[feat] Support update table's sort order

[JasperHG90]

Question

I was playing around with the sort order option and I couldn't find a way to update the sort order of a table. Is this supported? The docs only show how to define a sort order when a table is being created.

Thanks in advance.

[kevinjqliu]

hey @JasperHG90
There's actually no public API currently to update sort order for a table. There is an action defined AddSortOrderUpdate.

We probably need something like UpdateSchema and UpdateSpec which is used to update schema and partition spec respectively.

Such as adding update_sort_order function to the Transaction class

[JasperHG90]

Thanks @kevinjqliu. Is this part of your roadmap? If so, I'd like to take a crack at it.

[kevinjqliu]

i didnt find any similar ticket. renamed and assigned to you. Cheers! Please LMK if you have any questions

[Fokko]

For inspiration we can look at the Java side, there is a method on the table called replaceSortOrder():

I would expect something like, similar to Java:

with table.replace_sort_order() as update:
    update.asc("id")  # identity
    update.desc("user-id", BucketTransform(16))  # Bucket transform

Similar to the partition spec: https://py.iceberg.apache.org/api/#partition-evolution but a bit more straightforward, since in the Spec we update it, and with the sort-order we replace it :) Feel free to reach out if you run into anything!

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[JasperHG90]

PR is open but needs review

[mwa28]

Hello, any update on the PR ?