CatalogException: Catalog Error: Scalar Function with name "st_point" is not in the catalog, but it exists in the spatial extension

[HealthyPear]

Describe the bug

Even after doing starplot setup --install-big-sky I get this error when asking for a list of bright stars using the SQL query,

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CatalogException                          Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[2], line 1
----> 1 bright_stars = Star.find(sql="select * from _ where magnitude < 4")

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/starplot/models/star.py:129, in Star.find(cls, where, sql, catalog)
    110 @classmethod
    111 def find(
    112     cls,
   (...)    115     catalog: StarCatalog = StarCatalog.BIG_SKY_MAG11,
    116 ) -> list["Star"]:
    117     """
    118     Find Stars
    119
   (...)    127
    128     """
--> 129     df = _load_stars(
    130         catalog=catalog,
    131         filters=where,
    132         sql=sql,
    133     ).to_pandas()
    135     return [from_tuple(s) for s in df.itertuples()]

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/starplot/data/stars.py:87, in load(extent, catalog, filters, sql)
     84     stars = stars.filter(*filters)
     86 if sql:
---> 87     result = stars.alias("_").sql(sql).select("sk").execute()
     88     skids = result["sk"].to_list()
     89     stars = stars.filter(_.sk.isin(skids))

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/ibis/expr/types/relations.py:3568, in Table.sql(self, query, dialect)
   3565     name = util.gen_name("sql_query")
   3566     expr = self
-> 3568 schema = backend._get_sql_string_view_schema(name=name, table=expr, query=query)
   3569 node = ops.SQLStringView(child=self.op(), query=query, schema=schema)
   3570 return node.to_expr()

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/ibis/backends/sql/__init__.py:201, in SQLBackend._get_sql_string_view_schema(self, name, table, query)
    197 def _get_sql_string_view_schema(
    198     self, *, name: str, table: ir.Table, query: str
    199 ) -> sch.Schema:
    200     sql = self.compiler.add_query_to_expr(name=name, table=table, query=query)
--> 201     return self._get_schema_using_query(sql)

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/ibis/backends/duckdb/__init__.py:1741, in Backend._get_schema_using_query(self, query)
   1740 def _get_schema_using_query(self, query: str) -> sch.Schema:
-> 1741     with self._safe_raw_sql(f"DESCRIBE {query}") as cur:
   1742         rows = cur.fetch_arrow_table()
   1744     rows = rows.to_pydict()

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/contextlib.py:141, in _GeneratorContextManager.__enter__(self)
    139 del self.args, self.kwds, self.func
    140 try:
--> 141     return next(self.gen)
    142 except StopIteration:
    143     raise RuntimeError("generator didn't yield") from None

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/ibis/backends/duckdb/__init__.py:321, in Backend._safe_raw_sql(self, *args, **kwargs)
    319 @contextlib.contextmanager
    320 def _safe_raw_sql(self, *args, **kwargs):
--> 321     yield self.raw_sql(*args, **kwargs)

File ~/Software/miniforge3/envs/starplot/lib/python3.13/site-packages/ibis/backends/duckdb/__init__.py:93, in Backend.raw_sql(self, query, **kwargs)
     91 with contextlib.suppress(AttributeError):
     92     query = query.sql(dialect=self.name)
---> 93 return self.con.execute(query, **kwargs)

CatalogException: Catalog Error: Scalar Function with name "st_point" is not in the catalog, but it exists in the spatial extension.

Please try installing and loading the spatial extension:
INSTALL spatial;
LOAD spatial;

To Reproduce

from starplot import Star
bright_stars = Star.find(sql="select * from _ where magnitude < 4")

Expected behavior

Using starplot 0.16.4 I see

[Star(hip=32349, tyc=5949-2777-1, magnitude=-1.44, ra=101.2871, dec=-16.7161),
 Star(hip=30438, tyc=8534-2277-1, magnitude=-0.62, ra=95.988, dec=-52.6956),
 Star(hip=69673, tyc=1472-1436-1, magnitude=-0.05, ra=213.9153, dec=19.1824),
 Star(hip=71683, tyc=9007-5849-1, magnitude=-0.01, ra=219.9024, dec=-60.8339),
 Star(hip=24608, tyc=3358-3141-1, magnitude=0.08, ra=79.1724, dec=45.998),
 Star(hip=24436, tyc=5331-1752-1, magnitude=0.18, ra=78.6345, dec=-8.2016),
...]

Environment Details (please complete the following information):

• Starplot version 0.16.6
• Python version 3.13.3
• Matplotlib version 3.10.3
• OS: [e.g. macOS, Ubuntu, Windows, etc] macos 15.7.1

[HealthyPear]

I was trying to substitute this custom callable I made sometime ago (I am behind a few releases)

def bright_star_labels() -> dict:
        return {
            k: f"{v} {Star.get(name=v).magnitude}"
            if Star.get(name=v).magnitude <= DANGER_MAGNITUDE
            else v
            for k, v in STAR_NAMES.items()
        }

and I stumbled on the query above.

Maybe there is an easier/better way that does not trigger this error, but since I do not know if it is a real bug or something I inadvertently created in my project environment I decided to open the issue anyway.

[HealthyPear]

OK I found a fix but not sure if it is supposed to be the way to do it

I am doing this from a jupyter notebook in a conda environment

after installing the spatial extension the extension is installed, but my guess is that when calling this method from a new python kernel is still needs to explicitly load it

In fact it seems to work if I do

from starplot.data import db
con = db.connect()
con.load_extension("spatial")

before calling the command above

[steveberardi]

OK I found a fix but not sure if it is supposed to be the way to do it

I am doing this from a jupyter notebook in a conda environment

after installing the spatial extension the extension is installed, but my guess is that when calling this method from a new python kernel is still needs to explicitly load it

In fact it seems to work if I do

from starplot.data import db
con = db.connect()
con.load_extension("spatial")

before calling the command above

hmmm, yeah I'm guessing this is some kind of side effect of running Starplot through a Jupyter notebook. Maybe it's initially installing the spatial extension somewhere else, or the cache decorator is causing issues.

I'm curious if this works too:

from starplot import Star
from starplot.data import db

db.connect() # just call connect, dont explicitly install spatial extension too

bright_stars = Star.find(sql="select * from _ where magnitude < 4")

I'll have to investigate this some more, because I'd like for Starplot to work out of the box in Jupyter.

btw, have you tried Marimo? It's a nice alternative to Jupyter.

Thanks for reporting this! If you happen to find another solution, please share it here :)