← Friday, October 16, 2026DatabasesDeep dive

Iceberg tables are trees of JSON, Avro and Parquet files

duckdb.org by The DuckDB team 13 min read Editor score 7/10

The guide walks through Iceberg metadata, manifest lists, manifests, data files and delete files, showing how DuckDB can inspect each layer with SQL. Understanding that structure helps diagnose slow or incorrect table queries without treating the table as a black box.

What: - An Iceberg table is a tree of JSON, Avro, and Parquet files, with a catalog pointing to the current metadata file.
How: - Queries follow the catalog pointer from metadata through manifest lists and manifests to data and delete files; DuckDB can inspect each layer with SQL.
Why it matters: - Inspecting the file tree helps engineers investigate slow or incorrect table queries.

DuckDB follows the catalog pointer through Iceberg metadata to manifests and table files. Sketched from the article's own text.

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