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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-29267?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=18094566#comment-18094566
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Dale Lane edited comment on FLINK-29267 at 7/8/26 12:40 PM:
------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but this looks like it could still be useful.
I'm curious about the thinking behind the format
Why pack all the fields into a single unstructured string property, instead of
having a property per field?
e.g. instead of:
{{'mapping.data-types' = 'uuid_col: uuid, point_col: point, box_col: box'}}
we could do:
{{'mapping.data-types.uuid_col' = 'uuid', }}
{{'mapping.data-types.point_col' = 'point', }}
{{'mapping.data-types.box_col' = 'box'}}
Is there a reason you went for the former? (I realise you wrote this years ago,
so I understand if you don't remember the nuances!)
I think I mostly expected the latter because I'm used to that pattern in how
Kafka client config is handled in the kafka connector properties
was (Author: dalelane):
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but this looks like it could still be useful.
I'm curious about the thinking behind the format
Why pack all the fields into a single unstructured string property, instead of
having a property per field?
e.g. instead of:
{{'mapping.data-types' = 'uuid_col: uuid, point_col: point, box_col: box'}}
we could do:
{{'mapping.data-types.uuid_col' = 'uuid', }}
{{'mapping.data-types.point_col' = 'point', }}
{{'mapping.data-types.box_col' = 'box'}}
Is there a reason you went for the former? (I realise you wrote this years ago,
so I understand if you don't remember the nuances!)
I think I mostly expected the latter because I'm used to that pattern in how
Kafka client config is handled in the kafka connector properties
> Support external type systems in DDL
> ------------------------------------
>
> Key: FLINK-29267
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-29267
> Project: Flink
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Components: Connectors / JDBC, Formats (JSON, Avro, Parquet, ORC,
> SequenceFile), Table SQL / Ecosystem
> Reporter: Timo Walther
> Assignee: Timo Walther
> Priority: Major
>
> Many connectors and formats require supporting external data types. Postgres
> users request UUID support, Avro users require enum support, etc.
> FLINK-19869 implemented support for Postgres UUIDs poorly and even impacts
> performance with regular strings.
> The long-term solution should be user-defined types in Flink. This is however
> a bigger effort that requires a FLIP and a bigger amount of resources.
> As a mid-term solution, we should offer a consistent approach based on DDL
> options that allows to define a mapping from Flink type system to the
> external type system. I suggest the following:
> {code}
> CREATE TABLE MyTable (
> ...
> ) WITH(
> 'mapping.data-types' = '<Flink field name>: <External field data type>'
> )
> {code}
> The mapping defines a map from Flink data type to external data type. The
> external data type should be string parsable. This works for most connectors
> and formats (e.g. Avro schema string).
> Examples:
> {code}
> CREATE TABLE MyTable (
> regular_col STRING,
> uuid_col STRING,
> point_col ARRAY<DOUBLE>,
> box_col ARRAY<ARRAY<DOUBLE>>
> ) WITH(
> 'mapping.data-types' = 'uuid_col: uuid, point_col: point, box_col: box'
> )
> {code}
> We provide a table of supported mapping data types. E.g. the {{point}} type
> is always maped to {{ARRAY<DOUBLE>}}. In general we choose a data type in
> Flink that comes closest to the required functionality.
> Future work:
> In theory, we can also offer mapping of field names. It might be a
> requirement that Flink's column name is different from the external system's
> one.
> {code}
> CREATE TABLE MyTable (
> ...
> ) WITH(
> 'mapping.names' = '<Flink field name>: <External field name>'
> )
> {code}
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