How does merge schema work

Constantine
Contributor III

Let's say I create a table like

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS new_db.data_table (
  key	STRING,
  value	STRING,
  last_updated_time	TIMESTAMP
) USING DELTA LOCATION 's3://......';

Now when I insert into this table I insert data which has say 20 columns and do merge schema while insertion.

.option("mergeSchema", "true")

So when I display the data it shows me all 20 columns, but now when I look at the table schema through the data tab it still shows only the initial 3 rows i.e. the catalog is not updated.

Wanted to understand how does this work?