# dbt\_packages- dbt\_external\_tables- quote keyword columns using infer\_schema

**URL:** <https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/dbt-packages-dbt-external-tables-quote-keyword-columns-using-infer-schema/12227>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [February 27, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/dbt-packages-dbt-external-tables-quote-keyword-columns-using-infer-schema/12227 "2024-02-27T22:41:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rpalani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f8ce5/32.png) [@rpalani](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/rpalani)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/dbt-packages-dbt-external-tables-quote-keyword-columns-using-infer-schema/12227/1 "2024-02-27T22:41:24Z")

</div>

## The problem I’m having

is creating external tables using dbt\_external\_package with infer\_schema option true generate DDL where I have column names as keywords in the parquet file. I will have enclose them in quote.

## The context of why I’m trying to do this

It would be better If we create external tables from dbt to keep all of our pipeline objects in one place

## What I’ve already tried

I tried creating external tables using below yml file syntax:

- name: homely  
database: sample\_db  
schema: raw\_schema  
loader: S3  
tables:
  - name: agent1  
description: “agent related details”  
external:  
location: “@AGENT\_\_S3\_STAGE/” ##reference an existing external stage  
file\_format: “my\_parquet\_format”  
auto\_refresh: false  
infer\_schema: true  
partitions:

## Some example code or error messages

generate ddl:

SQL compilation error: syntax error line 9 at position 16 unexpected ‘order’. syntax error line 9 at position 33 unexpected ‘0’. syntax error line 9 at position 36 unexpected ‘as’.