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Posted to dev@avro.apache.org by "Anzile, Christophe" <ch...@hpe.com.INVALID> on 2025/05/15 08:48:20 UTC

Are aliases following the same rules as names ?

Hi,

I'm reading the spec about aliases https://avro.apache.org/docs/1.12.0/specification/#aliases
And specifically, this part

Aliases are alternative names, and thus subject to the same uniqueness constraints as names.
Aliases should be valid names, but this is not required: any string is accepted as an alias.

My goal is to use aliases to allow the dash (-) character:
Suppose I have a field with
"symbols": ["Not_Handled", "Handled"]
"aliases": ["Not-Handled", "Handled"]

To me, it looks correct regarding the specifications.
At least, I can upload such schema into a schema registry without any error.

But when I decode it using the avro java library, I have:
2025-05-15 07:58:13 [main] ERROR Error occurred while fetching schema my_schema
org.apache.avro.SchemaParseException: Illegal character in: Not-Handled
               at org.apache.avro.Schema.validateName(Schema.java:1693) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
               at org.apache.avro.Schema$Name.<init>(Schema.java:730) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
               at org.apache.avro.Schema$NamedSchema.addAlias(Schema.java:846) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
               at org.apache.avro.Schema$NamedSchema.addAlias(Schema.java:837) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
               at org.apache.avro.Schema.parseAliases(Schema.java:2003) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
               at org.apache.avro.Schema.parseEnum(Schema.java:1929) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
               at org.apache.avro.Schema.parse(Schema.java:1837) ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]

Is this a bug ? Or am I misinterpreting the spec ?

Thanx,
Christophe.

Re: Are aliases following the same rules as names ?

Posted by Martin Grigorov <mg...@apache.org>.

Fixing Christophe's email (removed .invalid)

On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 1:08 PM Martin Grigorov <mg...@apache.org>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I could tell for the Rust SDK:
> 1) aliases are validated as names
> 2) the application could set a custom validator via
> apache_avro::validator::set_schema_name_validator(...). It will be used
> for both names and aliases
>
> In the Java SDK you could use
> https://github.com/apache/avro/blob/80cebcfbae3425ea555ff8ddd17e9102b7f88e55/lang/java/avro/src/main/java/org/apache/avro/Schema.java#L1703
> but it is deprecated ...
>
> On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 11:50 AM Anzile, Christophe
> <ch...@hpe.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm reading the spec about aliases
>> https://avro.apache.org/docs/1.12.0/specification/#aliases
>> And specifically, this part
>>
>> Aliases are alternative names, and thus subject to the same uniqueness
>> constraints as names.
>> Aliases should be valid names, but this is not required: any string is
>> accepted as an alias.
>>
>> My goal is to use aliases to allow the dash (-) character:
>> Suppose I have a field with
>> "symbols": ["Not_Handled", "Handled"]
>> "aliases": ["Not-Handled", "Handled"]
>>
>> To me, it looks correct regarding the specifications.
>> At least, I can upload such schema into a schema registry without any
>> error.
>>
>> But when I decode it using the avro java library, I have:
>> 2025-05-15 07:58:13 [main] ERROR Error occurred while fetching schema
>> my_schema
>> org.apache.avro.SchemaParseException: Illegal character in: Not-Handled
>>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.validateName(Schema.java:1693)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>                at org.apache.avro.Schema$Name.<init>(Schema.java:730)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>                at
>> org.apache.avro.Schema$NamedSchema.addAlias(Schema.java:846)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>                at
>> org.apache.avro.Schema$NamedSchema.addAlias(Schema.java:837)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.parseAliases(Schema.java:2003)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.parseEnum(Schema.java:1929)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.parse(Schema.java:1837)
>> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>>
>> Is this a bug ? Or am I misinterpreting the spec ?
>>
>> Thanx,
>> Christophe.
>>
>>
>>

Re: Are aliases following the same rules as names ?

Posted by Martin Grigorov <mg...@apache.org>.

Hi,

I could tell for the Rust SDK:
1) aliases are validated as names
2) the application could set a custom validator via
apache_avro::validator::set_schema_name_validator(...). It will be used for
both names and aliases

In the Java SDK you could use
https://github.com/apache/avro/blob/80cebcfbae3425ea555ff8ddd17e9102b7f88e55/lang/java/avro/src/main/java/org/apache/avro/Schema.java#L1703
but it is deprecated ...

On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 11:50 AM Anzile, Christophe
<ch...@hpe.com.invalid> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm reading the spec about aliases
> https://avro.apache.org/docs/1.12.0/specification/#aliases
> And specifically, this part
>
> Aliases are alternative names, and thus subject to the same uniqueness
> constraints as names.
> Aliases should be valid names, but this is not required: any string is
> accepted as an alias.
>
> My goal is to use aliases to allow the dash (-) character:
> Suppose I have a field with
> "symbols": ["Not_Handled", "Handled"]
> "aliases": ["Not-Handled", "Handled"]
>
> To me, it looks correct regarding the specifications.
> At least, I can upload such schema into a schema registry without any
> error.
>
> But when I decode it using the avro java library, I have:
> 2025-05-15 07:58:13 [main] ERROR Error occurred while fetching schema
> my_schema
> org.apache.avro.SchemaParseException: Illegal character in: Not-Handled
>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.validateName(Schema.java:1693)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>                at org.apache.avro.Schema$Name.<init>(Schema.java:730)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>                at
> org.apache.avro.Schema$NamedSchema.addAlias(Schema.java:846)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>                at
> org.apache.avro.Schema$NamedSchema.addAlias(Schema.java:837)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.parseAliases(Schema.java:2003)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.parseEnum(Schema.java:1929)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>                at org.apache.avro.Schema.parse(Schema.java:1837)
> ~[avro-1.12.0.jar:1.12.0]
>
> Is this a bug ? Or am I misinterpreting the spec ?
>
> Thanx,
> Christophe.
>
>
>