After upgrading to v1.2.1 - today() does not work

[gujralrajeev]

I just upgraded to the latest duckdb R package v1.2.1 and suddenly my shiny projects started giving errors. After debugging, I found that today() function is not working anymore. However, it works fine when I use duckdb natively from the command prompt in Windows.

I even tried loading the ICU extension but the issue remains.

Any idea ?

[j4david]

Hello,
I have same problem, tested in windows and linux (arm64 and x86-64).

I did a git bisect in linux.
The problem seem to appear in commit ba2a5d6. I don't know why.

ba2a5d6a4a2f68e9d5203701c66cd851cd9f429f is the first bad commit
commit ba2a5d6a4a2f68e9d5203701c66cd851cd9f429f
Merge: d7e6edc4a d7b7108c2
Author: Kirill Müller <kirill@cynkra.com>
Date:   Fri Feb 21 18:44:02 2025 +0100

    fledge: Merge branch 'cran-1.2.0'

 DESCRIPTION                                        |   2 +-
 NEWS.md                                            | 991 +--------------------
 R/backend-dbplyr__duckdb_connection.R              |   4 +-
 cran-comments.md                                   |   2 +-
 .../test-backend-dbplyr__duckdb_connection.R       |   9 +-
 tests/testthat/test-connect.R                      |   2 +-
 tests/testthat/test-rel_api.R                      |   4 +
 7 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 991 deletions(-)
bisect found first bad commit

This is the details if anyone want to try it.

test_bug.R

#!/usr/bin/env Rscript
library(DBI)
con <- dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb())
result <- tryCatch({
  dbGetQuery(con, "SELECT today()")  ## current_date() also fail
  0  # Success
}, error = function(e) {
  1  # Failure
})
dbDisconnect(con)
quit(status = result)

bisect_test.sh

#!/bin/bash
R CMD INSTALL . 
Rscript test_bug.R
exit $?

git clone https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb-r.git
chmod +x test_bug.R
chmod +x bisect_test.sh
git bisect start
git bisect good tags/v1.2.0
git bisect bad tags/v1.2.1
git bisect run ./bisect_test.sh

[krlmlr]

@IoannaNika: This seems to originate in #976, can you please take a look?

[IoannaNika]

@IoannaNika: This seems to originate in #976, can you please take a look?

I tried to revert my changes locally, and the issue still occurs, so It doesn't seem to be related.

[eitsupi]

I think the icu extension is simply not loaded as the error message says.
The icu extension is not included in the R package and must be installed the first time (not sure why automatic installation and loading is disabled in the R client. I find this confusing).
https://duckdb.org/docs/stable/extensions/core_extensions#default-extensions

> duckdb:::sql("install icu; load icu; select today()")
     today()
1 2025-03-20

[krlmlr]

Is the failure to auto-install and -load related to #582?

[krlmlr]

With autoloading enabled:

library(duckdb, quietly = TRUE)
library(dplyr, quietly = TRUE, warn.conflicts = FALSE)

con <- dbConnect(duckdb(), ":memory:")
dbGetQuery(con, "FROM duckdb_settings() WHERE name LIKE '%_extensions'") |>
  tibble::as_tibble()
#> # A tibble: 4 × 5
#>   name                         value description                input_type scope
#>   <chr>                        <chr> <chr>                      <chr>      <chr>
#> 1 allow_community_extensions   true  Allow to load community b… BOOLEAN    GLOB…
#> 2 allow_unsigned_extensions    false Allow to load extensions … BOOLEAN    GLOB…
#> 3 autoinstall_known_extensions false Whether known extensions … BOOLEAN    GLOB…
#> 4 autoload_known_extensions    true  Whether known extensions … BOOLEAN    GLOB…

dbGetQuery(con, "SELECT today()")
#>      today()
#> 1 2025-04-27

^{Created on 2025-04-27 with reprex v2.1.1}