rdblue commented on code in PR #14117: URL: https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/14117#discussion_r2612448270
########## format/udf-spec.md: ########## @@ -0,0 +1,402 @@ +--- +title: "SQL UDF Spec" +--- +<!-- + - Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more + - contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with + - this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. + - The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0 + - (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with + - the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at + - + - http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 + - + - Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software + - distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, + - WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. + - See the License for the specific language governing permissions and + - limitations under the License. + --> + +# Iceberg UDF Spec + +## Background and Motivation + +A SQL user-defined function (UDF or UDTF) is a callable routine that accepts input parameters and executes a function body. +Depending on the function type, the result can be: + +- **Scalar function (UDF)** – returns a scalar value, which may be a primitive type (e.g., `int`, `string`) or a non-primitive type (e.g., `struct`, `list`). +- **Table function (UDTF)** – returns a table with zero or more rows of columns with a uniform schema. + +Many compute engines (e.g., Spark, Trino) already support UDFs, but in different and incompatible ways. Without a common +standard, UDFs cannot be reliably shared across engines or reused in multi-engine environments. + +This specification introduces a standardized metadata format for UDFs in Iceberg. + +## Goals + +* Define a portable metadata format for both scalar and table SQL UDFs. The metadata is self-contained and can be moved across catalogs. +* Support function evolution through versioning and rollback. +* Provide consistent semantics for representing UDFs across engines. + +## Overview + +UDF metadata follows the same design principles as Iceberg table and view metadata: each function is represented by a +**self-contained metadata file**. Metadata captures definitions, parameters, return types, documentation, security, +properties, and engine-specific representations. + +* Any modification (new definition, updated representation, changed properties, etc.) creates a new metadata file, and atomically swaps in the new file as the current metadata. +* Each metadata file includes recent definition versions, enabling rollbacks without external state. + +## Specification + +### UDF Metadata +The UDF metadata file has the following fields: + +| Requirement | Field name | Type | Description | +|-------------|-------------------|------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| +| *required* | `function-uuid` | `string` | A UUID that identifies the function, generated once at creation. | +| *required* | `format-version` | `int` | Metadata format version (must be `1`). | +| *required* | `definitions` | `list<definition>` | List of function [definition](#definition) entities. | +| *required* | `definition-log` | `list<definition-log>` | History of [definition snapshots](#definition-log). | +| *required* | `parameter-names` | `list<parameter-name>` | Global ordered parameter names shared across all overloads. Overloads must use a prefix of this list, in order. | Review Comment: @ajantha-bhat, your examples don't quite align with the intent. The intent of the parameter names in metadata is more like an interface definition in Java. Implementations (definitions in this spec) may be able to use other names as they can in Java, but the names that are shown in documentation are those of the interface. An important reason for this is so that all functions have consistent names, so that we can pre-process named parameters. For example, if I have `parameter-names` `["a", "b", "c"]`, then for any invocation I know how to map named params to positions. `foo(b => 3, a => 6)` results in `foo(6, 3)` and ends up calling whatever definition handles `(int,int)`. -- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
