Can no longer convert dbplyr_table_ident to character

[catalamarti]

This code worked with dbplyr 2.3.4 and no longer works for dbplyr 2.4.0

db <- DBI::dbConnect(duckdb::duckdb(), ":memory:")
DBI::dbWriteTable(db, "x", dplyr::tibble(a = 1))
tab <- dplyr::tbl(db, "x")
as.character(tab[[2]]$x)
#> Error in `as.character()`:
#> ! Can't convert `x` <dbplyr_table_ident> to <character>.
#> Backtrace:
#>      ▆
#>   1. ├─base::as.character(tab[[2]]$x)
#>   2. ├─vctrs:::as.character.vctrs_vctr(tab[[2]]$x)
#>   3. │ └─vctrs::vec_cast(x, character())
#>   4. └─vctrs (local) `<fn>`()
#>   5.   └─vctrs::vec_default_cast(...)
#>   6.     ├─base::withRestarts(...)
#>   7.     │ └─base (local) withOneRestart(expr, restarts[[1L]])
#>   8.     │   └─base (local) doWithOneRestart(return(expr), restart)
#>   9.     └─vctrs::stop_incompatible_cast(...)
#>  10.       └─vctrs::stop_incompatible_type(...)
#>  11.         └─vctrs:::stop_incompatible(...)
#>  12.           └─vctrs:::stop_vctrs(...)
#>  13.             └─rlang::abort(message, class = c(class, "vctrs_error"), ..., call = call)

^{Created on 2023-10-26 with reprex v2.0.2}

Not sure if this was intentional or not?

FYI:
https://github.com/darwin-eu-dev/CDMConnector/issues/321
@ablack3 @edward-burn

[mgirlich]

This is intentional but maybe this should get a more helpful error message. The question is what you want to achieve with as.character(). Should the table identifier be escaped? Then you need a connection to escape it correctly. Do you want the name of the table or do you also care about the schema it might be in?
Also it is not a good idea to access the internals with something like tab[[2]]$x. Instead you should use remote_table() (to get the table identifier including the schema etc) and remote_name() (to get the table name. Note this might be NULL when the table name is already escaped).

[catalamarti]

@ablack3 remote_name should be what we need.
Thank you @mgirlich

[mgirlich]

Happy to help 😄