Writing Avro to BigQuery using Beam

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votes

Q1: Say I load Avro encoded data using BigQuery load tool. Now I need to write this data to different table still in Avro format. I am trying to test out different partition in order to test the table performance. How do I write back SchemaAndRecord to BigQuery using Beam? Also would schema detection work in this case?

Q2: Looks like schema information is lost when converted to BigQuery schema type from Avro schema type. For example both double and float Avro type is converted to FLOAT type in BigQuery. Is this expected?

1
serializationgoogle-cloud-platformgoogle-bigqueryavroapache-beam

1 Answers

1
votes

Q1: If the table already exists and the schema matches the one you're copying from you should be able to use CREATE_NEVER CreateDisposition (https://cloud.google.com/dataflow/model/bigquery-io#writing-to-bigquery) and just write the TableRows directly from the output of readTableRows() of the original table. Although I suggest using BigQuery's TableCopy command instead.

Q2: That's expected, BigQuery does not have a Double type. You can find more information on the type mapping here: https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/docs/loading-data-cloud-storage-avro#avro_conversions. Also Logical Types will soon be supported as well: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/35905894.