Google Bigtable v2 API - Class Type (3.14.0)

Reference documentation and code samples for the Google Bigtable v2 API class Type.

Type represents the type of data that is written to, read from, or stored in Bigtable. It is heavily based on the GoogleSQL standard to help maintain familiarity and consistency across products and features.

For compatibility with Bigtable's existing untyped APIs, each Type includes an Encoding which describes how to convert to/from the underlying data.

Each encoding also defines the following properties:

• Order-preserving: Does the encoded value sort consistently with the original typed value? Note that Bigtable will always sort data based on the raw encoded value, not the decoded type.
  • Example: BYTES values sort in the same order as their raw encodings.
  • Counterexample: Encoding INT64 as a fixed-width decimal string does not preserve sort order when dealing with negative numbers. INT64(1) > INT64(-1), but STRING("-00001") > STRING("00001).
• Self-delimiting: If we concatenate two encoded values, can we always tell where the first one ends and the second one begins?
  • Example: If we encode INT64s to fixed-width STRINGs, the first value will always contain exactly N digits, possibly preceded by a sign.
  • Counterexample: If we concatenate two UTF-8 encoded STRINGs, we have no way to tell where the first one ends.
• Compatibility: Which other systems have matching encoding schemes? For example, does this encoding have a GoogleSQL equivalent? HBase? Java?

Aggregate

Array

Bool

Bytes

Date

Float32

Float64

Int64

Map

String

Struct

Timestamp