Relax a column

Change columns from required to nullable.

Explore further

For detailed documentation that includes this code sample, see the following:

• Modifying table schemas

Code sample

Go

Before trying this sample, follow the Go setup instructions in the BigQuery quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the BigQuery Go API reference documentation.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"cloud.google.com/go/bigquery"
)

// relaxTableAPI demonstrates modifying the schema of a table to remove the requirement that columns allow
// no NULL values.
func relaxTableAPI(projectID, datasetID, tableID string) error {
	// projectID := "my-project-id"
	// datasetID := "mydatasetid"
	// tableID := "mytableid"
	ctx := context.Background()

	client, err := bigquery.NewClient(ctx, projectID)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("bigquery.NewClient: %w", err)
	}
	defer client.Close()

	// Setup: We first create a table with a schema that's restricts NULL values.
	sampleSchema := bigquery.Schema{
		{Name: "full_name", Type: bigquery.StringFieldType, Required: true},
		{Name: "age", Type: bigquery.IntegerFieldType, Required: true},
	}
	original := &bigquery.TableMetadata{
		Schema: sampleSchema,
	}
	if err := client.Dataset(datasetID).Table(tableID).Create(ctx, original); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	tableRef := client.Dataset(datasetID).Table(tableID)
	meta, err := tableRef.Metadata(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	// Iterate through the schema to set all Required fields to false (nullable).
	var relaxed bigquery.Schema
	for _, v := range meta.Schema {
		v.Required = false
		relaxed = append(relaxed, v)
	}
	newMeta := bigquery.TableMetadataToUpdate{
		Schema: relaxed,
	}
	if _, err := tableRef.Update(ctx, newMeta, meta.ETag); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return nil
}

Java

Before trying this sample, follow the Java setup instructions in the BigQuery quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the BigQuery Java API reference documentation.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import com.google.cloud.bigquery.BigQuery;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.BigQueryException;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.BigQueryOptions;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.Field;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.LegacySQLTypeName;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.Schema;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.StandardTableDefinition;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.Table;

public class RelaxColumnMode {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.
    String datasetName = "MY_DATASET_NAME";
    String tableId = "MY_TABLE_NAME";
    relaxColumnMode(datasetName, tableId);
  }

  public static void relaxColumnMode(String datasetName, String tableId) {
    try {
      // Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
      // once, and can be reused for multiple requests.
      BigQuery bigquery = BigQueryOptions.getDefaultInstance().getService();

      Table table = bigquery.getTable(datasetName, tableId);

      // Create new relaxed schema based on the existing table schema
      Schema relaxedSchema =
          Schema.of(
              // The only supported modification you can make to a column's mode is changing it from
              // REQUIRED to NULLABLE
              // Changing a column's mode from REQUIRED to NULLABLE is also called column relaxation
              // INFO: LegacySQLTypeName will be updated to StandardSQLTypeName in release 1.103.0
              Field.newBuilder("word", LegacySQLTypeName.STRING)
                  .setMode(Field.Mode.NULLABLE)
                  .build(),
              Field.newBuilder("word_count", LegacySQLTypeName.STRING)
                  .setMode(Field.Mode.NULLABLE)
                  .build(),
              Field.newBuilder("corpus", LegacySQLTypeName.STRING)
                  .setMode(Field.Mode.NULLABLE)
                  .build(),
              Field.newBuilder("corpus_date", LegacySQLTypeName.STRING)
                  .setMode(Field.Mode.NULLABLE)
                  .build());

      // Update the table with the new schema
      Table updatedTable =
          table.toBuilder().setDefinition(StandardTableDefinition.of(relaxedSchema)).build();
      updatedTable.update();
      System.out.println("Table schema successfully relaxed.");
    } catch (BigQueryException e) {
      System.out.println("Table schema not relaxed \n" + e.toString());
    }
  }
}

Node.js

Before trying this sample, follow the Node.js setup instructions in the BigQuery quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the BigQuery Node.js API reference documentation.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

// Import the Google Cloud client library and create a client
const {BigQuery} = require('@google-cloud/bigquery');
const bigquery = new BigQuery();

async function relaxColumn() {
  /**
   * Changes columns from required to nullable.
   * Assumes existing table with the following schema:
   * [{name: 'Name', type: 'STRING', mode: 'REQUIRED'},
   * {name: 'Age', type: 'INTEGER'},
   * {name: 'Weight', type: 'FLOAT'},
   * {name: 'IsMagic', type: 'BOOLEAN'}];
   */

  /**
   * TODO(developer): Uncomment the following lines before running the sample.
   */
  // const datasetId = 'my_dataset';
  // const tableId = 'my_table';

  const newSchema = [
    {name: 'Name', type: 'STRING', mode: 'NULLABLE'},
    {name: 'Age', type: 'INTEGER'},
    {name: 'Weight', type: 'FLOAT'},
    {name: 'IsMagic', type: 'BOOLEAN'},
  ];

  // Retrieve current table metadata
  const table = bigquery.dataset(datasetId).table(tableId);
  const [metadata] = await table.getMetadata();

  // Update schema
  metadata.schema = newSchema;
  const [apiResponse] = await table.setMetadata(metadata);

  console.log(apiResponse.schema.fields);
}

Python

Before trying this sample, follow the Python setup instructions in the BigQuery quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the BigQuery Python API reference documentation.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

from google.cloud import bigquery

client = bigquery.Client()

# TODO(dev): Change table_id to full name of the table you want to create.
table_id = "your-project.your_dataset.your_table"

table = client.get_table(table_id)
new_schema = []
for field in table.schema:
    if field.mode != "REQUIRED":
        new_schema.append(field)
    else:
        # SchemaField properties cannot be edited after initialization.
        # To make changes, construct new SchemaField objects.
        new_field = field.to_api_repr()
        new_field["mode"] = "NULLABLE"
        relaxed_field = bigquery.SchemaField.from_api_repr(new_field)
        new_schema.append(relaxed_field)

table.schema = new_schema
table = client.update_table(table, ["schema"])

print(f"Updated {table_id} schema: {table.schema}.")

What's next

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