Schema update for bigquery table

[alexandre-cruel]

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Description

I'd like to create bigquery tables via terraform.
The tables I plan to create are partitionned tables (i.e. requires a schema by default).
This schema will potentially change in the future if I need to add some columns to my table.
The data stored in the table isnt easy to reload and shouldnt be erased in production.
Though it looks like updating the schema will completely recreate the table as mentionned here.

From what google says here : it's not possible to do such thing.
I think this feature would really help creating the tables by IaC while being stil dynamic in there use.
Thank you for the help and clarification

New or Affected Resource(s)

• google_bigquery_table

References

• Link to the tf documentation
• Link to google's issue question

[c2thorn]

Hi @alexandre-cruel, just wanted to get some clarification. There are two schema fields in the resource. The external_data_configuration.schema field you linked to is within the external_data_configuration block, and looks like it is only used during table creation.

However there is the standard schema field here that is updatable without destroying the table. Is this suitable for you?

[alexandre-cruel]

In the use case I'm working on this isnt for external_data_configuration, it was for tables with data directly living on bigquery but according to the documentation I thaught it was the same for the 2 schema parameters.

Totally suitable yes, if you're sure that updating the schema to add a column wont delete the table and erase the dat, that'd be perfect 👍 !

[c2thorn]

That makes sense! It can be slightly confusing, and we are working on a UI update that should hopefully make it easier to differentiate between the two schema parameters.

I cannot guarantee how the API will behave when the provider calls update, but I can say that Terraform will not try to destroy/recreate the table while updating the top-level schema field. To fully make sure, I recommend testing out your scenario first. If the provider is behaving differently than expected, feel free to comment here!

[alexandre-cruel]

Great, thank you for your investigation time and help !

[ghost]

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