Does BigQuery support avro compression or not?

1
votes

On one documentation here: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/loading-data-cloud-storage-avro#avro_compression it clearly says avro compression is not supported.

On another documentation here: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/loading-data#loading_compressed_and_uncompressed_data it says Avro format is preferred for compressed data.

Can someone tell me what this means? I am really confused.

1
google-bigquery
The documentation in both places only talks about compressed data blocks, which is supported, and looks consistent to me. Is there something I'm missing? – Elliott Brossard
so, compressed files only gzip is supported, but data blocks both gzip and avro? is compressed data blocks at the row/table level? – user20010203
Compressed data blocks means that the data inside the Avro files is compressed. You cannot stick an Avro file inside a zip or gzip container. It's like how PNGs have compression but a gzipped image is not the same thing. – Elliott Brossard

1 Answers

2
votes

The documentation in both places only talks about compressed data blocks, which is supported, and they are consistent.

Compressed data blocks means that the data inside the Avro files is compressed. You cannot stick an Avro file inside a zip or gzip container. It's like how PNGs have compression but a gzipped image is not the same thing.