Hi everyone, Thanks for all the feedback so far. This discussion has been open for a week now.
If there are no objections, I'd like to start the vote tomorrow. Best, Ramin On Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 5:36 PM Ramin Gharib <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'd like to start a discussion on FLIP-618: Edit, Inspect and Build > VARIANT Values. > > Wiki: > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/spaces/FLINK/pages/461570450/FLIP-618+Edit+Inspect+and+Build+VARIANT+Values > > Flink can store and read VARIANT values since 2.1. SQL users still > cannot inspect or change one field and keep the rest, ask what a value > contains, > or build an object from columns without going through JSON text. > Today each of these needs a UDF that rebuilds the whole value. > > The FLIP proposes built-in functions to edit (VARIANT_SET, > VARIANT_DELETE, VARIANT_MERGE, ...), inspect (IS_VARIANT_NULL, > VARIANT_KEYS, SCHEMA_OF_VARIANT, ...) and build (VARIANT_OBJECT, > VARIANT_OBJECT_AGG) VARIANT values, plus a Java API to edit a value > inside a UDF. > > Looking forward to your feedback. > > Best, > Ramin Gharib >
