dbt two argument ref - dbt

Question

How do I refer to relative path from view1 to view2 using ref('package_name', 'model_name') ?
/root_folder
/ project1
/models
view1.sql
dbt_project.yml
/ project2
/models
view2.sql
dbt_project.yml
There is no code example in the documentation.
Thank you.

Answer 1

The only way for project2 to know about models in project1 is if project2 included project1 as a package in its packages.yml file. Then you could refer to view1 as ref('project1', 'view1') in project2.
You'll have to check the syntax here, but you could include project1 in project2 in packages.yml like so:
in project2\packages.yml:
packages:
- local: ../project1
Needless to say, you'd save yourself a lot of headaches by simply not splitting projects. In most cases you shouldn't need to do that and simple folderization does most of what you might need.

Answer 2

To try and answer the question with a little more focus on your comment:
I have one folder for each dataset I have on bigquery. Can I write models for several datasets in one single folder?
Yes you can!
Quick note on terms from the dbt docs "BigQuery configurations" in case you are not using bigquery.
schema is interchangeable with the BigQuery concept dataset
database is interchangeable with the BigQuery concept of project
Here is how this works for me:
project-dir
| analysis
| data
| macros
| models
|> sources
- dataset1.yml
- dataset2.yml
| seed
| dbt_project.yml
| packages.yml
Where the contents of a dataset.yml is:
version: 2
sources:
- name: fivetran_log
database: my-bigquery-project-id
loader: fivetran
tables:
- name: account
- name: log
- name: user
No references are required within the dbt_project.yml to utilize these sources immediately. Instead, you can reference this directly from models like:
select *
from {{ source('fivetran_log', 'user') }}
That should allow you to have multiple dataset sources, but one single dbt project directory for all your views.
However, if the datasets you are referencing are within different bigquery regions or different billing projects, I believe you will run into some errors.
Appendix of related questions / resources across the dbt-verse:
Should I have an organisation wide project (a monorepo) or should each work flow have their own?
Building dbt models to be compatible with multiple data warehouses