bug: `DuckDB` backend returns `pyarrow.RecordBatchReader` instead of `pyarrow.Table`, breaking `.execute()`

[ElenaKhaustova]

What happened?

When using the DuckDB backend in Ibis with recent versions of DuckDB (≥1.4.0), calling .execute() on a table expression can fail because the backend returns a pyarrow.RecordBatchReader.

Ibis currently assumes the result is a pyarrow.Table and accesses attributes like .column_names, which RecordBatchReader does not have. This leads to:

AttributeError: 'pyarrow.lib.RecordBatchReader' object has no attribute 'column_names'

How to reproduce

1. Install latest (will reproduce the issue with DuckDB ≥1.4.0)

pip install "ibis-framework[duckdb]" duckdb pyarrow

2. Run the following example

import ibis

# Connect via Ibis DuckDB backend
con = ibis.duckdb.connect(database=":memory:")

# Create an in-memory table
data = ibis.memtable({"col1": [1, 2], "col2": [3, 4]})
con.create_table("t", data)

# Load the table back
t = con.table("t")

# Attempt to execute
result = t.execute()  # Fails with AttributeError when DuckDB >=1.4.0

What version of ibis are you using?

ibis-framework==10.8.0

What backend(s) are you using, if any?

duckdb==1.4.0 (regression not seen with <1.4.0)

Relevant log output

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/opt/miniconda3/envs/test-ibis-env/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ibis/expr/types/core.py", line 424, in execute
    return self._find_backend(use_default=True).execute(
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/opt/miniconda3/envs/test-ibis-env/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ibis/backends/duckdb/__init__.py", line 1415, in execute
    for name, col in zip(table.column_names, table.columns)
                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AttributeError: 'pyarrow.lib.RecordBatchReader' object has no attribute 'column_names'

Code of Conduct

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[csubhodeep]

Thanks for raising this !

I am facing the same issue as I wanted to use the FILL window function from duckdb==1.4.0 on my ibis.Exprs. Any quick temporary workarounds would be much appreciated.

[JonAnCla]

A fix has already been merged already:
#11622 (comment)

If you want to use duckdb 1.4.0 you'll need to work off main until there's a new release. Thanks!

[ElenaKhaustova]

Closing this issue as the fix was already merged