Add ability to specify modification value type in CopyIncrementally (#53

)

Some databases do not automatically convert from string to the actual value: e.g. `timestamp_column >= '2020-01-01'` fails. This would break incremental loading as there we generated this kind of comparison. The new modification_comparison_type argument to `CopyIncrementally()` will allow to alter this to `timestamp_column >= TIMESTAMP '2020-01-01'`.

Also fixup the docstring for `comparison_value_placeholder`argument which should actually be named `comparison_placeholder`and now at least the docstring reads like that.

mara_pipelines/commands/sql.py

@@ -216,7 +216,8 @@ def __init__(self, source_db_alias: str, source_table: str,
                  sql_file_name: Union[str, Callable] = None, sql_statement: Union[str, Callable] = None,
                  target_db_alias: str = None, timezone: str = None, replace: {str: str} = None,
                  use_explicit_upsert: bool = False,
-                 csv_format: bool = None, delimiter_char: str = None) -> None:
+                 csv_format: bool = None, delimiter_char: str = None,
+                 modification_comparison_type: str = None) -> None:
         """
         Incrementally loads data from one database into another.
 
@@ -233,7 +234,9 @@ def __init__(self, source_db_alias: str, source_table: str,
             sql_file_name: The path of a file name that is run to query the source database
             replace: A set of replacements to perform against the sql query
             modification_comparison: SQL expression that evaluates to a comparable value
-            comparison_value_placeholder: A placeholder that is replaced with the last comparison value in the sql query
+            modification_comparison_type: type of the saved (as string) modification_comparison value
+            comparison_value_placeholder: A placeholder in the sql code that gets replaced with the
+                                          actual incremental load comparison or `1=1`.
             target_db_alias: The database to write to
             target_table: The table for loading data into
             primary_keys: A combination of primary key columns that are used for upserting into the target table
@@ -244,6 +247,7 @@ def __init__(self, source_db_alias: str, source_table: str,
         self.source_db_alias = source_db_alias
         self.source_table = source_table
         self.modification_comparison = modification_comparison
+        self.modification_comparison_type = modification_comparison_type
         self.comparison_value_placeholder = comparison_value_placeholder
 
         self._target_db_alias = target_db_alias
@@ -326,8 +330,9 @@ def run(self) -> bool:
 
             # perform the actual copy replacing the placeholder
             # with the comparison value from the latest successful execution
+            modification_comparison_type = self.modification_comparison_type or ''
             replace = {self.comparison_value_placeholder:
-                           f'({self.modification_comparison} >= \'{last_comparison_value}\')'}
+                           f'({self.modification_comparison} >= {modification_comparison_type} \'{last_comparison_value}\')'}
             if not shell.run_shell_command(self._copy_command(self.target_table + '_upsert', replace)):
                 return False
 
@@ -393,6 +398,7 @@ def html_doc_items(self) -> [(str, str)]:
                 ('modification comparison', _.tt[self.modification_comparison])] \
                + _SQLCommand.html_doc_items(self, self.source_db_alias) \
                + [('comparison value placeholder', _.tt[self.comparison_value_placeholder]),
+                  ('modification comparison type', _.tt[self.modification_comparison_type if self.modification_comparison_type else '(no cast)']),
                   ('target db', _.tt[self.target_db_alias]),
                   ('target table', _.tt[self.target_table]),
                   ('primary_keys', _.tt[repr(self.primary_keys)]),