Escape column names with special characters when persisting descriptions as comments

[erik-amundson-anthro]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I would like to be able to persist my DBT column descriptions as column comments, but for column with special characters the connector fails with persist_docs.columns = true in the project configuration.

For example, this model:

  - name: cell_recipe
    description: Cell recipe information
    columns:
      - name: "standing_vacuum_pressure_1 (kPa)"
        description: Standing vacuum 1 pressure
        data_type: float64
        quote: true
      - name: "standing_vacuum_time_1 (s)"
        description: Standing vacuum 1 time under vacuum
        data_type: int64
        quote: true

creates this query

alter table `common`.`cell_recipe` modify comment ?, comment column standing_vacuum_pressure_1 (kPa) ?, comment column standing_vacuum_time_1 (s) ?

Interestingly, the table name is automatically escaped.

Describe the solution you'd like

I would like to be able to auto-populate column comments using the dbt persist_docs feature.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I've tried the following:

• Adding quote: true to the column specifications (no effect)
• Adding double quotes to escape the column name manually (no effect)
• Adding backticks to escape the column name (causes error)

I could also potentially write my own comment generation as a post-hook but it would be a lot of work to duplicate all the descriptions and keep them up to date.

[erik-amundson-anthro]

I can probably contribute this feature.