Hello @ChristianRRL ,

No, read_files is not a native Spark function — it’s a Databricks SQL wrapper that allows you to read files easily using SQL syntax.

The main advantage is that it adds several Databricks-specific capabilities on top of Spark’s basic file reader, such as schema inference, schema hints, rescued data handling, and partition discovery.

For example:

SELECT * FROM read_files(
  's3://my-bucket/path/',
  format => 'json',
  schemaHints => 'user_id STRING, event_time TIMESTAMP'
);

is "equals" to:

spark.read.format("json").load("s3://my-bucket/path/")

 but with the extra Databricks logic for schema management and ingestion governance.

Regarding schemaHints, it works the same way as in Auto Loader — it lets you override or enforce specific column types while leaving the rest of the schema inferred automatically. Docs

While spark.read in open-source Spark only allows you to fully define a schema or infer it entirely Docs, Databricks added schemaHints in this built-in function inside his DBR, you can override or enforce specific column types while letting the rest of the schema be inferred automatically.

Hope this helps, 🙂

Isi