[GitHub] [nifi] markap14 commented on pull request #4648: NIFI-7981 - add support for enum type in avro schema

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markap14 commented on pull request #4648:
URL: https://github.com/apache/nifi/pull/4648#issuecomment-722710471


   I'm personally not a fan of introducing Enum here as a datatype. I avoided introducing that as one of the data types when originally creating the Record API. What I think makes far more sense is a more general notion of restrictions of types. Consider, for example, how XSD allows you to add a restriction to a base type. We want to eventually support specifying schemas using XSD, and we'll need to support this notion in order to make that happen. I would certainly favor introducing that notion now over introducing an Enum. Then, when converting an Avro schema into a RecordSchema, we could do so as a restriction on the String type. This provides far more power and flexibility when using schemas, such as specifying that an int must be in the range of 1-100, and this then becomes extremely powerful when coupled with something like ValidateRecord.
   Adding an enum at this time, IMO, makes this a bit awkward, because it is then a specific type whose purpose is to introduce a restriction on another type (I.e., it is basically a Restriction on a String type). So I think it kind of makes things confusing if our API provides two mechanisms for specifying an enumeration: using an enum type, or specifying a restriction on a String type...


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