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Delta Transaction Log Protocol

Overview

This document is a specification for the Delta Transaction Protocol, which brings ACID properties to large collections of data, stored as files, in a distributed file system or object store. The protocol was designed with the following goals in mind:

  • Serializable ACID Writes - multiple writers can concurrently modify a Delta table while maintaining ACID semantics.
  • Snapshot Isolation for Reads - readers can read a consistent snapshot of a Delta table, even in the face of concurrent writes.
  • Scalability to billions of partitions or files - queries against a Delta table can be planned on a single machine or in parallel.
  • Self describing - all metadata for a Delta table is stored alongside the data. This design eliminates the need to maintain a separate metastore just to read the data and also allows static tables to be copied or moved using standard filesystem tools.
  • Support for incremental processing - readers can tail the Delta log to determine what data has been added in a given period of time, allowing for efficient streaming.

Delta's transactions are implemented using multi-version concurrency control (MVCC). As a table changes, Delta's MVCC algorithm keeps multiple copies of the data around rather than immediately replacing files that contain records that are being updated or removed.

Readers of the table ensure that they only see one consistent snapshot of a table at time by using the transaction log to selectively choose which data files to process.

Writers modify the table in two phases: First, they optimistically write out new data files or updated copies of existing ones. Then, they commit, creating the latest atomic version of the table by adding a new entry to the log. In this log entry they record which data files to logically add and remove, along with changes to other metadata about the table.

Data files that are no longer present in the latest version of the table can be lazily deleted by the vacuum command after a user-specified retention period (default 7 days).

Delta Table Specification

A table has a single serial history of atomic versions, which are named using contiguous, monotonically-increasing integers. The state of a table at a given version is called a snapshot and is defined by the following properties:

  • Delta log protocol consists of two protocol versions, and if applicable, corresponding table features, that are required to correctly read or write the table
    • Reader features only exists when Reader Version is 3
    • Writer features only exists when Writer Version is 7
  • Metadata of the table (e.g., the schema, a unique identifier, partition columns, and other configuration properties)
  • Set of files present in the table, along with metadata about those files
  • Set of tombstones for files that were recently deleted
  • Set of applications-specific transactions that have been successfully committed to the table

File Types

A Delta table is stored within a directory and is composed of the following different types of files.

Here is an example of a Delta table with three entries in the commit log, stored in the directory mytable.

/mytable/_delta_log/00000000000000000000.json
/mytable/_delta_log/00000000000000000001.json
/mytable/_delta_log/00000000000000000003.json
/mytable/_delta_log/00000000000000000003.checkpoint.parquet
/mytable/_delta_log/_last_checkpoint
/mytable/_change_data/cdc-00000-924d9ac7-21a9-4121-b067-a0a6517aa8ed.c000.snappy.parquet
/mytable/part-00000-3935a07c-416b-4344-ad97-2a38342ee2fc.c000.snappy.parquet
/mytable/deletion_vector-0c6cbaaf-5e04-4c9d-8959-1088814f58ef.bin

Data Files

Data files can be stored in the root directory of the table or in any non-hidden subdirectory (i.e., one whose name does not start with an _). By default, the reference implementation stores data files in directories that are named based on the partition values for data in that file (i.e. part1=value1/part2=value2/...). This directory format is only used to follow existing conventions and is not required by the protocol. Actual partition values for a file must be read from the transaction log.

Deletion Vector Files

Deletion Vector (DV) files are stored in the root directory of the table alongside the data files. A DV file contains one or more serialised DV, each describing the set of invalidated (or "soft deleted") rows for a particular data file it is associated with. For data with partition values, DV files are not kept in the same directory hierarchy as data files, as each one can contain DVs for files from multiple partitions. DV files store DVs in a binary format.

Change Data Files

Change data files are stored in a directory at the root of the table named _change_data, and represent the changes for the table version they are in. For data with partition values, it is recommended that the change data files are stored within the _change_data directory in their respective partitions (i.e. _change_data/part1=value1/...). Writers can optionally produce these change data files as a consequence of operations that change underlying data, like UPDATE, DELETE, and MERGE operations to a Delta Lake table. If an operation only adds new data or removes existing data without updating any existing rows, a writer can write only data files and commit them in add or remove actions without duplicating the data into change data files. When available, change data readers should use the change data files instead of computing changes from the underlying data files.

In addition to the data columns, change data files contain additional columns that identify the type of change event:

Field Name Data Type Description
_change_type String insert, update_preimage , update_postimage, delete (1)

(1) preimage is the value before the update, postimage is the value after the update.

Delta Log Entries

Delta files are stored as JSON in a directory at the root of the table named _delta_log, and together with checkpoints make up the log of all changes that have occurred to a table.

Delta files are the unit of atomicity for a table, and are named using the next available version number, zero-padded to 20 digits.

For example:

./_delta_log/00000000000000000000.json

Delta files use new-line delimited JSON format, where every action is stored as a single line JSON document. A delta file, n.json, contains an atomic set of actions that should be applied to the previous table state, n-1.json, in order to the construct nth snapshot of the table. An action changes one aspect of the table's state, for example, adding or removing a file.

Checkpoints

Checkpoints are also stored in the _delta_log directory, and can be created at any time, for any committed version of the table. For performance reasons, readers should prefer to use the newest complete checkpoint possible. For time travel, the checkpoint used must not be newer than the time travel version.

A checkpoint contains the complete replay of all actions, up to and including the checkpointed table version, with invalid actions removed. Invalid actions are those that have been canceled out by subsequent ones (for example removing a file that has been added), using the rules for reconciliation. In addition to above, checkpoint also contains the remove tombstones until they are expired. Checkpoints allow readers to short-cut the cost of reading the log up-to a given point in order to reconstruct a snapshot, and they also allow Metadata cleanup to delete expired JSON Delta log entries.

Readers SHOULD NOT make any assumptions about the existence or frequency of checkpoints, with one exception: Metadata cleanup MUST provide a checkpoint for the oldest kept table version, to cover all deleted Delta log entries. That said, writers are encouraged to checkpoint reasonably frequently, so that readers do not pay excessive log replay costs due to reading large numbers of delta files.

The checkpoint file name is based on the version of the table that the checkpoint contains.

Delta supports three kinds of checkpoints:

  1. UUID-named Checkpoints: These follow V2 spec which uses the following file name: n.checkpoint.u.{json/parquet}, where u is a UUID and n is the snapshot version that this checkpoint represents. Here n must be zero padded to have length 20. The UUID-named V2 Checkpoint may be in json or parquet format, and references zero or more checkpoint sidecars in the _delta_log/_sidecars directory. A checkpoint sidecar is a uniquely-named parquet file: {unique}.parquet where unique is some unique string such as a UUID.

For example:

00000000000000000010.checkpoint.80a083e8-7026-4e79-81be-64bd76c43a11.json
_sidecars/3a0d65cd-4056-49b8-937b-95f9e3ee90e5.parquet
_sidecars/016ae953-37a9-438e-8683-9a9a4a79a395.parquet
_sidecars/7d17ac10-5cc3-401b-bd1a-9c82dd2ea032.parquet
  1. A classic checkpoint for version n of the table consists of a file named n.checkpoint.parquet. Here n must be zero padded to have length 20. These could follow either V1 spec or V2 spec. For example:
00000000000000000010.checkpoint.parquet
  1. A multi-part checkpoint for version n consists of p "part" files (p > 1), where part o of p is named n.checkpoint.o.p.parquet. Here n must be zero padded to have length 20, while o and p must be zero padded to have length 10. These are always V1 checkpoints. For example:
00000000000000000010.checkpoint.0000000001.0000000003.parquet
00000000000000000010.checkpoint.0000000002.0000000003.parquet
00000000000000000010.checkpoint.0000000003.0000000003.parquet

A writer can choose to write checkpoints with following constraints:

Multi-part checkpoints are deprecated, and writers should avoid creating them. Use uuid-named V2 spec checkpoints instead of these.

Multiple checkpoints could exist for the same table version, e.g. if two clients race to create checkpoints at the same time, but with different formats. In such cases, a client can choose which checkpoint to use.

Because a multi-part checkpoint cannot be created atomically (e.g. vulnerable to slow and/or failed writes), readers must ignore multi-part checkpoints with missing parts.

Checkpoints for a given version must only be created after the associated delta file has been successfully written.

Sidecar Files

A sidecar file contains file actions. These files are in parquet format and they must have unique names. These are then linked to checkpoints. Refer to V2 checkpoint spec for more detail. The sidecar files can have only add file and remove file entries as of now. The add and remove file actions are stored as their individual columns in parquet as struct fields.

These files reside in the _delta_log/_sidecars directory.

Log Compaction Files

Log compaction files reside in the _delta_log directory. A log compaction file from a start version x to an end version y will have the following name: <x>.<y>.compacted.json. This contains the aggregated actions for commit range [x, y]. Similar to commits, each row in the log compaction file represents an action. The commit files for a given range are created by doing Action Reconciliation of the corresponding commits. Instead of reading the individual commit files in range [x, y], an implementation could choose to read the log compaction file <x>.<y>.compacted.json to speed up the snapshot construction.

Example: Suppose we have 00000000000000000004.json as:

{"commitInfo":{...}}
{"add":{"path":"f2",...}}
{"remove":{"path":"f1",...}}

00000000000000000005.json as:

{"commitInfo":{...}}
{"add":{"path":"f3",...}}
{"add":{"path":"f4",...}}
{"txn":{"appId":"3ae45b72-24e1-865a-a211-34987ae02f2a","version":4389}}

00000000000000000006.json as:

{"commitInfo":{...}}
{"remove":{"path":"f3",...}}
{"txn":{"appId":"3ae45b72-24e1-865a-a211-34987ae02f2a","version":4390}}

Then 00000000000000000004.00000000000000000006.compacted.json will have the following content:

{"add":{"path":"f2",...}}
{"add":{"path":"f4",...}}
{"remove":{"path":"f1",...}}
{"remove":{"path":"f3",...}}
{"txn":{"appId":"3ae45b72-24e1-865a-a211-34987ae02f2a","version":4390}}

Writers:

  • Can optionally produce log compactions for any given commit range

Readers:

  • Can optionally consume log compactions, if available
  • The compaction replaces the corresponding commits during action reconciliation

Last Checkpoint File

The Delta transaction log will often contain many (e.g. 10,000+) files. Listing such a large directory can be prohibitively expensive. The last checkpoint file can help reduce the cost of constructing the latest snapshot of the table by providing a pointer to near the end of the log.

Rather than list the entire directory, readers can locate a recent checkpoint by looking at the _delta_log/_last_checkpoint file. Due to the zero-padded encoding of the files in the log, the version id of this recent checkpoint can be used on storage systems that support lexicographically-sorted, paginated directory listing to enumerate any delta files or newer checkpoints that comprise more recent versions of the table.

Version Checksum File

The Delta transaction log must remain an append-only log. To enable the detection of non-compliant modifications to Delta files, writers can optionally emit an auxiliary file with every commit, which contains important information about the state of the table as of that version. This file is referred to as the Version Checksum and can be used to validate the integrity of the table.

Version Checksum File Schema

A Version Checksum file must have the following properties:

  • Be named {version}.crc where version is zero-padded to 20 digits (e.g., 00000000000000000001.crc)
  • Be stored directly in the _delta_log directory alongside Delta log files
  • Contain exactly one JSON object with the following schema:
Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
txnId String A unique identifier for the transaction that produced this commit. optional
tableSizeBytes Long Total size of the table in bytes, calculated as the sum of the size field of all live add actions. required
numFiles Long Number of live add actions in this table version after Action Reconciliation. required
numMetadata Long Number of metaData actions. Must be 1. required
numProtocol Long Number of protocol actions. Must be 1. required
inCommitTimestampOpt Long The in-commit timestamp of this version. Present if and only if In-Commit Timestamps are enabled. optional
setTransactions Array[txn] Live Transaction Identifier actions at this version. optional
domainMetadata Array[domainMetadata] Live Domain Metadata actions at this version, excluding tombstones. optional
metadata Metadata The table metadata at this version. required
protocol Protocol The table protocol at this version. required
fileSizeHistogram FileSizeHistogram Size distribution information of files remaining after Action Reconciliation. See FileSizeHistogram for more details. optional
allFiles Array[add] All live Add File actions at this version. optional
numDeletedRecordsOpt Long Number of records deleted through Deletion Vectors in this table version. optional
numDeletionVectorsOpt Long Number of Deletion Vectors active in this table version. optional
deletedRecordCountsHistogramOpt DeletedRecordCountsHistogram Distribution of deleted record counts across files. See this section for more details. optional
File Size Histogram Schema

The FileSizeHistogram object represents a histogram tracking file counts and total bytes across different size ranges. It has the following schema:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
sortedBinBoundaries Array[Long] A sorted array of bin boundaries where each element represents the start of a bin (inclusive) and the next element represents the end of the bin (exclusive). The first element must be 0. required
fileCounts Array[Long] Count of files in each bin. Length must match sortedBinBoundaries. required
totalBytes Array[Long] Total bytes of files in each bin. Length must match sortedBinBoundaries. required

Each index i in these arrays corresponds to a size range from sortedBinBoundaries[i] (inclusive) up to but not including sortedBinBoundaries[i+1]. The last bin ends at positive infinity. For example, given boundaries [0, 1024, 4096]:

  • Bin 0 contains files of size [0, 1024) bytes
  • Bin 1 contains files of size [1024, 4096) bytes
  • Bin 2 contains files of size [4096, ∞) bytes

The arrays fileCounts and totalBytes store the number of files and their total size respectively that fall into each bin. This data structure enables efficient analysis of file size distributions in Delta tables.

Deleted Record Counts Histogram Schema

The DeletedRecordCountsHistogram object represents a histogram tracking the distribution of deleted record counts across files in the table. Each bin in the histogram represents a range of deletion counts and stores the number of files having that many deleted records.

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
deletedRecordCounts Array[Long] Array of size 10 where each element represents the count of files falling into a specific deletion count range. required

The histogram bins correspond to the following ranges:

  • Bin 0: [0, 0] (files with no deletions)
  • Bin 1: [1, 9] (files with 1-9 deleted records)
  • Bin 2: [10, 99] (files with 10-99 deleted records)
  • Bin 3: [100, 999] (files with 100-999 deleted records)
  • Bin 4: [1000, 9999] (files with 1,000-9,999 deleted records)
  • Bin 5: [10000, 99999] (files with 10,000-99,999 deleted records)
  • Bin 6: [100000, 999999] (files with 100,000-999,999 deleted records)
  • Bin 7: [1000000, 9999999] (files with 1,000,000-9,999,999 deleted records)
  • Bin 8: [10000000, 2147483646] (files with 10,000,000 to 2147483646 (i.e. Int.MaxValue-1 in Java) deleted records)
  • Bin 9: [2147483647, ∞) (files with 2147483647 or more deleted records)

This histogram allows analyzing the distribution of deleted records across files in a Delta table, which can be useful for monitoring and optimizing deletion patterns.

State Validation

Readers can validate table state integrity at a particular version by:

  1. Reading the Version Checksum file for that version
  2. Independently computing the same metrics by performing Action Reconciliation on the table state
  3. Comparing the computed values against those recorded in the Version Checksum

If any discrepancy is found between computed and recorded values, the table state at that version should be considered potentially corrupted.

Writer Requirements

  • Writers SHOULD produce a Version Checksum file for each commit
  • Writers MUST ensure all metrics in the Version Checksum accurately reflect table state after Action Reconciliation
  • Writers MUST write the Version Checksum file only after successfully writing the corresponding Delta log entry
  • Writers MUST NOT overwrite existing Version Checksum files

Reader Requirements

  • Readers MAY use Version Checksums to validate table state integrity
  • If performing validation, readers SHOULD verify all required fields match computed values
  • If validation fails, readers SHOULD surface the discrepancy to users via error messaging
  • Readers MUST continue functioning if Version Checksum files are missing

Actions

Actions modify the state of the table and they are stored both in delta files and in checkpoints. This section lists the space of available actions as well as their schema.

Change Metadata

The metaData action changes the current metadata of the table. The first version of a table must contain a metaData action. Subsequent metaData actions completely overwrite the current metadata of the table.

There can be at most one metadata action in a given version of the table.

Every metadata action must include required fields at a minimum.

The schema of the metaData action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
id GUID Unique identifier for this table required
name String User-provided identifier for this table optional
description String User-provided description for this table optional
format Format Struct Specification of the encoding for the files stored in the table required
schemaString Schema Struct Schema of the table required
partitionColumns Array[String] An array containing the names of columns by which the data should be partitioned required
createdTime Option[Long] The time when this metadata action is created, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch optional
configuration Map[String, String] A map containing configuration options for the metadata action required

Format Specification

Field Name Data Type Description
provider String Name of the encoding for files in this table
options Map[String, String] A map containing configuration options for the format

In the reference implementation, the provider field is used to instantiate a Spark SQL FileFormat. As of Spark 2.4.3 there is built-in FileFormat support for parquet, csv, orc, json, and text.

As of Delta Lake 0.3.0, user-facing APIs only allow the creation of tables where format = 'parquet' and options = {}. Support for reading other formats is present both for legacy reasons and to enable possible support for other formats in the future (See #87).

The following is an example metaData action:

{
  "metaData":{
    "id":"af23c9d7-fff1-4a5a-a2c8-55c59bd782aa",
    "format":{"provider":"parquet","options":{}},
    "schemaString":"...",
    "partitionColumns":[],
    "configuration":{
      "appendOnly": "true"
    }
  }
}

Add File and Remove File

The add and remove actions are used to modify the data in a table by adding or removing individual logical files respectively.

Every logical file of the table is represented by a path to a data file, combined with an optional Deletion Vector (DV) that indicates which rows of the data file are no longer in the table. Deletion Vectors are an optional feature, see their reader requirements for details.

When an add action is encountered for a logical file that is already present in the table, statistics and other information from the latest version should replace that from any previous version. The primary key for the entry of a logical file in the set of files is a tuple of the data file's path and a unique id describing the DV. If no DV is part of this logical file, then its primary key is (path, NULL) instead.

The remove action includes a timestamp that indicates when the removal occurred. Physical deletion of physical files can happen lazily after some user-specified expiration time threshold. This delay allows concurrent readers to continue to execute against a stale snapshot of the data. A remove action should remain in the state of the table as a tombstone until it has expired. A tombstone expires when current time (according to the node performing the cleanup) exceeds the expiration threshold added to the remove action timestamp.

In the following statements, dvId can refer to either the unique id of a specific Deletion Vector (deletionVector.uniqueId) or to NULL, indicating that no rows are invalidated. Since actions within a given Delta commit are not guaranteed to be applied in order, a valid version is restricted to contain at most one file action of the same type (i.e. add/remove) for any one combination of path and dvId. Moreover, for simplicity it is required that there is at most one file action of the same type for any path (regardless of dvId). That means specifically that for any commit…

  • it is legal for the same path to occur in an add action and a remove action, but with two different dvIds.
  • it is legal for the same path to be added and/or removed and also occur in a cdc action.
  • it is illegal for the same path to be occur twice with different dvIds within each set of add or remove actions.

The dataChange flag on either an add or a remove can be set to false to indicate that an action when combined with other actions in the same atomic version only rearranges existing data or adds new statistics. For example, streaming queries that are tailing the transaction log can use this flag to skip actions that would not affect the final results.

The schema of the add action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
path String A relative path to a data file from the root of the table or an absolute path to a file that should be added to the table. The path is a URI as specified by RFC 2396 URI Generic Syntax, which needs to be decoded to get the data file path. required
partitionValues Map[String, String] A map from partition column to value for this logical file. See also Partition Value Serialization required
size Long The size of this data file in bytes required
modificationTime Long The time this logical file was created, as milliseconds since the epoch required
dataChange Boolean When false the logical file must already be present in the table or the records in the added file must be contained in one or more remove actions in the same version required
stats Statistics Struct Contains statistics (e.g., count, min/max values for columns) about the data in this logical file optional
tags Map[String, String] Map containing metadata about this logical file optional
deletionVector DeletionVectorDescriptor Struct Either null (or absent in JSON) when no DV is associated with this data file, or a struct (described below) that contains necessary information about the DV that is part of this logical file. optional
baseRowId Long Default generated Row ID of the first row in the file. The default generated Row IDs of the other rows in the file can be reconstructed by adding the physical index of the row within the file to the base Row ID. See also Row IDs optional
defaultRowCommitVersion Long First commit version in which an add action with the same path was committed to the table. optional
clusteringProvider String The name of the clustering implementation. See also Clustered Table optional

The following is an example add action for a partitioned table:

{
  "add": {
    "path": "date=2017-12-10/part-000...c000.gz.parquet",
    "partitionValues": {"date": "2017-12-10"},
    "size": 841454,
    "modificationTime": 1512909768000,
    "dataChange": true,
    "baseRowId": 4071,
    "defaultRowCommitVersion": 41,
    "stats": "{\"numRecords\":1,\"minValues\":{\"val..."
  }
}

The following is an example add action for a clustered table:

{
  "add": {
    "path": "date=2017-12-10/part-000...c000.gz.parquet",
    "partitionValues": {},
    "size": 841454,
    "modificationTime": 1512909768000,
    "dataChange": true,
    "baseRowId": 4071,
    "defaultRowCommitVersion": 41,
    "clusteringProvider": "liquid",
    "stats": "{\"numRecords\":1,\"minValues\":{\"val..."
  }
}

The schema of the remove action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
path String A relative path to a file from the root of the table or an absolute path to a file that should be removed from the table. The path is a URI as specified by RFC 2396 URI Generic Syntax, which needs to be decoded to get the data file path. required
deletionTimestamp Option[Long] The time the deletion occurred, represented as milliseconds since the epoch optional
dataChange Boolean When false the records in the removed file must be contained in one or more add file actions in the same version required
extendedFileMetadata Boolean When true the fields partitionValues, size, and tags are present optional
partitionValues Map[String, String] A map from partition column to value for this file. See also Partition Value Serialization optional
size Long The size of this data file in bytes optional
stats Statistics Struct Contains statistics (e.g., count, min/max values for columns) about the data in this logical file optional
tags Map[String, String] Map containing metadata about this file optional
deletionVector DeletionVectorDescriptor Struct Either null (or absent in JSON) when no DV is associated with this data file, or a struct (described below) that contains necessary information about the DV that is part of this logical file. optional
baseRowId Long Default generated Row ID of the first row in the file. The default generated Row IDs of the other rows in the file can be reconstructed by adding the physical index of the row within the file to the base Row ID. See also Row IDs optional
defaultRowCommitVersion Long First commit version in which an add action with the same path was committed to the table optional

The following is an example remove action.

{
  "remove": {
    "path": "part-00001-9…..snappy.parquet",
    "deletionTimestamp": 1515488792485,
    "baseRowId": 4071,
    "defaultRowCommitVersion": 41,
    "dataChange": true
  }
}

Add CDC File

The cdc action is used to add a file containing only the data that was changed as part of the transaction. The cdc action is allowed to add a Data File that is also added by an add action, when it does not contain any copied rows and the _change_type column is filled for all rows.

When change data readers encounter a cdc action in a particular Delta table version, they must read the changes made in that version exclusively using the cdc files. If a version has no cdc action, then the data in add and remove actions are read as inserted and deleted rows, respectively.

The schema of the cdc action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description
path String A relative path to a change data file from the root of the table or an absolute path to a change data file that should be added to the table. The path is a URI as specified by RFC 2396 URI Generic Syntax, which needs to be decoded to get the file path.
partitionValues Map[String, String] A map from partition column to value for this file. See also Partition Value Serialization
size Long The size of this file in bytes
dataChange Boolean Should always be set to false for cdc actions because they do not change the underlying data of the table
tags Map[String, String] Map containing metadata about this file

The following is an example of cdc action.

{
  "cdc": {
    "path": "_change_data/cdc-00001-c…..snappy.parquet",
    "partitionValues": {},
    "size": 1213,
    "dataChange": false
  }
}

Writer Requirements for AddCDCFile

For Writer Versions 4 up to 6, all writers must respect the delta.enableChangeDataFeed configuration flag in the metadata of the table. When delta.enableChangeDataFeed is true, writers must produce the relevant AddCDCFile's for any operation that changes data, as specified in Change Data Files.

For Writer Version 7, all writers must respect the delta.enableChangeDataFeed configuration flag in the metadata of the table only if the feature changeDataFeed exists in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

Reader Requirements for AddCDCFile

When available, change data readers should use the cdc actions in a given table version instead of computing changes from the underlying data files referenced by the add and remove actions. Specifically, to read the row-level changes made in a version, the following strategy should be used:

  1. If there are cdc actions in this version, then read only those to get the row-level changes, and skip the remaining add and remove actions in this version.

  2. Otherwise, if there are no cdc actions in this version, read and treat all the rows in the add and remove actions as inserted and deleted rows, respectively.

  3. Change data readers should return the following extra columns:

    Field Name Data Type Description
    _commit_version Long The table version containing the change. This can be derived from the name of the Delta log file that contains actions.
    _commit_timestamp Timestamp The timestamp associated when the commit was created. Depending on whether In-Commit Timestamps are enabled, this is derived from either the inCommitTimestamp field of the commitInfo action of the version's Delta log file, or from the Delta log file's modification time.
Note for non-change data readers

In a table with Change Data Feed enabled, the data Parquet files referenced by add and remove actions are allowed to contain an extra column _change_type. This column is not present in the table's schema. When accessing these files, readers should disregard this column and only process columns defined within the table's schema.

Transaction Identifiers

Incremental processing systems (e.g., streaming systems) that track progress using their own application-specific versions need to record what progress has been made, in order to avoid duplicating data in the face of failures and retries during a write. Transaction identifiers allow this information to be recorded atomically in the transaction log of a delta table along with the other actions that modify the contents of the table.

Transaction identifiers are stored in the form of appId version pairs, where appId is a unique identifier for the process that is modifying the table and version is an indication of how much progress has been made by that application. The atomic recording of this information along with modifications to the table enables these external system to make their writes into a Delta table idempotent.

For example, the Delta Sink for Apache Spark's Structured Streaming ensures exactly-once semantics when writing a stream into a table using the following process:

  1. Record in a write-ahead-log the data that will be written, along with a monotonically increasing identifier for this batch.
  2. Check the current version of the transaction with appId = streamId in the target table. If this value is greater than or equal to the batch being written, then this data has already been added to the table and processing can skip to the next batch.
  3. Write the data optimistically into the table.
  4. Attempt to commit the transaction containing both the addition of the data written out and an updated appId version pair.

The semantics of the application-specific version are left up to the external system. Delta only ensures that the latest version for a given appId is available in the table snapshot. The Delta transaction protocol does not, for example, assume monotonicity of the version and it would be valid for the version to decrease, possibly representing a "rollback" of an earlier transaction.

The schema of the txn action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
appId String A unique identifier for the application performing the transaction required
version Long An application-specific numeric identifier for this transaction required
lastUpdated Option[Long] The time when this transaction action is created, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch optional

The following is an example txn action:

{
  "txn": {
    "appId":"3ba13872-2d47-4e17-86a0-21afd2a22395",
    "version":364475
  }
}

Protocol Evolution

The protocol action is used to increase the version of the Delta protocol that is required to read or write a given table. Protocol versioning allows a newer client to exclude older readers and/or writers that are missing features required to correctly interpret the transaction log. The protocol version will be increased whenever non-forward-compatible changes are made to this specification. In the case where a client is running an invalid protocol version, an error should be thrown instructing the user to upgrade to a newer protocol version of their Delta client library.

Since breaking changes must be accompanied by an increase in the protocol version recorded in a table or by the addition of a table feature, clients can assume that unrecognized actions, fields, and/or metadata domains are never required in order to correctly interpret the transaction log. Clients must ignore such unrecognized fields, and should not produce an error when reading a table that contains unrecognized fields.

Reader Version 3 and Writer Version 7 add two lists of table features to the protocol action. The capability for readers and writers to operate on such a table is not only dependent on their supported protocol versions, but also on whether they support all features listed in readerFeatures and writerFeatures. See Table Features section for more information.

The schema of the protocol action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
minReaderVersion Int The minimum version of the Delta read protocol that a client must implement in order to correctly read this table required
minWriterVersion Int The minimum version of the Delta write protocol that a client must implement in order to correctly write this table required
readerFeatures Array[String] A collection of features that a client must implement in order to correctly read this table (exist only when minReaderVersion is set to 3) optional
writerFeatures Array[String] A collection of features that a client must implement in order to correctly write this table (exist only when minWriterVersion is set to 7) optional

Some example Delta protocols:

{
  "protocol":{
    "minReaderVersion":1,
    "minWriterVersion":2
  }
}

A table that is using table features only for writers:

{
  "protocol":{
    "readerVersion":2,
    "writerVersion":7,
    "writerFeatures":["columnMapping","identityColumns"]
  }
}

Reader version 2 in the above example does not support listing reader features but supports Column Mapping. This example is equivalent to the next one, where Column Mapping is represented as a reader table feature.

A table that is using table features for both readers and writers:

{
  "protocol": {
    "readerVersion":3,
    "writerVersion":7,
    "readerFeatures":["columnMapping"],
    "writerFeatures":["columnMapping","identityColumns"]
  }
}

Commit Provenance Information

A delta file can optionally contain additional provenance information about what higher-level operation was being performed as well as who executed it.

Implementations are free to store any valid JSON-formatted data via the commitInfo action.

When In-Commit Timestamps are enabled, writers are required to include a commitInfo action with every commit, which must include the inCommitTimestamp field. Also, the commitInfo action must be first action in the commit.

An example of storing provenance information related to an INSERT operation:

{
  "commitInfo":{
    "timestamp":1515491537026,
    "userId":"100121",
    "userName":"[email protected]",
    "operation":"INSERT",
    "operationParameters":{"mode":"Append","partitionBy":"[]"},
    "notebook":{
      "notebookId":"4443029",
      "notebookPath":"Users/[email protected]/actions"},
      "clusterId":"1027-202406-pooh991"
  }  
}

Domain Metadata

The domain metadata action contains a configuration (string) for a named metadata domain. Two overlapping transactions conflict if they both contain a domain metadata action for the same metadata domain.

There are two types of metadata domains:

  1. User-controlled metadata domains have names that start with anything other than the delta. prefix. Any Delta client implementation or user application can modify these metadata domains, and can allow users to modify them arbitrarily. Delta clients and user applications are encouraged to use a naming convention designed to avoid conflicts with other clients' or users' metadata domains (e.g. com.databricks.* or org.apache.*).
  2. System-controlled metadata domains have names that start with the delta. prefix. This prefix is reserved for metadata domains defined by the Delta spec, and Delta client implementations must not allow users to modify the metadata for system-controlled domains. A Delta client implementation should only update metadata for system-controlled domains that it knows about and understands. System-controlled metadata domains are used by various table features and each table feature may impose additional semantics on the metadata domains it uses.

The schema of the domainMetadata action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description
domain String Identifier for this domain (system- or user-provided)
configuration String String containing configuration for the metadata domain
removed Boolean When true, the action serves as a tombstone to logically delete a metadata domain. Writers should preserve an accurate pre-image of the configuration.

To support this feature:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 7.
  • A feature name domainMetadata must exist in the table's writerFeatures.

Reader Requirements for Domain Metadata

  • Readers are not required to support domain metadata.
  • Readers who choose not to support domain metadata should ignore metadata domain actions as unrecognized (see Protocol Evolution) and snapshots should not include any metadata domains.
  • Readers who choose to support domain metadata must apply Action Reconciliation to all metadata domains and snapshots must include them -- even if the reader does not understand them.
  • Any system-controlled domain that imposes any requirements on readers is a breaking change, and must be part of a reader-writer table feature that specifies the desired behavior.

Writer Requirements for Domain Metadata

  • Writers must preserve all domains even if they don't understand them.
  • Writers must not allow users to modify or delete system-controlled domains.
  • Writers must only modify or delete system-controlled domains they understand.
  • Any system-controlled domain that imposes additional requirements on the writer is a breaking change, and must be part of a writer table feature that specifies the desired behavior.

The following is an example domainMetadata action:

{
  "domainMetadata": {
    "domain": "delta.deltaTableFeatureX",
    "configuration": "{\"key1\":\"value1\"}",
    "removed": false
  }
}

Sidecar File Information

The sidecar action references a sidecar file which provides some of the checkpoint's file actions. This action is only allowed in checkpoints following V2 spec. The schema of sidecar action is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
path String URI-encoded path to the sidecar file. Because sidecar files must always reside in the table's own _delta_log/_sidecars directory, implementations are encouraged to store only the file's name (without scheme or parent directories). required
sizeInBytes Long Size of the sidecar file. required
modificationTime Long The time this logical file was created, as milliseconds since the epoch. required
tags Map[String, String] Map containing any additional metadata about the checkpoint sidecar file. optional

The following is an example sidecar action:

{
  "sidecar":{
    "path": "016ae953-37a9-438e-8683-9a9a4a79a395.parquet",
    "sizeInBytes": 2304522,
    "modificationTime": 1512909768000,
    "tags": {}
  }
}

Checkpoint Metadata

This action is only allowed in checkpoints following V2 spec. It describes the details about the checkpoint. It has the following schema:

Field Name Data Type Description optional/required
version Long The checkpoint version. required
tags Map[String, String] Map containing any additional metadata about the v2 spec checkpoint. optional

E.g.

{
  "checkpointMetadata":{
    "version":1,
    "tags":{}
  }
}

Action Reconciliation

A given snapshot of the table can be computed by replaying the events committed to the table in ascending order by commit version. A given snapshot of a Delta table consists of:

  • A single protocol action
  • A single metaData action
  • A collection of txn actions with unique appIds
  • A collection of domainMetadata actions with unique domains.
  • A collection of add actions with unique (path, deletionVector.uniqueId) keys.
  • A collection of remove actions with unique (path, deletionVector.uniqueId) keys. The intersection of the primary keys in the add collection and remove collection must be empty. That means a logical file cannot exist in both the remove and add collections at the same time; however, the same data file can exist with different DVs in the remove collection, as logically they represent different content. The remove actions act as tombstones, and only exist for the benefit of the VACUUM command. Snapshot reads only return add actions on the read path.

To achieve the requirements above, related actions from different delta files need to be reconciled with each other:

  • The latest protocol action seen wins
  • The latest metaData action seen wins
  • For txn actions, the latest version seen for a given appId wins
  • For domainMetadata, the latest domainMetadata seen for a given domain wins. The actions with removed=true act as tombstones to suppress earlier versions. Snapshot reads do not return removed domainMetadata actions.
  • Logical files in a table are identified by their (path, deletionVector.uniqueId) primary key. File actions (add or remove) reference logical files, and a log can contain any number of references to a single file.
  • To replay the log, scan all file actions and keep only the newest reference for each logical file.
  • add actions in the result identify logical files currently present in the table (for queries). remove actions in the result identify tombstones of logical files no longer present in the table (for VACUUM).
  • v2 checkpoint spec actions are not allowed in normal commit files, and do not participate in log replay.

Table Features

Table features must only exist on tables that have a supported protocol version. When the table's Reader Version is 3, readerFeatures must exist in the protocol action, and when the Writer Version is 7, writerFeatures must exist in the protocol action. readerFeatures and writerFeatures define the features that readers and writers must implement in order to read and write this table.

Readers and writers must not ignore table features when they are present:

  • to read a table, readers must implement and respect all features listed in readerFeatures;
  • to write a table, writers must implement and respect all features listed in writerFeatures. Because writers have to read the table (or only the Delta log) before write, they must implement and respect all reader features as well.

Table Features for New and Existing Tables

It is possible to create a new table or upgrade an existing table to the protocol versions that supports the use of table features. A table must support either the use of writer features or both reader and writer features. It is illegal to support reader but not writer features.

For new tables, when a new table is created with a Reader Version up to 2 and Writer Version 7, its protocol action must only contain writerFeatures. When a new table is created with Reader Version 3 and Writer Version 7, its protocol action must contain both readerFeatures and writerFeatures. Creating a table with a Reader Version 3 and Writer Version less than 7 is not allowed.

When upgrading an existing table to Reader Version 3 and/or Writer Version 7, the client should, on a best effort basis, determine which features supported by the original protocol version are used in any historical version of the table, and add only used features to reader and/or writer feature sets. The client must assume a feature has been used, unless it can prove that the feature is definitely not used in any historical version of the table that is reachable by time travel.

For example, given a table on Reader Version 1 and Writer Version 4, along with four versions:

  1. Table property change: set delta.enableChangeDataFeed to true.
  2. Data change: three rows updated.
  3. Table property change: unset delta.enableChangeDataFeed.
  4. Table protocol change: upgrade protocol to Reader Version 3 and Writer Version 7.

To produce Version 4, a writer could look at only Version 3 and discover that Change Data Feed has not been used. But in fact, this feature has been used and the table does contain some Change Data Files for Version 2. This means that, to determine all features that have ever been used by the table, a writer must either scan the whole history (which is very time-consuming) or assume the worst case: all features supported by protocol (1, 4) has been used.

Supported Features

A feature is supported by a table when its name is in the protocol action’s readerFeatures and/or writerFeatures. Subsequent read and/or write operations on this table must respect the feature. Clients must not remove the feature from the protocol action.

Writers are allowed to add support of a feature to the table by adding its name to readerFeatures or writerFeatures. Reader features should be listed in both readerFeatures and writerFeatures simultaneously, while writer features should be listed only in writerFeatures. It is not allowed to list a feature only in readerFeatures but not in writerFeatures.

A feature being supported does not imply that it is active. For example, a table may have the Append-only Tables feature (feature name appendOnly) listed in writerFeatures, but it does not have a table property delta.appendOnly that is set to true. In such a case the table is not append-only, and writers are allowed to change, remove, and rearrange data. However, writers must know that the table property delta.appendOnly should be checked before writing the table.

Active Features

A feature is active on a table when it is supported and its metadata requirements are satisfied. Each feature defines its own metadata requirements, as stated in the corresponding sections of this document. For example, the Append-only feature is active when the appendOnly feature name is present in a protocol's writerFeatures and a table property delta.appendOnly set to true.

Column Mapping

Delta can use column mapping to avoid any column naming restrictions, and to support the renaming and dropping of columns without having to rewrite all the data. There are two modes of column mapping, by name and by id. In both modes, every column - nested or leaf - is assigned a unique physical name, and a unique 32-bit integer as an id. The physical name is stored as part of the column metadata with the key delta.columnMapping.physicalName. The column id is stored within the metadata with the key delta.columnMapping.id.

The column mapping is governed by the table property delta.columnMapping.mode being one of none, id, and name. The table property should only be honored if the table's protocol has reader and writer versions and/or table features that support the columnMapping table feature. For readers this is Reader Version 2, or Reader Version 3 with the columnMapping table feature listed as supported. For writers this is Writer Version 5 or 6, or Writer Version 7 with the columnMapping table feature supported.

The following is an example for the column definition of a table that leverages column mapping. See the appendix for a more complete schema definition.

{
    "name" : "e",
    "type" : {
      "type" : "array",
      "elementType" : {
        "type" : "struct",
        "fields" : [ {
          "name" : "d",
          "type" : "integer",
          "nullable" : false,
          "metadata" : { 
            "delta.columnMapping.id": 5,
            "delta.columnMapping.physicalName": "col-a7f4159c-53be-4cb0-b81a-f7e5240cfc49"
          }
        } ]
      },
      "containsNull" : true
    },
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : { 
      "delta.columnMapping.id": 4,
      "delta.columnMapping.physicalName": "col-5f422f40-de70-45b2-88ab-1d5c90e94db1"
    }
  }

Writer Requirements for Column Mapping

In order to support column mapping, writers must:

  • Write protocol and metaData actions when Column Mapping is turned on for the first time:
    • If the table is on Writer Version 5 or 6: write a metaData action to add the delta.columnMapping.mode table property;
    • If the table is on Writer Version 7:
      • write a protocol action to add the feature columnMapping to both readerFeatures and writerFeatures, and
      • write a metaData action to add the delta.columnMapping.mode table property.
  • Write data files by using the physical name that is chosen for each column. The physical name of the column is static and can be different than the display name of the column, which is changeable.
  • Write the 32 bit integer column identifier as part of the field_id field of the SchemaElement struct in the Parquet Thrift specification.
  • Track partition values and column level statistics with the physical name of the column in the transaction log.
  • Assign a globally unique identifier as the physical name for each new column that is added to the schema. This is especially important for supporting cheap column deletions in name mode. In addition, column identifiers need to be assigned to each column. The maximum id that is assigned to a column is tracked as the table property delta.columnMapping.maxColumnId. This is an internal table property that cannot be configured by users. This value must increase monotonically as new columns are introduced and committed to the table alongside the introduction of the new columns to the schema.

Reader Requirements for Column Mapping

If the table is on Reader Version 2, or if the table is on Reader Version 3 and the feature columnMapping is present in readerFeatures, readers and writers must read the table property delta.columnMapping.mode and do one of the following.

In none mode, or if the table property is not present, readers must read the parquet files by using the display names (the name field of the column definition) of the columns in the schema.

In id mode, readers must resolve columns by using the field_id in the parquet metadata for each file, as given by the column metadata property delta.columnMapping.id in the Delta schema. Partition values and column level statistics must be resolved by their physical names for each add entry in the transaction log. If a data file does not contain field ids, readers must refuse to read that file or return nulls for each column. For ids that cannot be found in a file, readers must return null values for those columns.

In name mode, readers must resolve columns in the data files by their physical names as given by the column metadata property delta.columnMapping.physicalName in the Delta schema. Partition values and column level statistics will also be resolved by their physical names. For columns that are not found in the files, nulls need to be returned. Column ids are not used in this mode for resolution purposes.

Deletion Vectors

To support this feature:

  • To support Deletion Vectors, a table must have Reader Version 3 and Writer Version 7. A feature name deletionVectors must exist in the table's readerFeatures and writerFeatures.

When supported:

  • A table may have a metadata property delta.enableDeletionVectors in the Delta schema set to true. Writers must only write new Deletion Vectors (DVs) when this property is set to true.
  • A table's add and remove actions can optionally include a DV that provides information about logically deleted rows, that are however still physically present in the underlying data file and must thus be skipped during processing. Readers must read the table considering the existence of DVs, even when the delta.enableDeletionVectors table property is not set.

DVs can be stored and accessed in different ways, indicated by the storageType field. The Delta protocol currently supports inline or on-disk storage, where the latter can be accessed either by a relative path derived from a UUID or an absolute path.

Deletion Vector Descriptor Schema

The schema of the DeletionVectorDescriptor struct is as follows:

Field Name Data Type Description
storageType String A single character to indicate how to access the DV. Legal options are: ['u', 'i', 'p'].
pathOrInlineDv String Three format options are currently proposed:
  • If storageType = 'u' then <random prefix - optional><base85 encoded uuid>: The deletion vector is stored in a file with a path relative to the data directory of this Delta table, and the file name can be reconstructed from the UUID. See Derived Fields for how to reconstruct the file name. The random prefix is recovered as the extra characters before the (20 characters fixed length) uuid.
  • If storageType = 'i' then <base85 encoded bytes>: The deletion vector is stored inline in the log. The format used is the RoaringBitmapArray format also used when the DV is stored on disk and described in Deletion Vector Format.
  • If storageType = 'p' then <absolute path>: The DV is stored in a file with an absolute path given by this path, which has the same format as the path field in the add/remove actions.
offset Option[Int] Start of the data for this DV in number of bytes from the beginning of the file it is stored in. Always None (absent in JSON) when storageType = 'i'.
sizeInBytes Int Size of the serialized DV in bytes (raw data size, i.e. before base85 encoding, if inline).
cardinality Long Number of rows the given DV logically removes from the file.

The concrete Base85 variant used is Z85, because it is JSON-friendly.

Derived Fields

Some fields that are necessary to use the DV are not stored explicitly but can be derived in code from the stored fields.

Field Name Data Type Description Computed As
uniqueId String Uniquely identifies a DV for a given file. This is used for snapshot reconstruction to differentiate the same file with different DVs in successive versions. If offset is None then <storageType><pathOrInlineDv>.
Otherwise <storageType><pathOrInlineDv>@<offset>.
absolutePath String/URI/Path The absolute path of the DV file. Can be calculated for relative path DVs by providing a parent directory path. If storageType='p', just use the already absolute path. If storageType='u', the DV is stored at <parent path>/<random prefix>/deletion_vector_<uuid in canonical textual representation>.bin. This is not a legal field if storageType='i', as an inline DV has no absolute path.

JSON Example 1 — On Disk with Relative Path (with Random Prefix)

{
  "storageType" : "u",
  "pathOrInlineDv" : "ab^-aqEH.-t@S}K{vb[*k^",
  "offset" : 4,
  "sizeInBytes" : 40,
  "cardinality" : 6
}

Assuming that this DV is stored relative to an s3://mytable/ directory, the absolute path to be resolved here would be: s3://mytable/ab/deletion_vector_d2c639aa-8816-431a-aaf6-d3fe2512ff61.bin.

JSON Example 2 — On Disk with Absolute Path

{
  "storageType" : "p",
  "pathOrInlineDv" : "s3://mytable/deletion_vector_d2c639aa-8816-431a-aaf6-d3fe2512ff61.bin",
  "offset" : 4,
  "sizeInBytes" : 40,
  "cardinality" : 6
}

JSON Example 3 — Inline

{
  "storageType" : "i",
  "pathOrInlineDv" : "wi5b=000010000siXQKl0rr91000f55c8Xg0@@D72lkbi5=-{L",
  "sizeInBytes" : 40,
  "cardinality" : 6
}

The row indexes encoded in this DV are: 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29.

Reader Requirements for Deletion Vectors

If a snapshot contains logical files with records that are invalidated by a DV, then these records must not be returned in the output.

Writer Requirement for Deletion Vectors

When adding a logical file with a deletion vector, then that logical file must have correct numRecords information for the data file in the stats field.

Iceberg Compatibility V1

This table feature (icebergCompatV1) ensures that Delta tables can be converted to Apache Iceberg™ format, though this table feature does not implement or specify that conversion.

To support this feature:

  • Since this table feature depends on Column Mapping, the table must be on Reader Version = 2, or it must be on Reader Version >= 3 and the feature columnMapping must exist in the protocol's readerFeatures.
  • The table must be on Writer Version 7.
  • The feature icebergCompatV1 must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

This table feature is enabled when the table property delta.enableIcebergCompatV1 is set to true.

Writer Requirements for IcebergCompatV1

When supported and active, writers must:

  • Require that Column Mapping be enabled and set to either name or id mode
  • Require that Deletion Vectors are not supported (and, consequently, not active, either). i.e., the deletionVectors table feature is not present in the table protocol.
  • Require that partition column values are materialized into any Parquet data file that is present in the table, placed after the data columns in the parquet schema
  • Require that all AddFiles committed to the table have the numRecords statistic populated in their stats field
  • Block adding Map/Array/Void types to the table schema (and, thus, block writing them, too)
  • Block replacing partitioned tables with a differently-named partition spec
    • e.g. replacing a table partitioned by part_a INT with partition spec part_b INT must be blocked
    • e.g. replacing a table partitioned by part_a INT with partition spec part_a LONG is allowed

Iceberg Compatibility V2

This table feature (icebergCompatV2) ensures that Delta tables can be converted to Apache Iceberg™ format, though this table feature does not implement or specify that conversion.

To support this feature:

  • Since this table feature depends on Column Mapping, the table must be on Reader Version = 2, or it must be on Reader Version >= 3 and the feature columnMapping must exist in the protocol's readerFeatures.
  • The table must be on Writer Version 7.
  • The feature icebergCompatV2 must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

This table feature is enabled when the table property delta.enableIcebergCompatV2 is set to true.

Writer Requirements for IcebergCompatV2

When this feature is supported and enabled, writers must:

  • Require that Column Mapping be enabled and set to either name or id mode
  • Require that the nested element field of ArrayTypes and the nested key and value fields of MapTypes be assigned 32 bit integer identifiers. These identifiers must be unique and different from those used in Column Mapping, and must be stored in the metadata of their nearest ancestor StructField of the Delta table schema. Identifiers belonging to the same StructField must be organized as a Map[String, Long] and stored in metadata with key parquet.field.nested.ids. The keys of the map are "element", "key", or "value", prefixed by the name of the nearest ancestor StructField, separated by dots. The values are the identifiers. The keys for fields in nested arrays or nested maps are prefixed by their parents' key, separated by dots. An example is provided below to demonstrate how the identifiers are stored. These identifiers must be also written to the field_id field of the SchemaElement struct in the Parquet Thrift specification when writing parquet files.
  • Require that IcebergCompatV1 is not active, which means either the icebergCompatV1 table feature is not present in the table protocol or the table property delta.enableIcebergCompatV1 is not set to true
  • Require that Deletion Vectors are not active, which means either the deletionVectors table feature is not present in the table protocol or the table property delta.enableDeletionVectors is not set to true
  • Require that partition column values be materialized when writing Parquet data files
  • Require that all new AddFiles committed to the table have the numRecords statistic populated in their stats field
  • Require writing timestamp columns as int64
  • Require that the table schema contains only data types in the following allow-list: [byte, short, integer, long, float, double, decimal, string, binary, boolean, timestamp, timestampNTZ, date, array, map, struct].
  • Block replacing partitioned tables with a differently-named partition spec
    • e.g. replacing a table partitioned by part_a INT with partition spec part_b INT must be blocked
    • e.g. replacing a table partitioned by part_a INT with partition spec part_a LONG is allowed

Example of storing identifiers for nested fields in ArrayType and MapType

The following is an example of storing the identifiers for nested fields in ArrayType and MapType, of a table with the following schema,

|-- col1: array[array[int]] 
|-- col2: map[int, array[int]]    
|-- col3: map[int, struct]
                     |-- subcol1: array[int]

The identifiers for the nested fields are stored in the metadata as follows:

[
  {
    "name": "col1",
    "type": {
      "type": "array",
      "elementType": {
        "type": "array",
        "elementType": "int"
      }
    },
    "metadata": {
      "parquet.field.nested.ids": {
        "col1.element": 100,
        "col1.element.element": 101
      }
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "col2",
    "type": {
      "type": "map",
      "keyType": "int",
      "valueType": {
        "type": "array",
        "elementType": "int"
      }
    },
    "metadata": {
      "parquet.field.nested.ids": {
        "col2.key": 102,
        "col2.value": 103,
        "col2.value.element": 104
      }
    }
  },
  {
    "name": "col3",
    "type": {
      "type": "map",
      "keyType": "int",
      "valueType": {
        "type": "struct",
        "fields": [
          {
            "name": "subcol1",
            "type": {
              "type": "array",
              "elementType": "int"
            },
            "metadata": {
              "parquet.field.nested.ids": {
                "subcol1.element": 107
              }
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "metadata": {
      "parquet.field.nested.ids": {
        "col3.key": 105,
        "col3.value": 106
      }
    }
  }
]

Timestamp without timezone (TimestampNtz)

This feature introduces a new data type to support timestamps without timezone information. For example: 1970-01-01 00:00:00, or 1970-01-01 00:00:00.123456. The serialization method is described in Sections Partition Value Serialization and Schema Serialization Format.

To support this feature:

  • To have a column of TimestampNtz type in a table, the table must have Reader Version 3 and Writer Version 7. A feature name timestampNtz must exist in the table's readerFeatures and writerFeatures.

V2 Checkpoint Table Feature

To support this feature:

  • To add V2 Checkpoints support to a table, the table must have Reader Version 3 and Writer Version 7. A feature name v2Checkpoint must exist in the table's readerFeatures and writerFeatures.

When supported:

Row Tracking

Row Tracking is a feature that allows the tracking of rows across multiple versions of a Delta table. It enables this by exposing two metadata columns: Row IDs, which uniquely identify a row across multiple versions of a table, and Row Commit Versions, which make it possible to check whether two rows with the same ID in two different versions of the table represent the same version of the row.

Row Tracking is defined to be supported or enabled on a table as follows:

  • When the feature rowTracking exists in the table protocol's writerFeatures, then we say that Row Tracking is supported. In this situation, writers must assign Row IDs and Commit Versions, but they cannot yet be relied upon to be present in the table. When Row Tracking is supported but not yet enabled writers cannot preserve Row IDs and Commit Versions.
  • When additionally the table property delta.enableRowTracking is set to true, then we say that Row Tracking is enabled. In this situation, Row IDs and Row Commit versions can be relied upon to be present in the table for all rows. When Row Tracking is enabled writers are expected to preserve Row IDs and Commit Versions.

Enablement:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 7.
  • The feature rowTracking must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures. The feature domainMetadata is required in the table protocol's writerFeatures.
  • The table property delta.enableRowTracking must be set to true.

Row IDs

Delta provides Row IDs. Row IDs are integers that are used to uniquely identify rows within a table. Every row has two Row IDs:

  • A fresh or unstable Row ID. This ID uniquely identifies the row within one version of the table. The fresh ID of a row may change every time the table is updated, even for rows that are not modified. E.g. when a row is copied unchanged during an update operation, it will get a new fresh ID. Fresh IDs can be used to identify rows within one version of the table, e.g. for identifying matching rows in self joins.
  • A stable Row ID. This ID uniquely identifies the row across versions of the table and across updates. When a row is inserted, it is assigned a new stable Row ID that is equal to the fresh Row ID. When a row is updated or copied, the stable Row ID for this row is preserved. When a row is restored (i.e. the table is restored to an earlier version), its stable Row ID is restored as well.

The fresh and stable Row IDs are not required to be equal.

Row IDs are stored in two ways:

  • Default generated Row IDs use the baseRowId field stored in add and remove actions to generate fresh Row IDs. The default generated Row IDs for data files are calculated by adding the baseRowId of the file in which a row is contained to the (physical) position (index) of the row within the file. Default generated Row IDs require little storage overhead but are reassigned every time a row is updated or moved to a different file (for instance when a row is contained in a file that is compacted by OPTIMIZE).

  • Materialized Row IDs are stored in a column in the data files. This column is hidden from readers and writers, i.e. it is not part of the schemaString in the table's metaData. Instead, the name of this column can be found in the value for the delta.rowTracking.materializedRowIdColumnName key in the configuration of the table's metaData action. This column may contain null values meaning that the corresponding row has no materialized Row ID. This column may be omitted if all its values are null in the file. Materialized Row IDs provide a mechanism for writers to preserve stable Row IDs for rows that are updated or copied.

The fresh Row ID of a row is equal to the default generated Row ID. The stable Row ID of a row is equal to the materialized Row ID of the row when that column is present and the value is not NULL, otherwise it is equal to the default generated Row ID.

When Row Tracking is enabled:

  • Default generated Row IDs must be assigned to all existing rows. This means in particular that all files that are part of the table version that sets the table property delta.enableRowTracking to true must have baseRowId set. A backfill operation may be required to commit add and remove actions with the baseRowId field set for all data files before the table property delta.enableRowTracking can be set to true.

Row Commit Versions

Row Commit Versions provide versioning of rows.

  • Fresh or unstable Row Commit Versions can be used to identify the first commit version in which the add action containing the row was committed. The fresh Commit Version of a row may change every time the table is updated, even for rows that are not modified. E.g. when a row is copied unchanged during an update operation, it will get a new fresh Commit Version.
  • Stable Row Commit Versions identify the last commit version in which the row (with the same ID) was either inserted or updated. When a row is inserted or updated, it is assigned the commit version number of the log entry containing the add entry with the new row. When a row is copied, the stable Row Commit Version for this row is preserved. When a row is restored (i.e. the table is restored to an earlier version), its stable Row Commit Version is restored as well.

The fresh and stable Row Commit Versions are not required to be equal.

Commit Versions are stored in two ways:

  • Default generated Row Commit Versions use the defaultRowCommitVersion field in add and remove actions. Default generated Row Commit Versions require little storage overhead but are reassigned every time a row is updated or moved to a different file (for instance when a row is contained in a file that is compacted by OPTIMIZE).

  • Materialized Row Commit Versions are stored in a column in the data files. This column is hidden from readers and writers, i.e. it is not part of the schemaString in the table's metaData. Instead, the name of this column can be found in the value for the delta.rowTracking.materializedRowCommitVersionColumnName key in the configuration of the table's metaData action. This column may contain null values meaning that the corresponding row has no materialized Row Commit Version. This column may be omitted if all its values are null in the file. Materialized Row Commit Versions provide a mechanism for writers to preserve Row Commit Versions for rows that are copied.

The fresh Row Commit Version of a row is equal to the default generated Row Commit version. The stable Row Commit Version of a row is equal to the materialized Row Commit Version of the row when that column is present and the value is not NULL, otherwise it is equal to the default generated Commit Version.

Reader Requirements for Row Tracking

When Row Tracking is enabled (when the table property delta.enableRowTracking is set to true), then:

  • When Row IDs are requested, readers must reconstruct stable Row IDs as follows:
    1. Readers must use the materialized Row ID if the column determined by delta.rowTracking.materializedRowIdColumnName is present in the data file and the column contains a non null value for a row.
    2. Otherwise, readers must use the default generated Row ID of the add or remove action containing the row in all other cases. I.e. readers must add the index of the row in the file to the baseRowId of the add or remove action for the file containing the row.
  • When Row Commit Versions are requested, readers must reconstruct them as follows:
    1. Readers must use the materialized Row Commit Versions if the column determined by delta.rowTracking.materializedRowCommitVersionColumnName is present in the data file and the column contains a non null value for a row.
    2. Otherwise, Readers must use the default generated Row Commit Versions of the add or remove action containing the row in all other cases. I.e. readers must use the defaultRowCommitVersion of the add or remove action for the file containing the row.
  • Readers cannot read Row IDs and Row Commit Versions while reading change data files from cdc actions.

Writer Requirements for Row Tracking

When Row Tracking is supported (when the writerFeatures field of a table's protocol action contains rowTracking), then:

  • Writers must assign unique fresh Row IDs to all rows that they commit.
    • Writers must set the baseRowId field in all add actions that they commit so that all default generated Row IDs are unique in the table version. Writers must never commit duplicate Row IDs in the table in any version.
    • Writers must set the baseRowId field in recommitted and checkpointed add actions and remove actions to the baseRowId value (if present) of the last committed add action with the same path.
    • Writers must track the high water mark, i.e. the highest fresh row id assigned.
      • The high water mark must be stored in a domainMetadata action with delta.rowTracking as the domain and a configuration containing a single key-value pair with highWaterMark as the key and the highest assigned fresh row id as the value.
      • Writers must include a domainMetadata for delta.rowTracking whenever they assign new fresh Row IDs that are higher than highWaterMark value of the current domainMetadata for delta.rowTracking. The highWaterMark value in the configuration of this domainMetadata action must always be equal to or greater than the highest fresh Row ID committed so far. Writers can either commit this domainMetadata in the same commit, or they can reserve the fresh Row IDs in an earlier commit.
      • Writers must set the baseRowId field to a value that is higher than the row id high water mark.
  • Writer must assign fresh Row Commit Versions to all rows that they commit.
    • Writers must set the defaultRowCommitVersion field in new add actions to the version number of the log enty containing the add action.
    • Writers must set the defaultRowCommitVersion field in recommitted and checkpointed add actions and remove actions to the defaultRowCommitVersion of the last committed add action with the same path.

Writers can enable Row Tracking by setting delta.enableRowTracking to true in the configuration of the table's metaData. This is only allowed if the following requirements are satisfied:

  • The feature rowTracking has been added to the writerFeatures field of a table's protocol action either in the same version of the table or in an earlier version of the table.
  • The column name for the materialized Row IDs and Row Commit Versions have been assigned and added to the configuration in the table's metaData action using the keys delta.rowTracking.materializedRowIdColumnName and delta.rowTracking.materializedRowCommitVersionColumnName respectively.
    • The assigned column names must be unique. They must not be equal to the name of any other column in the table's schema. The assigned column names must remain unique in all future versions of the table. If Column Mapping is enabled, then the assigned column name must be distinct from the physical column names of the table.
  • The baseRowId and defaultRowCommitVersion fields are set for all active add actions in the version of the table in which delta.enableRowTracking is set to true.
  • If the baseRowId and defaultRowCommitVersion fields are not set in some active add action in the table, then writers must first commit new add actions that set these fields to replace the add actions that do not have these fields set. This can be done in the commit that sets delta.enableRowTracking to true or in an earlier commit. The assigned baseRowId and defaultRowCommitVersion values must satisfy the same requirements as when assigning fresh Row IDs and fresh Row Commit Versions respectively.

When Row Tracking is enabled (when the table property delta.enableRowTracking is set to true), then:

  • Writers must assign stable Row IDs to all rows.
    • Stable Row IDs must be unique within a version of the table and must not be equal to the fresh Row IDs of other rows in the same version of the table.
    • Writers should preserve the stable Row IDs of rows that are updated or copied using materialized Row IDs.
      • The preserved stable Row ID (i.e. a stable Row ID that is not equal to the fresh Row ID of the same physical row) should be equal to the stable Row ID of the same logical row before it was updated or copied.
      • Materialized Row IDs must be written to the column determined by delta.rowTracking.materializedRowIdColumnName in the configuration of the table's metaData action. The value in this column must be set to NULL for stable Row IDs that are not preserved.
  • Writers must assign stable Row Commit Versions to all rows.
    • Writers should preserve the stable Row Commit Versions of rows that are copied (but not updated) using materialized Row Commit Versions.
      • The preserved stable Row Commit Version (i.e. a stable Row Commit Version that is not equal to the fresh Row Commit Version of the same physical row) should be equal to the stable Commit Version of the same logical row before it was copied.
      • Materialized Row Commit Versions must be written to the column determined by delta.rowTracking.materializedRowCommitVersionColumnName in the configuration of the table's metaData action. The value in this column must be set to NULL for stable Row Commit Versions that are not preserved (i.e. that are equal to the fresh Row Commit Version).
  • Writers should set delta.rowTracking.preserved in the tags of the commitInfo action to true whenever all the stable Row IDs of rows that are updated or copied and all the stable Row Commit Versions of rows that are copied were preserved. In particular, writers should set delta.rowTracking.preserved in the tags of the commitInfo action to true if no rows are updated or copied. Writers should set that flag to false otherwise.

VACUUM Protocol Check

The vacuumProtocolCheck ReaderWriter feature ensures consistent application of reader and writer protocol checks during VACUUM operations, addressing potential protocol discrepancies and mitigating the risk of data corruption due to skipped writer checks.

Enablement:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 7 and Reader Version 3.
  • The feature vacuumProtocolCheck must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures and readerFeatures.

Writer Requirements for Vacuum Protocol Check

This feature affects only the VACUUM operations; standard commits remain unaffected.

Before performing a VACUUM operation, writers must ensure that they check the table's write protocol. This is most easily implemented by adding an unconditional write protocol check for all tables, which removes the need to examine individual table properties.

Writers that do not implement VACUUM do not need to change anything and can safely write to tables that enable the feature.

Reader Requirements for Vacuum Protocol Check

For tables with Vacuum Protocol Check enabled, readers don’t need to understand or change anything new; they just need to acknowledge the feature exists.

Making this feature a ReaderWriter feature (rather than solely a Writer feature) ensures that:

  • Older vacuum implementations, which only performed the Reader protocol check and lacked the Writer protocol check, will begin to fail if the table has vacuumProtocolCheck enabled.This change allows future writer features to have greater flexibility and safety in managing files within the table directory, eliminating the risk of older Vacuum implementations (that lack the Writer protocol check) accidentally deleting relevant files.

Clustered Table

The Clustered Table feature facilitates the physical clustering of rows that share similar values on a predefined set of clustering columns. This enhances query performance when selective filters are applied to these clustering columns through data skipping. Clustering columns can be specified during the initial creation of a table, or they can be added later, provided that the table doesn't have partition columns.

A table is defined as a clustered table through the following criteria:

  • When the feature clustering exists in the table protocol's writerFeatures, then we say that the table is a clustered table. The feature domainMetadata is required in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

Enablement:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 7.
  • The feature clustering must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures, either during its creation or at a later stage, provided the table does not have partition columns.

Writer Requirements for Clustered Table

When the Clustered Table is supported (when the writerFeatures field of a table's protocol action contains clustering), then:

  • Writers must track clustering column names in a domainMetadata action with delta.clustering as the domain and a configuration containing all clustering column names. If Column Mapping is enabled, the physical column names should be used.
  • Writers must write out per-file statistics and per-column statistics for clustering columns in add action. If a new column is included in the clustering columns list, it is required for all table files to have statistics for these added columns.
  • When a clustering implementation clusters files, writers must set the name of the clustering implementation in the clusteringProvider field when adding add actions for clustered files.
    • By default, a clustering implementation must only recluster files that have the field clusteringProvider set to the name of the same clustering implementation, or to the names of other clustering implementations that are superseded by the current clustering implementation. In addition, a clustering implementation may cluster any files with an unset clusteringProvider field (i.e., unclustered files).
    • Writer is not required to cluster a specific file at any specific moment.
    • A clustering implementation is free to add additional information such as adding a new user-controlled metadata domain to keep track of its metadata.
  • Writers must not define clustered and partitioned table at the same time.

The following is an example for the domainMetadata action defintion of a table that leverages column mapping.

{
  "domainMetadata": {
    "domain": "delta.clustering",
    "configuration": "{\"clusteringColumns\":[\"col-daadafd7-7c20-4697-98f8-bff70199b1f9\", \"col-5abe0e80-cf57-47ac-9ffc-a861a3d1077e\"]}",
    "removed": false
  }
}

The example above converts configuration field into JSON format, including escaping characters. Here's how it looks in plain JSON for better understanding.

{
  "clusteringColumns": [
    "col-daadafd7-7c20-4697-98f8-bff70199b1f9",
    "col-5abe0e80-cf57-47ac-9ffc-a861a3d1077e"
  ]
}

In-Commit Timestamps

The In-Commit Timestamps writer feature strongly associates a monotonically increasing timestamp with each commit by storing it in the commit's metadata.

Enablement:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 7.
  • The feature inCommitTimestamps must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.
  • The table property delta.enableInCommitTimestamps must be set to true.

Writer Requirements for In-Commit Timestamps

When In-Commit Timestamps is enabled, then:

  1. Writers must write the commitInfo (see Commit Provenance Information) action in the commit.
  2. The commitInfo action must be the first action in the commit.
  3. The commitInfo action must include a field named inCommitTimestamp, of type long (see Primitive Types), which represents the time (in milliseconds since the Unix epoch) when the commit is considered to have succeeded. It is the larger of two values:
    • The time, in milliseconds since the Unix epoch, at which the writer attempted the commit
    • One millisecond later than the previous commit's inCommitTimestamp
  4. If the table has commits from a period when this feature was not enabled, provenance information around when this feature was enabled must be tracked in table properties:
    • The property delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementVersion must be used to track the version of the table when this feature was enabled.
    • The property delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementTimestamp must be the same as the inCommitTimestamp of the commit when this feature was enabled.
  5. The inCommitTimestamp of the commit that enables this feature must be greater than the file modification time of the immediately preceding commit.

Recommendations for Readers of Tables with In-Commit Timestamps

For tables with In-Commit timestamps enabled, readers should use the inCommitTimestamp as the commit timestamp for operations like time travel and DESCRIBE HISTORY. If a table has commits from a period before In-Commit timestamps were enabled, the table properties delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementVersion and delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementTimestamp would be set and can be used to identify commits that don't have inCommitTimestamp. To correctly determine the commit timestamp for these tables, readers can use the following rules:

  1. For commits with version >= delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementVersion, readers should use the inCommitTimestamp field of the commitInfo action.
  2. For commits with version < delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementVersion, readers should use the file modification timestamp.

Furthermore, when attempting timestamp-based time travel where table state must be fetched as of timestamp X, readers should use the following rules:

  1. If timestamp X >= delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementTimestamp, only table versions >= delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementVersion should be considered for the query.
  2. Otherwise, only table versions less than delta.inCommitTimestampEnablementVersion should be considered for the query.

Requirements for Writers

This section documents additional requirements that writers must follow in order to preserve some of the higher level guarantees that Delta provides.

Creation of New Log Entries

  • Writers MUST never overwrite an existing log entry. When ever possible they should use atomic primitives of the underlying filesystem to ensure concurrent writers do not overwrite each others entries.

Consistency Between Table Metadata and Data Files

  • Any column that exists in a data file present in the table MUST also be present in the metadata of the table.
  • Values for all partition columns present in the schema MUST be present for all files in the table.
  • Columns present in the schema of the table MAY be missing from data files. Readers SHOULD fill these missing columns in with null.

Delta Log Entries

  • A single log entry MUST NOT include more than one action that reconciles with each other.
    • Add / Remove actions with the same (path, DV) tuple.
    • More than one Metadata action
    • More than one protocol action
    • More than one SetTransaction with the same appId

Checkpoints

Each row in the checkpoint corresponds to a single action. The checkpoint must contain all information regarding the following actions:

All of these actions are stored as their individual columns in parquet as struct fields. Any missing column should be treated as null.

Checkpoints must not preserve commit provenance information nor change data actions.

Within the checkpoint, the add struct may or may not contain the following columns based on the configuration of the table:

  • partitionValues_parsed: In this struct, the column names correspond to the partition columns and the values are stored in their corresponding data type. This is a required field when the table is partitioned and the table property delta.checkpoint.writeStatsAsStruct is set to true. If the table is not partitioned, this column can be omitted. For example, for partition columns year, month and event with data types int, int and string respectively, the schema for this field will look like:
|-- add: struct
|    |-- partitionValues_parsed: struct
|    |    |-- year: int
|    |    |-- month: int
|    |    |-- event: string
  • stats: Column level statistics can be stored as a JSON string in the checkpoint. This field needs to be written when statistics are available and the table property: delta.checkpoint.writeStatsAsJson is set to true (which is the default). When this property is set to false, this field should be omitted from the checkpoint.
  • stats_parsed: The stats can be stored in their original format. This field needs to be written when statistics are available and the table property: delta.checkpoint.writeStatsAsStruct is set to true. When this property is set to false (which is the default), this field should be omitted from the checkpoint.

Within the checkpoint, the remove struct does not contain the stats and tags fields because the remove actions stored in checkpoints act only as tombstones for VACUUM operations, and VACUUM tombstones do not require stats or tags. These fields are only stored in Delta JSON commit files.

Refer to the appendix for an example on the schema of the checkpoint.

Delta supports two checkpoint specs and three kind of checkpoint naming schemes.

Checkpoint Specs

Delta supports following two checkpoint specs:

V2 Spec

This checkpoint spec allows putting add and remove file in the sidecar files. This spec can be used only when v2 checkpoint table feature is enabled. Checkpoints following V2 spec have the following structure:

  • Each v2 spec checkpoint includes exactly one Checkpoint Metadata action.
  • Remaining rows in the V2 spec checkpoint refer to the other actions mentioned here
  • All the non-file actions i.e. all actions except add and remove file must be part of the v2 spec checkpoint itself.
  • A writer could choose to include the add and remove file action in the V2 spec Checkpoint or they could write the add and remove file actions in separate sidecar files. These sidecar files will then be referenced in the V2 spec checkpoint. All sidecar files reside in the _delta_log/_sidecars directory.
  • A V2 spec Checkpoint could reference zero or more sidecar file actions.

Note: A V2 spec Checkpoint can either have all the add and remove file actions embedded inside itself or all of them should be in sidecar files. Having partial add and remove file actions in V2 Checkpoint and partial entries in sidecar files is not allowed.

After producing a V2 spec checkpoint, a writer can choose to embed some or all of the V2 spec checkpoint in the _last_checkpoint file, so that readers don't have to read the V2 Checkpoint.

E.g. showing the content of V2 spec checkpoint:

{"checkpointMetadata":{"version":364475,"tags":{}}}
{"metaData":{...}}
{"protocol":{...}}
{"txn":{"appId":"3ba13872-2d47-4e17-86a0-21afd2a22395","version":364475}}
{"txn":{"appId":"3ae45b72-24e1-865a-a211-34987ae02f2a","version":4389}}
{"sidecar":{"path":"3a0d65cd-4056-49b8-937b-95f9e3ee90e5.parquet","sizeInBytes":2341330,"modificationTime":1512909768000,"tags":{}}
{"sidecar":{"path":"016ae953-37a9-438e-8683-9a9a4a79a395.parquet","sizeInBytes":8468120,"modificationTime":1512909848000,"tags":{}}

Another example of a v2 spec checkpoint without sidecars:

{"checkpointMetadata":{"version":364475,"tags":{}}}
{"metaData":{...}}
{"protocol":{...}}
{"txn":{"appId":"3ba13872-2d47-4e17-86a0-21afd2a22395","version":364475}}
{"add":{"path":"date=2017-12-10/part-000...c000.gz.parquet",...}
{"add":{"path":"date=2017-12-09/part-000...c000.gz.parquet",...}
{"remove":{"path":"date=2017-12-08/part-000...c000.gz.parquet",...}

V1 Spec

The V1 Spec does not support sidecar files and checkpoint metadata. These are flat checkpoints which contains all actions mentioned here.

Checkpoint Naming Scheme

Delta supports three checkpoint naming schemes: UUID-named, classic, and multi-part.

UUID-named checkpoint

This naming scheme represents a V2 spec checkpoint with following file name: n.checkpoint.u.{json/parquet}, where u is a UUID and n is the snapshot version that this checkpoint represents. The UUID-named checkpoints may be in JSON or parquet format. Since these are following V2 spec, they must have a checkpoint metadata action and may reference zero or more checkpoint sidecar files.

Example-1: Json UUID-named checkpoint with sidecars

00000000000000000010.checkpoint.80a083e8-7026-4e79-81be-64bd76c43a11.json
_sidecars/016ae953-37a9-438e-8683-9a9a4a79a395.parquet
_sidecars/3a0d65cd-4056-49b8-937b-95f9e3ee90e5.parquet
_sidecars/7d17ac10-5cc3-401b-bd1a-9c82dd2ea032.parquet

Example-2: Parquet UUID-named checkpoint with sidecars

00000000000000000020.checkpoint.80a083e8-7026-4e79-81be-64bd76c43a11.parquet
_sidecars/016ae953-37a9-438e-8683-9a9a4a79a395.parquet
_sidecars/3a0d65cd-4056-49b8-937b-95f9e3ee90e5.parquet

Example-3: Json UUID-named checkpoint without sidecars

00000000000000000112.checkpoint.80a083e8-7026-4e79-81be-64bd76c43a11.json

Classic checkpoint

A classic checkpoint for version n uses the file name n.checkpoint.parquet. For example:

00000000000000000010.checkpoint.parquet

If two checkpoint writers race to create the same classic checkpoint, the latest writer wins. However, this should not matter because both checkpoints should contain the same information and a reader could safely use either one.

A classic checkpoint could:

  1. Either follow V1 spec or
  2. Could follow V2 spec. This is possible only when V2 Checkpoint table feature is enabled. In this case it must include checkpoint metadata and may or may not have sidecar files.

Multi-part checkpoint

Multi-part checkpoint uses parquet format. This checkpoint type is deprecated and writers should avoid using it.

A multi-part checkpoint for version n consists of p "part" files (p > 1), where part o of p is named n.checkpoint.o.p.parquet. For example:

00000000000000000010.checkpoint.0000000001.0000000003.parquet
00000000000000000010.checkpoint.0000000002.0000000003.parquet
00000000000000000010.checkpoint.0000000003.0000000003.parquet

For safety reasons, multi-part checkpoints MUST be clustered by spark-style hash partitioning. If the table supports Deletion Vectors, the partitioning key is the logical file identifier (path, dvId); otherwise the key is just path (not (path, NULL)). This ensures deterministic content in each part file in case of multiple attempts to write the files -- even when older and newer Delta clients race.

Problems with multi-part checkpoints

Because they cannot be written atomically, multi-part checkpoints have several weaknesses:

  1. A writer cannot validate the content of the just-written checkpoint before readers could start using it.

  2. Two writers who race to produce the same checkpoint (same version, same number of parts) can overwrite each other, producing an arbitrary mix of checkpoint part files. If an overwrite changes the content of a file in any way, the resulting checkpoint may not produce an accurate snapshot.

  3. Not amenable to performance and scalability optimizations. For example, there is no way to store skipping stats for checkpoint parts, nor to reuse checkpoint part files across multiple checkpoints.

  4. Multi-part checkpoints also bloat the _delta_log dir and slow down LIST operations.

The UUID-named checkpoint (which follows V2 spec) solves all of these problems and should be preferred over multi-part checkpoints. For this reason, Multi-part checkpoints are forbidden when V2 Checkpoints table feature is enabled.

Handling Backward compatibility while moving to UUID-named v2 Checkpoints

A UUID-named v2 Checkpoint should only be created by clients if the v2 checkpoint table feature is enabled. When UUID-named v2 checkpoints are enabled, Writers should occasionally create a v2 Classic Checkpoint to maintain compatibility with older clients which do not support v2 checkpoint table feature and so do not recognize UUID-named checkpoints. These classic checkpoints have the same content as the UUID-named v2 checkpoint, but older clients will recognize the classic file name, allowing them to extract Protocol and fail gracefully with an invalid protocol version error on v2-checkpoint-enabled tables. Writers should create classic checkpoints often enough to allow older clients to discover them and fail gracefully.

Allowed combinations for checkpoint spec <-> checkpoint file naming

Checkpoint Spec UUID-named classic multi-part
V1 Invalid Valid Valid
V2 Valid Valid Invalid

Metadata Cleanup

The _delta_log directory grows over time as more and more commits and checkpoints are accumulated. Implementations are recommended to delete expired commits and checkpoints in order to reduce the directory size. The following steps could be used to do cleanup of the DeltaLog directory:

  1. Identify a threshold (in days) uptil which we want to preserve the deltaLog. Let's refer to midnight UTC of that day as cutOffTimestamp. The newest commit not newer than the cutOffTimestamp is the cutoffCommit, because a commit exactly at midnight is an acceptable cutoff. We want to retain everything including and after the cutoffCommit.
  2. Identify the newest checkpoint that is not newer than the cutOffCommit. A checkpoint at the cutOffCommit is ideal, but an older one will do. Lets call it cutOffCheckpoint. We need to preserve the cutOffCheckpoint and all commits after it, because we need them to enable time travel for commits between cutOffCheckpoint and the next available checkpoint.
  3. Delete all delta log entries and checkpoint files before the cutOffCheckpoint checkpoint. Also delete all the log compaction files having startVersion <= cutOffCheckpoint's version.
  4. Now read all the available checkpoints in the _delta_log directory and identify the corresponding sidecar files. These sidecar files need to be protected.
  5. List all the files in _delta_log/_sidecars directory, preserve files that are less than a day old (as of midnight UTC), to not break in-progress checkpoints. Also preserve the referenced sidecar files identified in Step-4 above. Delete everything else.

Data Files

  • Data files MUST be uniquely named and MUST NOT be overwritten. The reference implementation uses a GUID in the name to ensure this property.

Append-only Tables

To support this feature:

  • The table must be on a Writer Version starting from 2 up to 7.
  • If the table is on Writer Version 7, the feature appendOnly must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

When supported, and if the table has a property delta.appendOnly set to true:

  • New log entries MUST NOT change or remove data from the table.
  • New log entries may rearrange data (i.e. add and remove actions where dataChange=false).

To remove the append-only restriction, the table property delta.appendOnly must be set to false, or it must be removed.

Column Invariants

To support this feature

  • If the table is on a Writer Version starting from 2 up to 6, Column Invariants are always enabled.
  • If the table is on Writer Version 7, the feature invariants must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

When supported:

  • The metadata for a column in the table schema MAY contain the key delta.invariants.
  • The value of delta.invariants SHOULD be parsed as a JSON string containing a boolean SQL expression at the key expression.expression (that is, {"expression": {"expression": "<SQL STRING>"}}).
  • Writers MUST abort any transaction that adds a row to the table, where an invariant evaluates to false or null.

For example, given the schema string (pretty printed for readability. The entire schema string in the log should be a single JSON line):

{
    "type": "struct",
    "fields": [
        {
            "name": "x",
            "type": "integer",
            "nullable": true,
            "metadata": {
                "delta.invariants": "{\"expression\": { \"expression\": \"x > 3\"} }"
            }
        }
    ]
}

Writers should reject any transaction that contains data where the expression x > 3 returns false or null.

CHECK Constraints

To support this feature:

  • If the table is on a Writer Version starting from 3 up to 6, CHECK Constraints are always supported.
  • If the table is on Writer Version 7, a feature name checkConstraints must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

CHECK constraints are stored in the map of the configuration field in Metadata. Each CHECK constraint has a name and is stored as a key value pair. The key format is delta.constraints.{name}, and the value is a SQL expression string whose return type must be Boolean. Columns referred by the SQL expression must exist in the table schema.

Rows in a table must satisfy CHECK constraints. In other words, evaluating the SQL expressions of CHECK constraints must return true for each row in a table.

For example, a key value pair (delta.constraints.birthDateCheck, birthDate > '1900-01-01') means there is a CHECK constraint called birthDateCheck in the table and the value of the birthDate column in each row must be greater than 1900-01-01.

Hence, a writer must follow the rules below:

  • CHECK Constraints may not be added to a table unless the above "to support this feature" rules are satisfied. When adding a CHECK Constraint to a table for the first time, writers are allowed to submit a protocol change in the same commit to add support of this feature.
  • When adding a CHECK constraint to a table, a writer must validate the existing data in the table and ensure every row satisfies the new CHECK constraint before committing the change. Otherwise, the write operation must fail and the table must stay unchanged.
  • When writing to a table that contains CHECK constraints, every new row being written to the table must satisfy CHECK constraints in the table. Otherwise, the write operation must fail and the table must stay unchanged.

Generated Columns

To support this feature:

  • If the table is on a Writer Version starting from 4 up to 6, Generated Columns are always supported.
  • If the table is on Writer Version 7, a feature name generatedColumns must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

When supported:

  • The metadata for a column in the table schema MAY contain the key delta.generationExpression.
  • The value of delta.generationExpression SHOULD be parsed as a SQL expression.
  • Writers MUST enforce that any data writing to the table satisfy the condition (<value> <=> <generation expression>) IS TRUE. <=> is the NULL-safe equal operator which performs an equality comparison like the = operator but returns TRUE rather than NULL if both operands are NULL

Default Columns

Delta supports defining default expressions for columns on Delta tables. Delta will generate default values for columns when users do not explicitly provide values for them when writing to such tables, or when the user explicitly specifies the DEFAULT SQL keyword for any such column.

Semantics for write and read operations:

  • Note that this metadata only applies for write operations, not read operations.
  • Table write operations (such as SQL INSERT, UPDATE, and MERGE commands) will use the default values. For example, this SQL command will use default values: INSERT INTO t VALUES (42, DEFAULT);
  • Table operations that add new columns (such as SQL ALTER TABLE ... ADD COLUMN commands) MUST not specify a default value for any column in the same command that the column is created. For example, this SQL command is not supported in Delta Lake: ALTER TABLE t ADD COLUMN c INT DEFAULT 42;
  • Note that it is acceptable to assign or update default values for columns that were already created in previous commands, however. For example, this SQL command is valid: ALTER TABLE t ALTER COLUMN c SET DEFAULT 42;

Enablement:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 7, and a feature name allowColumnDefaults must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

When enabled:

  • The metadata for the column in the table schema MAY contain the key CURRENT_DEFAULT.
  • The value of CURRENT_DEFAULT SHOULD be parsed as a SQL expression.
  • Writers MUST enforce that before writing any rows to the table, for each such requested row that lacks any explicit value (including NULL) for columns with default values, the writing system will assign the result of evaluating the default value expression for each such column as the value for that column in the row. By the same token, if the engine specified the explicit DEFAULT SQL keyword for any column, the expression result must be substituted in the same way.

Identity Columns

Delta supports defining Identity columns on Delta tables. Delta will generate unique values for Identity columns when users do not explicitly provide values for them when writing to such tables. To support Identity Columns:

  • The table must be on Writer Version 6, or
  • The table must be on Writer Version 7, and a feature name identityColumns must exist in the table protocol's writerFeatures.

When supported, the metadata for a column in the table schema MAY contain the following keys for Identity Column properties:

  • delta.identity.start: Starting value for the Identity column. This is a long type value. It should not be changed after table creation.
  • delta.identity.step: Increment to the next Identity value. This is a long type value. It cannot be set to 0. It should not be changed after table creation.
  • delta.identity.highWaterMark: The highest value generated for the Identity column. This is a long type value. When delta.identity.step is positive (negative), this should be the largest (smallest) value in the column.
  • delta.identity.allowExplicitInsert: True if this column allows explicitly inserted values. This is a boolean type value. It should not be changed after table creation.

When delta.identity.allowExplicitInsert is true, writers should meet the following requirements:

  • Users should be allowed to provide their own values for Identity columns.

When delta.identity.allowExplicitInsert is false, writers should meet the following requirements:

  • Users should not be allowed to provide their own values for Identity columns.
  • Delta should generate values that satisfy the following requirements
    • The new value does not already exist in the column.
    • The new value should satisfy value = start + k * step where k is a non-negative integer.
    • The new value should be higher than delta.identity.highWaterMark. When delta.identity.step is positive (negative), the new value should be the greater (smaller) than delta.identity.highWaterMark.
  • Overflow when calculating generated Identity values should be detected and such writes should not be allowed.
  • delta.identity.highWaterMark should be updated to the new highest value when the write operation commits.

Writer Version Requirements

The requirements of the writers according to the protocol versions are summarized in the table below. Each row inherits the requirements from the preceding row.


 Requirements
Writer Version 2 - Respect Append-only Tables
- Respect Column Invariants
Writer Version 3 - Enforce delta.checkpoint.writeStatsAsJson
- Enforce delta.checkpoint.writeStatsAsStruct
- Respect CHECK constraints
Writer Version 4 - Respect Change Data Feed
- Respect Generated Columns
Writer Version 5 Respect Column Mapping
Writer Version 6 Respect Identity Columns
Writer Version 7 Respect Table Features for writers

Requirements for Readers

This section documents additional requirements that readers must respect in order to produce correct scans of a Delta table.

Reader Version Requirements

The requirements of the readers according to the protocol versions are summarized in the table below. Each row inherits the requirements from the preceding row.


 Requirements
Reader Version 2 Respect Column Mapping
Reader Version 3 Respect Table Features for readers
- Writer Version must be 7

Appendix

Valid Feature Names in Table Features

Feature Name Readers or Writers?
Append-only Tables appendOnly Writers only
Column Invariants invariants Writers only
CHECK constraints checkConstraints Writers only
Generated Columns generatedColumns Writers only
Default Columns allowColumnDefaults Writers only
Change Data Feed changeDataFeed Writers only
Column Mapping columnMapping Readers and writers
Identity Columns identityColumns Writers only
Deletion Vectors deletionVectors Readers and writers
Row Tracking rowTracking Writers only
Timestamp without Timezone timestampNtz Readers and writers
Domain Metadata domainMetadata Writers only
V2 Checkpoint v2Checkpoint Readers and writers
Iceberg Compatibility V1 icebergCompatV1 Writers only
Iceberg Compatibility V2 icebergCompatV2 Writers only
Clustered Table clustering Writers only
VACUUM Protocol Check vacuumProtocolCheck Readers and Writers

Deletion Vector Format

Deletion Vectors are basically sets of row indexes, that is 64-bit integers that describe the position (index) of a row in a parquet file starting from zero. We store these sets in a compressed format. The fundamental building block for this is the open source RoaringBitmap library. RoaringBitmap is a flexible format for storing 32-bit integers that automatically switches between three different encodings at the granularity of a 16-bit block (64K values):

  • Simple integer array, when the number of values in the block is small.
  • Bitmap-compressed, when the number of values in the block is large and scattered.
  • Run-length encoded, when the number of values in the block is large, but clustered.

The serialization format is standardized, and both Java and C/C++ implementations are available (among others).

The above description only applies to 32-bit bitmaps, but Deletion Vectors use 64-bit integers. In order to extend coverage from 32 to 64 bits, RoaringBitmaps defines a "portable" serialization format in the RoaringBitmaps Specification. This format essentially splits the space into an outer part with the most significant 32-bit "keys" indexing the least significant 32-bit RoaringBitmaps in ascending sequence. The spec calls these least signficant 32-bit RoaringBitmaps "buckets".

Bytes Name Description
0 – 7 numBuckets The number of distinct 32-bit buckets in this bitmap.
repeat for each bucket b For each bucket in ascending order of keys.
<start of b> – <start of b> + 3 key The most significant 32-bit of all the values in this bucket.
<start of b> + 4 – <end of b> bucketData A serialized 32-bit RoaringBitmap with all the least signficant 32-bit entries in this bucket.

The 32-bit serialization format then consists of a header that describes all the (least signficant) 16-bit containers, their types (s. above), and their their key (most significant 16-bits). This is followed by the data for each individual container in a container-specific format.

Reference Implementations of the Roaring format:

Delta uses the format described above as a black box, but with two additions:

  1. We prepend a "magic number", which can be used to make sure we are reading the correct format and also retains the ability to evolve the format in the future.
  2. We require that every "key" (s. above) in the bitmap has a 0 as its most significant bit. This ensures that in Java, where values are read signed, we never read negative keys.

The concrete serialization format is as follows (all numerical values are written in little endian byte order):

Bytes Name Description
0 — 3 magicNumber 1681511377; Indicates that the following bytes are serialized in this exact format. Future alternative—but related—formats must have a different magic number, for example by incrementing this one.
4 — end bitmap A serialized 64-bit bitmap in the portable standard format as defined in the RoaringBitmaps Specification. This can be treated as a black box by any Delta implementation that has a native, standard-compliant RoaringBitmap library available to pass these bytes to.

Deletion Vector File Storage Format

Deletion Vectors can be stored in files in cloud storage or inline in the Delta log. The format for storing DVs in file storage is one (or more) DV, using the 64-bit RoaringBitmaps described in the previous section, per file, together with a checksum for each DV. The concrete format is as follows, with all numerical values written in big endian byte order:

Bytes Name Description
0 version The format version of this file: 1 for the format described here.
repeat for each DV i For each DV
<start of i> — <start of i> + 3 dataSize Size of this DV’s data (without the checksum)
<start of i> + 4 — <start of i> + 4 + dataSize - 1 bitmapData One 64-bit RoaringBitmap serialised as described above.
<start of i> + 4 + dataSize — <start of i> + 4 + dataSize + 3 checksum CRC-32 checksum of bitmapData

Per-file Statistics

add and remove actions can optionally contain statistics about the data in the file being added or removed from the table. These statistics can be used for eliminating files based on query predicates or as inputs to query optimization.

Global statistics record information about the entire file. The following global statistic is currently supported:

Name Description
numRecords The number of records in this data file.
tightBounds Whether per-column statistics are currently tight or wide (see below).

For any logical file where deletionVector is not null, the numRecords statistic must be present and accurate. That is, it must equal the number of records in the data file, not the valid records in the logical file. In the presence of Deletion Vectors the statistics may be somewhat outdated, i.e. not reflecting deleted rows yet. The flag stats.tightBounds indicates whether we have tight bounds (i.e. the min/maxValue exists1 in the valid state of the file) or wide bounds (i.e. the minValue is <= all valid values in the file, and the maxValue >= all valid values in the file). These upper/lower bounds are sufficient information for data skipping. Note, stats.tightBounds should be treated as true when it is not explicitly present in the statistics.

Per-column statistics record information for each column in the file and they are encoded, mirroring the schema of the actual data. For example, given the following data schema:

|-- a: struct
|    |-- b: struct
|    |    |-- c: long

Statistics could be stored with the following schema:

|-- stats: struct
|    |-- numRecords: long
|    |-- tightBounds: boolean
|    |-- minValues: struct
|    |    |-- a: struct
|    |    |    |-- b: struct
|    |    |    |    |-- c: long
|    |-- maxValues: struct
|    |    |-- a: struct
|    |    |    |-- b: struct
|    |    |    |    |-- c: long

The following per-column statistics are currently supported:

Name Description (stats.tightBounds=true) Description (stats.tightBounds=false)
nullCount The number of null values for this column

If the nullCount for a column equals the physical number of records (stats.numRecords) then all valid rows for this column must have null values (the reverse is not necessarily true).

If the nullCount for a column equals 0 then all valid rows are non-null in this column (the reverse is not necessarily true).

If the nullCount for a column is any value other than these two special cases, the value carries no information and should be treated as if absent.
minValues A value that is equal to the smallest valid value1 present in the file for this column. If all valid rows are null, this carries no information. A value that is less than or equal to all valid values1 present in this file for this column. If all valid rows are null, this carries no information.
maxValues A value that is equal to the largest valid value1 present in the file for this column. If all valid rows are null, this carries no information. A value that is greater than or equal to all valid values1 present in this file for this column. If all valid rows are null, this carries no information.

Partition Value Serialization

Partition values are stored as strings, using the following formats. An empty string for any type translates to a null partition value.

Type Serialization Format
string No translation required
numeric types The string representation of the number
date Encoded as {year}-{month}-{day}. For example, 1970-01-01
timestamp Encoded as {year}-{month}-{day} {hour}:{minute}:{second} or {year}-{month}-{day} {hour}:{minute}:{second}.{microsecond}. For example: 1970-01-01 00:00:00, or 1970-01-01 00:00:00.123456. Timestamps may also be encoded as an ISO8601 formatted timestamp adjusted to UTC timestamp such as 1970-01-01T00:00:00.123456Z
timestamp without timezone Encoded as {year}-{month}-{day} {hour}:{minute}:{second} or {year}-{month}-{day} {hour}:{minute}:{second}.{microsecond} For example: 1970-01-01 00:00:00, or 1970-01-01 00:00:00.123456 To use this type, a table must support a feature timestampNtz. See section Timestamp without timezone (TimestampNtz) for more information.
boolean Encoded as the string "true" or "false"
binary Encoded as a string of escaped binary values. For example, "\u0001\u0002\u0003"

Note: A timestamp value in a partition value may be stored in one of the following ways:

  1. Without a timezone, where the timestamp should be interpreted using the time zone of the system which wrote to the table.
  2. Adjusted to UTC and stored in ISO8601 format.

It is highly recommended that modern writers adjust the timestamp to UTC and store the timestamp in ISO8601 format as outlined in 2.

Schema Serialization Format

Delta uses a subset of Spark SQL's JSON Schema representation to record the schema of a table in the transaction log. A reference implementation can be found in the catalyst package of the Apache Spark repository.

Primitive Types

Type Name Description
string UTF-8 encoded string of characters
long 8-byte signed integer. Range: -9223372036854775808 to 9223372036854775807
integer 4-byte signed integer. Range: -2147483648 to 2147483647
short 2-byte signed integer numbers. Range: -32768 to 32767
byte 1-byte signed integer number. Range: -128 to 127
float 4-byte single-precision floating-point numbers
double 8-byte double-precision floating-point numbers
decimal signed decimal number with fixed precision (maximum number of digits) and scale (number of digits on right side of dot). The precision and scale can be up to 38.
boolean true or false
binary A sequence of binary data.
date A calendar date, represented as a year-month-day triple without a timezone.
timestamp Microsecond precision timestamp elapsed since the Unix epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC. When this is stored in a parquet file, its isAdjustedToUTC must be set to true.
timestamp without time zone Microsecond precision timestamp in a local timezone elapsed since the Unix epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00. It doesn't have the timezone information, and a value of this type can map to multiple physical time instants. It should always be displayed in the same way, regardless of the local time zone in effect. When this is stored in a parquet file, its isAdjustedToUTC must be set to false. To use this type, a table must support a feature timestampNtz. See section Timestamp without timezone (TimestampNtz) for more information.

See Parquet timestamp type for more details about timestamp and isAdjustedToUTC.

Note: Existing tables may have void data type columns. Behavior is undefined for void data type columns but it is recommended to drop any void data type columns on reads (as is implemented by the Spark connector).

Struct Type

A struct is used to represent both the top-level schema of the table as well as struct columns that contain nested columns. A struct is encoded as a JSON object with the following fields:

Field Name Description
type Always the string "struct"
fields An array of fields

Struct Field

A struct field represents a top-level or nested column.

Field Name Description
name Name of this (possibly nested) column
type String containing the name of a primitive type, a struct definition, an array definition or a map definition
nullable Boolean denoting whether this field can be null
metadata A JSON map containing information about this column. Keys prefixed with Delta are reserved for the implementation. See Column Metadata for more information on column level metadata that clients must handle when writing to a table.

Array Type

An array stores a variable length collection of items of some type.

Field Name Description
type Always the string "array"
elementType The type of element stored in this array, represented as a string containing the name of a primitive type, a struct definition, an array definition or a map definition
containsNull Boolean denoting whether this array can contain one or more null values

Map Type

A map stores an arbitrary length collection of key-value pairs with a single keyType and a single valueType.

Field Name Description
type Always the string "map".
keyType The type of element used for the key of this map, represented as a string containing the name of a primitive type, a struct definition, an array definition or a map definition
valueType The type of element used for the key of this map, represented as a string containing the name of a primitive type, a struct definition, an array definition or a map definition

Column Metadata

A column metadata stores various information about the column. For example, this MAY contain some keys like delta.columnMapping or delta.generationExpression or CURRENT_DEFAULT.

Field Name Description
delta.columnMapping.* These keys are used to store information about the mapping between the logical column name to the physical name. See Column Mapping for details.
delta.identity.* These keys are for defining identity columns. See Identity Columns for details.
delta.invariants JSON string contains SQL expression information. See Column Invariants for details.
delta.generationExpression SQL expression string. See Generated Columns for details.

Example

Example Table Schema:

|-- a: integer (nullable = false)
|-- b: struct (nullable = true)
|    |-- d: integer (nullable = false)
|-- c: array (nullable = true)
|    |-- element: integer (containsNull = false)
|-- e: array (nullable = true)
|    |-- element: struct (containsNull = true)
|    |    |-- d: integer (nullable = false)
|-- f: map (nullable = true)
|    |-- key: string
|    |-- value: string (valueContainsNull = true)

JSON Encoded Table Schema:

{
  "type" : "struct",
  "fields" : [ {
    "name" : "a",
    "type" : "integer",
    "nullable" : false,
    "metadata" : { }
  }, {
    "name" : "b",
    "type" : {
      "type" : "struct",
      "fields" : [ {
        "name" : "d",
        "type" : "integer",
        "nullable" : false,
        "metadata" : { }
      } ]
    },
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : { }
  }, {
    "name" : "c",
    "type" : {
      "type" : "array",
      "elementType" : "integer",
      "containsNull" : false
    },
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : { }
  }, {
    "name" : "e",
    "type" : {
      "type" : "array",
      "elementType" : {
        "type" : "struct",
        "fields" : [ {
          "name" : "d",
          "type" : "integer",
          "nullable" : false,
          "metadata" : { }
        } ]
      },
      "containsNull" : true
    },
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : { }
  }, {
    "name" : "f",
    "type" : {
      "type" : "map",
      "keyType" : "string",
      "valueType" : "string",
      "valueContainsNull" : true
    },
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : { }
  } ]
}

Checkpoint Schema

The following examples uses a table with two partition columns: "date" and "region" of types date and string, respectively, and three data columns: "asset", "quantity", and "is_available" with data types string, double, and boolean. The checkpoint schema will look as follows:

|-- metaData: struct
|    |-- id: string
|    |-- name: string
|    |-- description: string
|    |-- format: struct
|    |    |-- provider: string
|    |    |-- options: map<string,string>
|    |-- schemaString: string
|    |-- partitionColumns: array<string>
|    |-- createdTime: long
|    |-- configuration: map<string, string>
|-- protocol: struct
|    |-- minReaderVersion: int
|    |-- minWriterVersion: int
|    |-- readerFeatures: array[string]
|    |-- writerFeatures: array[string]
|-- txn: struct
|    |-- appId: string
|    |-- version: long
|-- add: struct
|    |-- path: string
|    |-- partitionValues: map<string,string>
|    |-- size: long
|    |-- modificationTime: long
|    |-- dataChange: boolean
|    |-- stats: string
|    |-- tags: map<string,string>
|    |-- baseRowId: long
|    |-- defaultRowCommitVersion: long
|    |-- partitionValues_parsed: struct
|    |    |-- date: date
|    |    |-- region: string
|    |-- stats_parsed: struct
|    |    |-- numRecords: long
|    |    |-- minValues: struct
|    |    |    |-- asset: string
|    |    |    |-- quantity: double
|    |    |-- maxValues: struct
|    |    |    |-- asset: string
|    |    |    |-- quantity: double
|    |    |-- nullCounts: struct
|    |    |    |-- asset: long
|    |    |    |-- quantity: long
|-- remove: struct
|    |-- path: string
|    |-- deletionTimestamp: long
|    |-- dataChange: boolean
|-- checkpointMetadata: struct
|    |-- version: long
|    |-- tags: map<string,string>
|-- sidecar: struct
|    |-- path: string
|    |-- sizeInBytes: long
|    |-- modificationTime: long
|    |-- tags: map<string,string>

Observe that readerFeatures and writerFeatures fields should comply with:

  • If a table has Reader Version 3, then a writer must write checkpoints with a not-null readerFeatures in the schema.
  • If a table has Writer Version 7, then a writer must write checkpoints with a not-null writerFeatures in the schema.
  • If a table has neither of the above, then a writer chooses whether to write readerFeatures and/or writerFeatures into the checkpoint schema. But if it does, their values must be null.

Note that remove actions in the checkpoint are tombstones used only by VACUUM, and do not contain the stats and tags fields.

For a table that uses column mapping, whether in id or name mode, the schema of the add column will look as follows.

Schema definition:

{
  "type" : "struct",
  "fields" : [ {
    "name" : "asset",
    "type" : "string",
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : {
      "delta.columnMapping.id": 1,
      "delta.columnMapping.physicalName": "col-b96921f0-2329-4cb3-8d79-184b2bdab23b"
    }
  }, {
    "name" : "quantity",
    "type" : "double",
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : {
      "delta.columnMapping.id": 2,
      "delta.columnMapping.physicalName": "col-04ee4877-ee53-4cb9-b1fb-1a4eb74b508c"
    }
  }, {
    "name" : "date",
    "type" : "date",
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : {
      "delta.columnMapping.id": 3,
      "delta.columnMapping.physicalName": "col-798f4abc-c63f-444c-9a04-e2cf1ecba115"
    }
  }, {
    "name" : "region",
    "type" : "string",
    "nullable" : true,
    "metadata" : {
      "delta.columnMapping.id": 4,
      "delta.columnMapping.physicalName": "col-19034dc3-8e3d-4156-82fc-8e05533c088e"
    }
  } ]
}

Checkpoint schema (just the add column):

|-- add: struct
|    |-- path: string
|    |-- partitionValues: map<string,string>
|    |-- size: long
|    |-- modificationTime: long
|    |-- dataChange: boolean
|    |-- stats: string
|    |-- tags: map<string,string>
|    |-- baseRowId: long
|    |-- defaultRowCommitVersion: long
|    |-- partitionValues_parsed: struct
|    |    |-- col-798f4abc-c63f-444c-9a04-e2cf1ecba115: date
|    |    |-- col-19034dc3-8e3d-4156-82fc-8e05533c088e: string
|    |-- stats_parsed: struct
|    |    |-- numRecords: long
|    |    |-- minValues: struct
|    |    |    |-- col-b96921f0-2329-4cb3-8d79-184b2bdab23b: string
|    |    |    |-- col-04ee4877-ee53-4cb9-b1fb-1a4eb74b508c: double
|    |    |-- maxValues: struct
|    |    |    |-- col-b96921f0-2329-4cb3-8d79-184b2bdab23b: string
|    |    |    |-- col-04ee4877-ee53-4cb9-b1fb-1a4eb74b508c: double
|    |    |-- nullCounts: struct
|    |    |    |-- col-b96921f0-2329-4cb3-8d79-184b2bdab23b: long
|    |    |    |-- col-04ee4877-ee53-4cb9-b1fb-1a4eb74b508c: long

Last Checkpoint File Schema

This last checkpoint file is encoded as JSON and contains the following information:

Field Description
version The version of the table when the last checkpoint was made.
size The number of actions that are stored in the checkpoint.
parts The number of fragments if the last checkpoint was written in multiple parts. This field is optional.
sizeInBytes The number of bytes of the checkpoint. This field is optional.
numOfAddFiles The number of AddFile actions in the checkpoint. This field is optional.
checkpointSchema The schema of the checkpoint file. This field is optional.
tags String-string map containing any additional metadata about the last checkpoint. This field is optional.
checksum The checksum of the last checkpoint JSON. This field is optional.

The checksum field is an optional field which contains the MD5 checksum for fields of the last checkpoint json file. Last checkpoint file readers are encouraged to validate the checksum, if present, and writers are encouraged to write the checksum while overwriting the file. Refer to this section for rules around calculating the checksum field for the last checkpoint JSON.

JSON checksum

To generate the checksum for the last checkpoint JSON, firstly, the checksum JSON is canonicalized and converted to a string. Then the 32 character MD5 digest is calculated on the resultant string to get the checksum. Rules for JSON canonicalization are:

  1. Literal values (true, false, and null) are their own canonical form

  2. Numeric values (e.g. 42 or 3.14) are their own canonical form

  3. String values (e.g. "hello world") are canonicalized by preserving the surrounding quotes and URL-encoding their content, e.g. "hello%20world"

  4. Object values (e.g. {"a": 10, "b": {"y": null, "x": "https://delta.io"} } are canonicalized by:

    • Canonicalize each scalar (leaf) value following the rule for its type (literal, numeric, string)
    • Canonicalize each (string) name along the path to that value
    • Connect path segments by +, e.g. "b"+"y"
    • Connect path and value pairs by =, e.g. "b"+"y"=null
    • Sort canonicalized path/value pairs using a byte-order sort on paths. The byte-order sort can be done by converting paths to byte array using UTF-8 charset
      and then comparing them, e.g. "a" < "b"+"x" < "b"+"y"
    • Separate ordered pairs by ,, e.g. "a"=10,"b"+"x"="https%3A%2F%2Fdelta.io","b"+"y"=null

  5. Array values (e.g. [null, "hi ho", 2.71]) are canonicalized as if they were objects, except the "name" has numeric type instead of string type, and gives the (0-based) position of the corresponding array element, e.g. 0=null,1="hi%20ho",2=2.71

  6. Top level checksum key is ignored in the canonicalization process. e.g. {"k1": "v1", "checksum": "<anything>", "k3": 23} is canonicalized to "k1"="v1","k3"=23

  7. Duplicate keys are not allowed in the last checkpoint JSON and such JSON is considered invalid.

Given the following test sample JSON, a correct implementation of JSON canonicalization should produce the corresponding canonicalized form and checksum value: e.g. Json: {"k0":"'v 0'", "checksum": "adsaskfljadfkjadfkj", "k1":{"k2": 2, "k3": ["v3", [1, 2], {"k4": "v4", "k5": ["v5", "v6", "v7"]}]}}
Canonicalized form: "k0"="%27v%200%27","k1"+"k2"=2,"k1"+"k3"+0="v3","k1"+"k3"+1+0=1,"k1"+"k3"+1+1=2,"k1"+"k3"+2+"k4"="v4","k1"+"k3"+2+"k5"+0="v5","k1"+"k3"+2+"k5"+1="v6","k1"+"k3"+2+"k5"+2="v7"
Checksum is 6a92d155a59bf2eecbd4b4ec7fd1f875

How to URL encode keys and string values

The URL Encoding spec is a bit flexible to give a reliable encoding. e.g. the spec allows both uppercase and lowercase as part of percent-encoding. Thus, we require a stricter set of rules for encoding:

  1. The string to be encoded must be represented as octets according to the UTF-8 character encoding
  2. All octets except a-z / A-Z / 0-9 / "-" / "." / "_" / "~" are reserved
  3. Always percent-encode reserved octets
  4. Never percent-encode non-reserved octets
  5. A percent-encoded octet consists of three characters: % followed by its 2-digit hexadecimal value in uppercase letters, e.g. > encodes to %3E

Delta Data Type to Parquet Type Mappings

Below table captures how each Delta data type is stored physically in Parquet files. Parquet files are used for storing the table data or metadata (checkpoints). Parquet has a limited number of physical types. Parquet logical types are used to extend the types by specifying how the physical types should be interpreted.

For some of the Delta data types, there are multiple ways store the values physically in Parquet file. For example, timestamp can be stored either as int96 or int64. The exact physical type depends on the engine that is writing the Parquet file and/or engine specific configuration options. For a Delta lake table reader, it is recommended that the Parquet file reader support at least the Parquet physical and logical types mentioned in the below table.

Delta Type Name Parquet Physical Type Parquet Logical Type
boolean boolean
byte int32 INT(bitwidth = 8, signed = true)
short int32 INT(bitwidth = 16, signed = true)
int int32 INT(bitwidth = 32, signed = true)
long int64 INT(bitwidth = 64, signed = true)
date int32 DATE
timestamp int96 or int64 TIMESTAMP(isAdjustedToUTC = true, units = microseconds)
timestamp without time zone int96 or int64 TIMESTAMP(isAdjustedToUTC = false, units = microseconds)
float float
double double
decimal int32, int64 or fixed_length_binary DECIMAL(scale, precision)
string binary string (UTF-8)
binary binary
array either as 2-level or 3-level representation. Refer to Parquet documentation for further details LIST
map either as 2-level or 3-level representation. Refer to Parquet documentation for further details MAP
struct group

Footnotes

  1. String columns are cut off at a fixed prefix length. Timestamp columns are truncated down to milliseconds. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5