Skip to content

Minor: Clarify value_metadata in Variant value layout diagram#507

Merged
wgtmac merged 1 commit intoapache:masterfrom
douenergy:varaint-val-metadata
Jul 24, 2025
Merged

Minor: Clarify value_metadata in Variant value layout diagram#507
wgtmac merged 1 commit intoapache:masterfrom
douenergy:varaint-val-metadata

Conversation

@douenergy
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Rationale for this change

When first reading the Variant encoding spec, it can be unclear that each Variant value begins with a single value_metadata byte composed of value_header and basic_type. This can be confusing, especially since “metadata” is also used to refer to the dictionary metadata structure.

The spec already uses the term value_metadata in prose, so labeling it clearly in the layout diagram helps reinforce understanding and reduce ambiguity.

What changes are included in this PR?

  • Added a clarifying comment (<-- value_metadata) to the value layout diagram to explicitly indicate that the first byte is value_metadata.

Do these changes have PoC implementations?

N/A — documentation-only change, no impact on implementations.

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@alamb alamb left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Thank you @douenergy -- I think this is a nice clarification (note I don't have permissions to merge to this repo so we will need to wait for a committer to approve as well)

@wgtmac
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

wgtmac commented Jul 24, 2025

Looks good! Thanks @douenergy and @alamb!

@wgtmac wgtmac merged commit 71cf140 into apache:master Jul 24, 2025
4 checks passed
@alamb
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

alamb commented Jul 24, 2025

Thank you for the merge @wgtmac

jiayuasu pushed a commit to jiayuasu/parquet-format that referenced this pull request Oct 6, 2025
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants