PDT Naming Convention (Community)

View the original community article here

Last Tested: Jan 31, 2022

PDT name structure:
LR$[connection_key][hash]_[view_name]

All PDT names begin with LR, short for Looker Read. The connection_key is a two letter string that is unique for the connection. The PDT hash is an encoding slug that follows the connection_key and precedes view_name in the SQL table name. (ex: if the PDT SQL table name is LR$ZLYI79XRAB6OU1633ET9D_CS_HEALTH_CALENDAR_DAILY, the connection_key is ZL and the hash is YI79XRAB6OU1633ET9D

The PDT hash encodes the following information:

• Connection
• Scratch Schema
• Instance Slug
• Underlying LookML
  • View Name
  • Datagroup name, if used
  • SQL of the sql_trigger/sql_trigger_value, if used
  • Underlying SQL of the PDT (including SQL of dependencies)
  • Increment Key
• Creation Timestamp

Since the hash includes the creation timestamp, the PDT name changes every time it is rebuilt, with the exception of incremental PDTs. With incremental PDTs, the PDT name remains the same upon each incremental rebuild, unless there is a change to the underlying LookML (e.g. change to the increment key). 

Note: The above hash refers to the hash in the PDT table name, which differs from the PDT hash. The PDT hash does not include the creation timestamp and therefore does not change each time a PDT rebuilds.