[jira] [Created] (FLINK-11785) Replace case class Null(type) in Table API

["Timo Walther (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Timo Walther created FLINK-11785:
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             Summary: Replace case class Null(type) in Table API
                 Key: FLINK-11785
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-11785
             Project: Flink
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: API / Table SQL
            Reporter: Timo Walther
            Assignee: Timo Walther


FLINK-11449 has shown parts of the API that have not been designed properly. Especially, direct usages of case classes that will be only in the planner module should not be exposed through the API.

Using {{null}} for representing a null literal is currently not supported in the Table API as a general {{NULL}} type and/or proper type inference is missing. Therefore, nulls must be typed using {{Null(Type.STRING)}}. However, this encourages users to use case classes instead of the Scala DSL.

We could implement a implicit object for {{Null}}, however, all functions and literals currently start with a lower case except for this object. I would recommend to introduce {{nullOf(type)}} instead. This would allow us to have {{nullOf(type)}} and {{null}} in the future.



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