How to run SQL in Quarto

Quarto

SQL

Configure to run SQL sentences inside Quarto Documents

Published

June 8, 2025

1 Install the following R packages

```{r}
install.packages(c('rmarkdown', 'knitr', 'DBI', 'RSQLite', 'dplyr'))
install.packages('dbplyr', dependencies = TRUE)
```

2 Import the libraries in R

library(DBI)
library(RSQLite)
library(dplyr)

3 Create the connection to the database

In this case I’m using SQLite in memory that wont create a file. And also, I’ll use the dataset mtcars included in the R packages.

con <- DBI::dbConnect(RSQLite::SQLite(), 
                      dbname = ":memory:")

copy_to(dest = con, 
        df = mtcars, 
        name = "mtcars")

dbListTables(con)

[1] "mtcars"       "sqlite_stat1" "sqlite_stat4"

Note

In this point we are ready to start SQL executions in this Quarto document.

4 Select

We start applying a Select sentence on the database mtcars created in the step before.

SELECT * FROM mtcars;

Displaying records 1 - 10
mpg	cyl	disp	hp	drat	wt	qsec	vs	am	gear	carb
21.0	6	160.0	110	3.90	2.620	16.46	0	1	4	4
21.0	6	160.0	110	3.90	2.875	17.02	0	1	4	4
22.8	4	108.0	93	3.85	2.320	18.61	1	1	4	1
21.4	6	258.0	110	3.08	3.215	19.44	1	0	3	1
18.7	8	360.0	175	3.15	3.440	17.02	0	0	3	2
18.1	6	225.0	105	2.76	3.460	20.22	1	0	3	1
14.3	8	360.0	245	3.21	3.570	15.84	0	0	3	4
24.4	4	146.7	62	3.69	3.190	20.00	1	0	4	2
22.8	4	140.8	95	3.92	3.150	22.90	1	0	4	2
19.2	6	167.6	123	3.92	3.440	18.30	1	0	4	4

5 Apply a SUM functions in one of the columns

SELECT SUM(mpg) FROM mtcars;

1 records
SUM(mpg)
642.9

6 Apply a distinct in one column

SELECT distinct(cyl) FROM mtcars;

3 records
cyl
6
4
8

7 Personal notes

Creating this blog I discover the following things:

SQL interface in quarto only accepts SELECT statements
This requires rmarkdown and knitr R libraries installed
The package dplyr is to use the function copy_to()

References

Special thanks to the following links: