Hi Ajantha,
Thanks for bringing this up. I think it's a good idea to be able to
register views, and by extension, to replicate from one catalog to another.
The `registerView` function makes sense to me. The IRC spec, however, might
be a bit more complicated. The "register" endpoint
(`/v1/{prefix}/namespaces/{namespace}/register`) [1] is currently used to
register tables only. We could either extend this endpoint to support views
or create a separate "registerView" endpoint.
Would love to hear what others think.
Best,
Kevin Liu
[1]
https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b35c7ec1b03e3897da68960cd556d635b2f5ae54/open-api/rest-catalog-open-api.yaml#L868
On Tue, Nov 25, 2025 at 2:28 AM Ajantha Bhat <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Currently, catalogs provide a *registerTable* function that allows
> registering an existing table with a catalog if it does not already exist.
> This is particularly useful for migrating Iceberg tables between catalogs.
>
> We have users who are in the process of migrating from one catalog to
> another. While migrating tables works well, migrating *views* remains
> challenging. One option is to simply recreate the views, since view
> creation is a lightweight operation. However, this approach has two main
> drawbacks:
>
> -
>
> Recreating a view loses its version history and original metadata.
> -
>
> Some catalogs may not allow recreating a view if a view with the same
> name already exists in the target location.
>
> To address this, I propose adding a *registerView* functionality for
> completeness. This would enable users to register existing views with a
> catalog, similar to how we register existing tables today.
>
> As a follow-up, I can open a PR to implement:
>
> -
>
> registerView(TableIdentifier identifier, String metadataFileLocation)
> in ViewCatalog
> -
>
> Corresponding updates to the Iceberg REST catalog spec
> -
>
> Necessary API additions
>
> Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this proposal.
>
> - Ajantha
>
