Versioning Data Structures with the JSON Editor

How do I version?#

Breaking and non-breaking changes#

In Data Structures UI at the point of publishing a schema you'll be asked to select which version you'd like to create.

There are two kinds of schema changes:

• Non-breaking - a non-breaking change is backward compatible with historical data and increments the patch number i.e. 1-0-0 -> 1-0-1.
• Breaking - a breaking change is not backwards compatible with historical data and increments the model number i.e. 1-0-0 -> 2-0-0.

Different data warehouses handle schema evolution slightly differently. Use the table below as a guide for incrementing the schema version appropriately.

	Redshift	Snowflake, BigQuery & Databricks
Add / remove / rename an optional field	Non-breaking	Non-breaking
Add / remove / rename a required field	Breaking	Breaking
Change a field from optional to required	Breaking	Breaking
Change a field from required to optional	Breaking	Non-breaking
Change the type of an existing field	Breaking	Breaking
Change the size of an existing field	Non-breaking	Non-breaking

warning

In Redshift and Databricks, changing size may also mean type change; e.g. changing the maximum integer from 30000 to 100000. See our documentation on how schemas translate to database types.

Incrementing the middle digit#

For particular workflows you may want to make use of the middle digital as part of your versioning strategy. For simplicity, the UI allows only breaking or non-breaking changes.

Should you wish to use the middle versioning digit this is possible via the Data Structures API.