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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-656?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12977937#action_12977937
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Douglas Creager commented on AVRO-656:
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You could make the union wrapper optional in the dynamic languages.  So when 
writing out a union schema value, if you get a union wrapper data instance, 
then great, that's used to choose the branch.  If not, it uses the previous 
rules, with the caveat that there might a run-time error if the schema is 
ambiguous.  For most people, who have unambiguous schemas, they don't need to 
jump through the extra hoops.  But if you do have an ambiguous schema, you have 
a way to resolve the ambiguity.

That could work as an alternative solution on the Java side, too, if you want 
to avoid breaking API compatibility.

> writing unions with multiple records, fixed or enums can choose wrong branch 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: AVRO-656
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-656
>             Project: Avro
>          Issue Type: Bug
>          Components: java
>    Affects Versions: 1.4.0
>            Reporter: Doug Cutting
>            Assignee: Doug Cutting
>             Fix For: 1.5.0
>
>         Attachments: AVRO-656.patch, AVRO-656.patch
>
>
> According to the specification, a union may contain multiple instances of a 
> named type, provided they have different names.  There are several bugs in 
> the Java implementation of this when writing data:
>  - for record, only the short-name of the record is checked, so the branch 
> for a record of the same name in a different namespace may be used by mistake
>  - for enum and fixed, the name of the record is not checked, so the first 
> enum or fixed in the union will always be assumed when writing.  in many 
> cases this may cause the wrong data to be written, potentially corrupting 
> output.
> This is not a regression.  This has never been implemented correctly by Java. 
>  Python and Ruby never check names, but rather perform a full, recursive 
> validation of content.

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