On Fri, Feb 4, 2022 at 2:12 PM Oscar Westra van Holthe - Kind < [email protected]> wrote:
> On fr 4 feb. 2022 12:13, Ryan Skraba <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hello! I created the JIRA AVRO-3370[1] that demonstrates two > > different behaviours between Java and python with respect to using > > complex types (such as "record" as a name in a named type). > > [...] > > There's probably two fixes to be done here: > > - Better define the behaviour so all language SDKs are consistent, and > > - Contribute an upstream fix to Flink so that it's compatible with > python. > > > > We should indeed do these things both. The only question IMHO is how. > > > What do you think is the right thing to do? Should we be able to > > define a record named record (the Java behaviour) or should the spec > > be stricter about using types like names (the Python behaviour)? > > > Avoiding keywords for C/C++/C#, Java, Javascript, Python, Pearl, Rust, ... > is tricky at best and usually error prone. Plus, evolving languages (like > the new keywords record & sealed in Java) easily break backwards > compatibility. As a result, I think we should let keyword conflicts for > e.g. generated code be handled per language (as needed), and have Avro > define whatever we like. > > I like flexibility, so I vote to allow any name that isn't a type > _reference_. This means names like string, int, null, float, etc. are not > allowed, but date, time_ms, record, union, etc. are. Wouldn't this make it hard for Schema references ? Consider {"type":"record","name":"record", "fields":[ {"name":"value","type":"int}, {"name":"next","type":["null",{"type":"*record*"}]}]}" The latter "type": "record" would be really confusing for parsing. Same for enum, fixed & union types. IMO Avro specification should disallow using both primitive types (string, int, null, float, etc.) and complex types (record, enum, union, fixed) as names. Every language impl should mangle its generated types considering its own keywords. > > > Kind regards, > Oscar > > -- > Oscar Westra van Holthe - Kind <[email protected]> >
