAYS and ASNEEDED are supported
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The output RecordDelimiter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The output FieldDelimiter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The output QuoteCharacter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The output QuoteEscapeCharacter of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The output RecordDelimiter of JSON is invalid
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
Encountered an error parsing the SQL expression
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
Other expressions are not allowed in the SELECT list when '*' is used without dot notation.
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
The SQL expression contains an empty SELECT
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
GROUP is not supported in the SQL expression
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
UNION is not supported in the SQL expression
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
FROM is missing in the SQL expression
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
ORDER is not supported in the SQL expression
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
The column index is invalid in the SQL expression
400 Bad Request
SQLParsingError
The table alias is invalid in WHERE
400 Bad Request
Bzip2DecompressError
Encountered an error decompressing the bzip2 file
400 Bad Request
Bzip2DecompressError
bzip2 is not applicable to the queried object
400 Bad Request
GzipDecompressError
Encountered an error decompressing the GZIP file
400 Bad Request
GzipDecompressError
GZIP is not applicable to the queried object
400 Bad Request
Busy
The service is busy. Please retry later
400 Bad Request
Overload
The service is overload. Please retry later
400 Bad Request
AmbiguousFieldName
Field name matches to multiple fields in the file
400 Bad Request
ComparisonFailed
Attempt to compare failed
400 Bad Request
CastFailed
Attempt to convert from one data type to another using CAST failed in the SQL expression.
400 Bad Request
OverMaxRecordSize
The length of a record in the input or result is greater than maxCharsPerRecord of 1 MB
400 Bad Request
LastRecordParseFail
Please check the last record in the input
400 Bad Request
CSVParsingError
Encountered an error parsing the CSV file
400 Bad Request
JSONParsingError
Encountered an error parsing the JSON file
400 Bad Request
ErrorWritingRow
Encountered an error parsing the SELECT result. Please try again
400 Bad Request
InvalidRequestParameter
The input Comment of CSV is invalid
400 Bad Request
InvalidTextEncoding
UTF-8 encoding is required. Please check the file and try again.
400 Bad Request
NoSuchKey
The specified key does not exist
404 Not Found
AccessDenied
Access Denied
403 Forbidden
MethodNotAllowed
The specified method is not allowed against this resource
405 Method Not Allowed
InternalError
We encountered an internal error. Please try again
500 Internal Server
Samples
Sample 1: extracting content from a CSV object
The following sample extracts all content from a CSV object and saves the extraction result in CSV format. The object to extract is named exampleobject.csv and stored in the examplebucket-1250000000 bucket that resides in the Beijing (ap-beijing) region.
POST /exampleobject.csv?select&select-type=2 HTTP/1.1
To run different extraction commands, modify the SQL command in the Expression node. For more information about commands, please see SELECT Command. Some common extraction scenarios are described below.
Suppose that you use a column index to filter the content from an object. You can use s._n to filter data records in the n column (the minimum value of n is 1). The following command filters data records that are greater than 100 in column 3 and returns columns 1 and 2 of these matching records:
SELECT s._1, s._2 FROM COSObject s WHERE s._3 >100
If your CSV object has a column header and you want to filter the content of the object using the name of the header (you need to set FileHeaderInfo to Use), you can use s.name for indexing. The following command filters records using a header named Id and FirstName:
SELECT s.Id, s.FirstName FROM COSObject s
You can also specify a function in the SQL expression. The following command counts the number of records whose values are smaller than 1 in column 1:
SELECT count(*) FROM COSObject s WHERE s._1 <1
The following is a sample response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
x-cos-id-2: cos_id_demo
x-cos-request-id: cos_request_id_demo
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 201911:50:29 GMT
A series of messages
Sample 2: extracting content from an object in JSON format
The following sample extracts all content from a JSON object and saves the extraction result in CSV format. The object to extract is named exampleobject.json and stored in the examplebucket-1250000000 bucket that resides in the Beijing (ap-beijing) region.
POST /exampleobject.json?select&select-type=2 HTTP/1.1
Similarly, you can also perform different extraction commands on JSON objects by modifying the SQL command in the Expression node. For more information about commands, please see SELECT Command. Some common extraction scenarios are described below.
You can use a JSON attribute name to extract content. The following command filters records whose city value is Seattle from the object and returns the country and city information of these records:
SELECT s.country, s.city from COSObject s where s.city ='Seattle'
You can also specify a function in the SQL expression. The following command counts the total number of records in the JSON object:
SELECT count(*) FROM COSObject s
Notes
Unlike the GET Object API, SELECT Object Content does not support:
Returning a part of an object. You cannot use parameters such as Range to specify a part of an object to return.
Extracting content from ARCHIVE or DEEP ARCHIVE objects. You need to restore them first.
Yes
No
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