> > I'm happy to make PR clarifying this. I'm a little bit concerned that if > validation doesn't exist in Java (and maybe other languages today) if we > make the spec stricter it could break users. How has the community handled > issues like this in the past?
Something similar happened for the generic API and enums, IIRC, and we handled it by only rolling it out in a major version for the libraries (e.g. 1.y where y is the major version for Avro releases) and release noting it. On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 11:47 AM Micah Kornfield <emkornfi...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm happy to make PR clarifying this. I'm a little bit concerned that if > validation doesn't exist in Java (and maybe other languages today) if we > make the spec stricter it could break users. How has the community handled > issues like this in the past? > > Would someone familiar with the Java implementation be able to comment if > there is validation around this (I couldn't find it on a quick search)? > > Thanks, > Micah > > On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 9:23 AM Doug Cutting <cutt...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Yes, the intent was to prohibit namespaces starting with a dot. > > > > <empty> | (<name>((<dot><name>)*)) was the intended grammar. > > > > Doug > > > > On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 1:50 AM Ryan Skraba <r...@skraba.com> wrote: > > > > > Hello! Hmmm... reading through the spec (again), there is a small > > > ambiguous point! Good catch! > > > > > > Specifically, it specifically says that ".a" is not a valid namespace > > > attribute: > > > > > > "A namespace is a dot-separated sequence of such [non-empty] names. > > > The empty string may also be used as a namespace ..." > > > > > > But it could be a valid full name: made from a valid namespace (the > > > empty string) and a valid name. > > > > > > I suspect that the original intention was that it should not be a > > > valid fullname, with the consequence that all valid fullnames are > > > valid Java class names. > > > > > > If it *were* a valid fullname, however, it would be useful to > > > distinguish between specifying the default namespace versus inheriting > > > a namespace from a parent record! As far as I can tell, this > > > behaviour isn't implemented anywhere or specified in the spec either. > > > > > > What do you think? The spec could be clarified either way. > > > > > > Ryan > > > > > > > > > On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 7:20 PM Micah Kornfield <emkornfi...@gmail.com > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > Hi Avro Dev, > > > > I think there is a little bit of ambiguity in the requirements for > the > > > > namespace component of a full name in the specification [1]. In > > > particular > > > > it isn't clear whether namespaces like: > > > > ".namespace" should be considered valid (i.e. a "null" namespace > > > followed a > > > > valid name). > > > > > > > > It appears the the C++ implementation does not think this is valid > [2] > > > but > > > > I couldn't find a corresponding check in the Java code base (I'm > still > > > > familiarizing myself with both). > > > > > > > > Should ".namespace" be considered valid? > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > Micah > > > > > > > > [1] https://avro.apache.org/docs/current/spec.html > > > > [2] > > > > https://github.com/apache/avro/blob/master/lang/c%2B%2B/impl/Node.cc#L72 > > > > > > -- Sean
