Version: 0.10.1

Schema Evolution

Schema evolution is a very important aspect of data management. Hudi supports common schema evolution scenarios, such as adding a nullable field or promoting a datatype of a field, out-of-the-box. Furthermore, the evolved schema is queryable across engines, such as Presto, Hive and Spark SQL. The following table presents a summary of the types of schema changes compatible with different Hudi table types.

Schema Change	COW	MOR	Remarks
Add a new nullable column at root level at the end	Yes	Yes	`Yes` means that a write with evolved schema succeeds and a read following the write succeeds to read entire dataset.
Add a new nullable column to inner struct (at the end)	Yes	Yes
Add a new complex type field with default (map and array)	Yes	Yes
Add a new nullable column and change the ordering of fields	No	No	Write succeeds but read fails if the write with evolved schema updated only some of the base files but not all. Currently, Hudi does not maintain a schema registry with history of changes across base files. Nevertheless, if the upsert touched all base files then the read will succeed.
Add a custom nullable Hudi meta column, e.g. `_hoodie_meta_col`	Yes	Yes
Promote datatype from `int` to `long` for a field at root level	Yes	Yes	For other types, Hudi supports promotion as specified in Avro schema resolution.
Promote datatype from `int` to `long` for a nested field	Yes	Yes
Promote datatype from `int` to `long` for a complex type (value of map or array)	Yes	Yes
Add a new non-nullable column at root level at the end	No	No	In case of MOR table with Spark data source, write succeeds but read fails. As a workaround, you can make the field nullable.
Add a new non-nullable column to inner struct (at the end)	No	No
Change datatype from `long` to `int` for a nested field	No	No
Change datatype from `long` to `int` for a complex type (value of map or array)	No	No

Let us walk through an example to demonstrate the schema evolution support in Hudi. In the below example, we are going to add a new string field and change the datatype of a field from int to long.

Welcome to
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    /___/ .__/\_,_/_/ /_/\_\   version 3.1.2
    /_/

    Using Scala version 2.12.10 (OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.8.0_292)
    Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
    Type :help for more information.

scala> import org.apache.hudi.QuickstartUtils._
import org.apache.hudi.QuickstartUtils._

scala> import scala.collection.JavaConversions._
import scala.collection.JavaConversions._

scala> import org.apache.spark.sql.SaveMode._
import org.apache.spark.sql.SaveMode._

scala> import org.apache.hudi.DataSourceReadOptions._
import org.apache.hudi.DataSourceReadOptions._

scala> import org.apache.hudi.DataSourceWriteOptions._
import org.apache.hudi.DataSourceWriteOptions._

scala> import org.apache.hudi.config.HoodieWriteConfig._
import org.apache.hudi.config.HoodieWriteConfig._

scala> import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._

scala> import org.apache.spark.sql.Row
import org.apache.spark.sql.Row

scala> val tableName = "hudi_trips_cow"
    tableName: String = hudi_trips_cow
scala> val basePath = "file:///tmp/hudi_trips_cow"
    basePath: String = file:///tmp/hudi_trips_cow
scala> val schema = StructType( Array(
    | StructField("rowId", StringType,true),
    | StructField("partitionId", StringType,true),
    | StructField("preComb", LongType,true),
    | StructField("name", StringType,true),
    | StructField("versionId", StringType,true),
    | StructField("intToLong", IntegerType,true)
    | ))
    schema: org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructType = StructType(StructField(rowId,StringType,true), StructField(partitionId,StringType,true), StructField(preComb,LongType,true), StructField(name,StringType,true), StructField(versionId,StringType,true), StructField(intToLong,IntegerType,true))
    
scala> val data1 = Seq(Row("row_1", "part_0", 0L, "bob", "v_0", 0),
    |                Row("row_2", "part_0", 0L, "john", "v_0", 0),
    |                Row("row_3", "part_0", 0L, "tom", "v_0", 0))
    data1: Seq[org.apache.spark.sql.Row] = List([row_1,part_0,0,bob,v_0,0], [row_2,part_0,0,john,v_0,0], [row_3,part_0,0,tom,v_0,0])

scala> var dfFromData1 = spark.createDataFrame(data1, schema)
scala> dfFromData1.write.format("hudi").
    |   options(getQuickstartWriteConfigs).
    |   option(PRECOMBINE_FIELD.key, "preComb").
    |   option(RECORDKEY_FIELD.key, "rowId").
    |   option(PARTITIONPATH_FIELD.key, "partitionId").
    |   option("hoodie.index.type","SIMPLE").
    |   option(TBL_NAME.key, tableName).
    |   mode(Overwrite).
    |   save(basePath)

scala> var tripsSnapshotDF1 = spark.read.format("hudi").load(basePath + "/*/*")
    tripsSnapshotDF1: org.apache.spark.sql.DataFrame = [_hoodie_commit_time: string, _hoodie_commit_seqno: string ... 9 more fields]

scala> tripsSnapshotDF1.createOrReplaceTempView("hudi_trips_snapshot")

scala> spark.sql("desc hudi_trips_snapshot").show()
    +--------------------+---------+-------+
    |            col_name|data_type|comment|
    +--------------------+---------+-------+
    | _hoodie_commit_time|   string|   null|
    |_hoodie_commit_seqno|   string|   null|
    |  _hoodie_record_key|   string|   null|
    |_hoodie_partition...|   string|   null|
    |   _hoodie_file_name|   string|   null|
    |               rowId|   string|   null|
    |         partitionId|   string|   null|
    |             preComb|   bigint|   null|
    |                name|   string|   null|
    |           versionId|   string|   null|
    |           intToLong|      int|   null|
    +--------------------+---------+-------+
    
scala> spark.sql("select rowId, partitionId, preComb, name, versionId, intToLong from hudi_trips_snapshot").show()
    +-----+-----------+-------+----+---------+---------+
    |rowId|partitionId|preComb|name|versionId|intToLong|
    +-----+-----------+-------+----+---------+---------+
    |row_3|     part_0|      0| tom|      v_0|        0|
    |row_2|     part_0|      0|john|      v_0|        0|
    |row_1|     part_0|      0| bob|      v_0|        0|
    +-----+-----------+-------+----+---------+---------+

// In the new schema, we are going to add a String field and 
// change the datatype `intToLong` field from  int to long.
scala> val newSchema = StructType( Array(
    | StructField("rowId", StringType,true),
    | StructField("partitionId", StringType,true),
    | StructField("preComb", LongType,true),
    | StructField("name", StringType,true),
    | StructField("versionId", StringType,true),
    | StructField("intToLong", LongType,true),
    | StructField("newField", StringType,true)
    | ))
    newSchema: org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructType = StructType(StructField(rowId,StringType,true), StructField(partitionId,StringType,true), StructField(preComb,LongType,true), StructField(name,StringType,true), StructField(versionId,StringType,true), StructField(intToLong,LongType,true), StructField(newField,StringType,true))

scala> val data2 = Seq(Row("row_2", "part_0", 5L, "john", "v_3", 3L, "newField_1"),
    |                Row("row_5", "part_0", 5L, "maroon", "v_2", 2L, "newField_1"),
    |                Row("row_9", "part_0", 5L, "michael", "v_2", 2L, "newField_1"))
    data2: Seq[org.apache.spark.sql.Row] = List([row_2,part_0,5,john,v_3,3,newField_1], [row_5,part_0,5,maroon,v_2,2,newField_1], [row_9,part_0,5,michael,v_2,2,newField_1])

scala> var dfFromData2 = spark.createDataFrame(data2, newSchema)
scala> dfFromData2.write.format("hudi").
    |   options(getQuickstartWriteConfigs).
    |   option(PRECOMBINE_FIELD.key, "preComb").
    |   option(RECORDKEY_FIELD.key, "rowId").
    |   option(PARTITIONPATH_FIELD.key, "partitionId").
    |   option("hoodie.index.type","SIMPLE").
    |   option(TBL_NAME.key, tableName).
    |   mode(Append).
    |   save(basePath)

scala> var tripsSnapshotDF2 = spark.read.format("hudi").load(basePath + "/*/*")
    tripsSnapshotDF2: org.apache.spark.sql.DataFrame = [_hoodie_commit_time: string, _hoodie_commit_seqno: string ... 10 more fields]

scala> tripsSnapshotDF2.createOrReplaceTempView("hudi_trips_snapshot")

scala> spark.sql("desc hudi_trips_snapshot").show()
    +--------------------+---------+-------+
    |            col_name|data_type|comment|
    +--------------------+---------+-------+
    | _hoodie_commit_time|   string|   null|
    |_hoodie_commit_seqno|   string|   null|
    |  _hoodie_record_key|   string|   null|
    |_hoodie_partition...|   string|   null|
    |   _hoodie_file_name|   string|   null|
    |               rowId|   string|   null|
    |         partitionId|   string|   null|
    |             preComb|   bigint|   null|
    |                name|   string|   null|
    |           versionId|   string|   null|
    |           intToLong|   bigint|   null|
    |            newField|   string|   null|
    +--------------------+---------+-------+


scala> spark.sql("select rowId, partitionId, preComb, name, versionId, intToLong, newField from hudi_trips_snapshot").show()
    +-----+-----------+-------+-------+---------+---------+----------+
    |rowId|partitionId|preComb|   name|versionId|intToLong|  newField|
    +-----+-----------+-------+-------+---------+---------+----------+
    |row_3|     part_0|      0|    tom|      v_0|        0|      null|
    |row_2|     part_0|      5|   john|      v_3|        3|newField_1|
    |row_1|     part_0|      0|    bob|      v_0|        0|      null|
    |row_5|     part_0|      5| maroon|      v_2|        2|newField_1|
    |row_9|     part_0|      5|michael|      v_2|        2|newField_1|
    +-----+-----------+-------+-------+---------+---------+----------+