Versioning Data Structures with the JSON Editor

info

This documentation only applies to Snowplow BDP. See the feature comparison page for more information about the different Snowplow offerings.

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

caution

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.