CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-bigquery
J.Fratzke
J.Fratzke

Reputation: 1465

Adding Column Description to BigQuery schema definition

Is it possible to specify comments in the schema definition of a BigQuery table via the API?

I use the following schema when creating a BigQuery table via the Hadoop connector

[{"name" : "event_id", "type" : "integer"},{ "name" : "categorization" , "type" : "string" }]

And I want something like

[{"name" : "event_id", "type" : "integer", "description" : "The event identifier"},{ "name" : "categorization" , "type" : "string" }]

EDIT: I've just tried this with the spark connector but it doesn't work. The descriptions are still empty

BigQueryConfiguration.configureBigQueryOutput(
      bqConfiguration, projectId, bqDatasetId, bqTable, schema)
    bqConfiguration.set(
      "mapreduce.job.outputformat.class",
      classOf[BigQueryOutputFormat[_,_]].getName)

    new JavaPairRDD(rdd.map((null, _))).saveAsNewAPIHadoopDataset(bqConfiguration)
  }

DOUBLE EDIT: Added some code for context

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3508

Answers (2)

Mikhail Berlyant
Mikhail Berlyant

Reputation: 172944

That is exactly what BigQuery provides you with
You can do this either upon table creation with Tables: insert API or you can add to existing table using Tables: patch API
See respective parameters to be used in Table Resources
You can have description for whole table and for each field

Upvotes: 1

Danny Kitt
Danny Kitt

Reputation: 3251

Yes, table fields can have their own descriptions. The schema you posted with the description should work when sent to the API.

https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/reference/v2/tables#schema.fields.description

Upvotes: 0

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