[jira] Created: (AVRO-680) Allow for non-string keys

["Jeremy Hanna (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Allow for non-string keys
-------------------------

                 Key: AVRO-680
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-680
             Project: Avro
          Issue Type: Improvement
            Reporter: Jeremy Hanna


Based on an email thread back in April, Doug Cutting proposed a possible solution for having non-string keys:

Stu Hood wrote:
> I can understand the reasoning behind AVRO-9, but now I need to look for an alternative to a 'map' that will allow me to store an association of bytes keys to values.

A map of Foo has the same binary format as an array of records, each
with a string field and a Foo field.  So an application can use an array
schema similar to this to represent map-like structures with, e.g.,
non-string keys.

Perhaps we could establish standard properties that indicate that a
given array of records should be represented in a map-like way if
possible?  E.g.,:

{"type": "array", "isMap": true, "items": {"type":"record", ...}}

Doug

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[jira] Commented: (AVRO-680) Allow for non-string keys

["David Rosenstrauch (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-680?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12930215#action_12930215 ] 

David Rosenstrauch commented on AVRO-680:
-----------------------------------------

I too see the logic behind AVRO-9.  But I'm also having a need in my code to create a map with non-string keys, and without that capability built-in, defining a schema to achieve that functionality is really ugly.  e.g.:

{code:java}
...
	{
		"name": "KVMappings",
		"type": {
			"type": "array",
			"items": {
				"name": "KVMapping",
				"type": "record",
				"fields" : [
					{"name": "Key", "type": "long"},
					{"name": "Value", "type": "long"}
				]
			}
		}
	}
{code}

Not to mention that the code for reading/writing to/from a record with such a schema is an ugly hack too.

Is there any way to add/restore the functionality make it possible for Avro to create non-string-based maps?

Perhaps a good implementation would be for string-based keys to be the default, but allowing the user to have the option to specify an alternate key type if they desire.

Thoughts?

> Allow for non-string keys
> -------------------------
>
>                 Key: AVRO-680
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-680
>             Project: Avro
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>            Reporter: Jeremy Hanna
>
> Based on an email thread back in April, Doug Cutting proposed a possible solution for having non-string keys:
> Stu Hood wrote:
> > I can understand the reasoning behind AVRO-9, but now I need to look for an alternative to a 'map' that will allow me to store an association of bytes keys to values.
> A map of Foo has the same binary format as an array of records, each
> with a string field and a Foo field.  So an application can use an array
> schema similar to this to represent map-like structures with, e.g.,
> non-string keys.
> Perhaps we could establish standard properties that indicate that a
> given array of records should be represented in a map-like way if
> possible?  E.g.,:
> {"type": "array", "isMap": true, "items": {"type":"record", ...}}
> Doug

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