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alamb
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Thank you @ishanema03
I think this is a non trivial breaking API (as you can see by the number of API changes)
I understand the rationale for trying to make the API easier to use, but I think we need to balance that against the need to avoid breaking downstream users who are already using the APIs
Can someone help me understand if there is some particular bug this is solving?
I think some of the nuance on API change guidelines isn't well documented, so I'll make a PR to update it https://datafusion.apache.org/contributor-guide/api-health.html
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I wrote up some thoughts here |
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## Which issue does this PR close? ## Rationale for this change DataFusion does make API changes from time to time, and that is a normal part of software development. However, it is important to evaluate the impact of those API changes on downstream users and to ensure that the benefits of the change are clear to those users. I found a few times where API changes were made with the justification that "some APIs in DataFusion are cleaner" or "this is more consistent with other APIs". While those may be valid justifications, it is painful for downstream users who have change their code to accommodate the API change when they get nothing in return This most recently happened in this PR - #19790 (review) thus I think the contributor guide should include some guidance on how to evaluate breaking API changes and to ensure that the benefits of the change are clear to downstream users. ## What changes are included in this PR? Polish up the API guidance section ## Are these changes tested? By CI ## Are there any user-facing changes? Better / clearer docs
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Which issue does this PR close?
From<String>forColumn#17375Rationale for this change
As mentioned in the issue, the From trait implementations for Column were misleading - they invoked Column::from_qualified_name() which parses and lower-cases field names, making conversions like field.name().into() behave unexpectedly. Requiring explicit calls to Column::from_qualified_name() makes the behavior clear and prevents misuse.
What changes are included in this PR?
Are these changes tested?
Yes, all existing tests have been updated and pass with the new API.
Are there any user-facing changes?
Yes, this is a breaking API change: