[jira] [Created] (FLINK-18657) Change semantics of DESCRIBE SELECT statement

["Fabian Hueske (Jira)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Fabian Hueske created FLINK-18657:
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             Summary: Change semantics of DESCRIBE SELECT statement
                 Key: FLINK-18657
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-18657
             Project: Flink
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: Table SQL / API
    Affects Versions: 1.11.0
            Reporter: Fabian Hueske


Running a {{DESCRIBE SELECT ...}} returns the same as {{EXPLAIN PLAN FOR SELECT ...}}, i.e., an unstructured, textual description of the execution plan.

I think it would be more consistent and also more useful if {{DESCRIBE SELECT ...}} would display the result schema of the {{SELECT}} query, just like {{DESCRIBE TABLE xxx}} shows the schema of the table {{xxx}}. This would be useful for users who need to create a sink table to write the result schema of a SELECT query and figure out the schema of the query.

This would be a breaking change, but {{DESCRIBE SELECT ...}} seems to be an undocumented feature (at least it is not listed on the [DESCRIBE docs|https://ci.apache.org/projects/flink/flink-docs-release-1.11/dev/table/sql/describe.html]) and the original behavior would be still available via {{EXPLAIN PLAN FOR SELECT ...}} (which is documented).



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