Programmatically Update Table / Columns Descriptions in Unity Catalog Without Altering Table

wallfacer — Wed, 01 May 2024 13:15:24 GMT

Currently, we must re-run our DLT pipelines anytime we want to add/modify a table or column description to unity catalog.

Is this the only way to add/modify unity catalog descriptions?
Is there functionality within databricks cli / sdk that we can leverage to programmatically update table or column descriptions?
Is there an api like StatementExecutionAPI?

Is this feature on the product roadmap?

Re: Programmatically Update Table / Columns Descriptions in Unity Catalog Without Altering Table

MichaelP — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 17:29:13 GMT

Comments for schemas and tables may be updated using SQL DDL statement COMMENT ON.

Comments for columns are updated using:

ALTER TABLE <table-name> ALTER COLUMN <column-name> COMMENT '<comment-text>';

The <column-name> for nested STRUCTS follows simple dotted notation. For example, a STRUCT for a person's physical address:

ALTER TABLE person ALTER COLUMN physical_address.postal_code COMMENT 'Postal code for the person\'s physical address.';

Less obvious, the <column-name> for fields in ARRAY<STRUCT<>> requires additional keyword ".element". For example, an array of address STRUCTs that includes an "address use code" field:

ALTER TABLE person ALTER COLUMN address.element.use_code COMMENT 'The address use code indicates either \'physical\' or \'mailing\' address.';

As of this writing, each ALTER COLUMN ... COMMENT requires an individual ALTER TABLE statement. The column comments cannot be chained together as a list of as clauses within ALTER TABLE.

topic Programmatically Update Table / Columns Descriptions in Unity Catalog Without Altering Table in Data Governance

Programmatically Update Table / Columns Descriptions in Unity Catalog Without Altering Table

Re: Programmatically Update Table / Columns Descriptions in Unity Catalog Without Altering Table