Google Bigquery BQ command line execute query from a file

Question

I use the bq command line tool to run queries, e.g:

bq query "select * from table"

What if I store the query in a file

Answer 1

You can run a query from a text file with a little bit of shell magic:

$ echo "SELECT 17" > qq.txt
$ bq query "$(cat qq.txt)"

Waiting on bqjob_r603d91b7e0435a0f_00000150c56689c6_1 ... (0s) Current status: DONE   
+-----+
| f0_ |
+-----+
|  17 |
+-----+

Note this works on any unix variant (including mac). If you're using a windows, this should work under powershell but not the default cmd prompt.