Guides
`read_text`
The `read_text` table function reads from the selected source(s) to a `VARCHAR`. Each file results in a single row with the `content` field holding the entire content of the respective file.  
```sql
SELECT size, parse_path(filename), content
FROM read_text('test/sql/table_function/files/*.txt');
```  
| size |             parse_path(filename)              |      content     |
|-----:|-----------------------------------------------|------------------|
| 12   | [test, sql, table_function, files, one.txt]   | Hello World!     |
| 2    | [test, sql, table_function, files, three.txt] | 42               |
| 10   | [test, sql, table_function, files, two.txt]   | Foo Bar\nFöö Bär |  
The file content is first validated to be valid UTF-8. If `read_text` attempts to read a file with invalid UTF-8, an error is thrown suggesting to use [`read_blob`](#::read_blob) instead.