[Question] Why the java sdk tablesImpl doesn't have create table API

[zymap]

Description

I want to use the WorkspaceClient to use the table api to communicate with the unity catalog, but I found there is no create table api in the databricks sdk.
So my question is, how to create the table using the sdk? is there any special reason?

[thomaseadiealloy]

I'm in the same boat. From the javadocs it mentions the permissions required to create a table but the method doesn't actually exist.

I'd also expect there to be a CreateTableRequest class, but there is not.

As a workaround it may be necessary to just run a SQL statement:

workspaceClient.statementExecution().executeStatement("CREATE TABLE <catalog>.<schema>.<table>", warehouseId);

It looks like this is a limitation of the Databricks API, it also confusingly doesn't have a method to create tables.

[rahil-c]

Thanks @zymap and @thomaseadiealloy for sharing this, I also am running into this as well. @thomaseadiealloy will try your workaround, unless you ended up finding a better solution.

@mgyucht @nfx @tanmay-db Just wanted to confirm is this is the only path for developers? I see that there is a create request for CreateMetastore, CreateCatalog, and CreateSchema so curious as to why there is not one for Table?

[phil-schreiber]

unity OSS does expose a create table endpoint. It seems utterly weird, that this is not exposed in the databricks api.

By now it's even possible to create iceberg tables through the exposed iceberg REST catalog, but it's not possible to create a managed delta table through api? This is a severe blocker for building out our databricks ingestion scalably.

[renaudhartert-db]

Hi @zymap, thanks for opening this issue!

I believe this was addressed in #498, which updated the SDK to include the new TablesAPI.create(CreateTableRequest) method (backed by POST /api/2.1/unity-catalog/tables). Note that this endpoint only supports creating external delta tables; managed tables, views, and non-delta formats still require SQL or Spark. If this is incorrect, please re-open this issue.

Thanks!

[renaudhartert-db]

Hi @zymap, thanks for opening this issue and sorry for the delay getting back to you!

I believe this was addressed in #498, which updated the SDK to include the new TablesAPI.create(CreateTableRequest) method (backed by POST /api/2.1/unity-catalog/tables). Note that this endpoint only supports creating external delta tables; managed tables, views, and non-delta formats still require SQL or Spark. If this is incorrect, please re-open this issue.

Thanks!

[renaudhartert-db]

Hi @zymap, thanks for opening this issue and sorry for the delay getting back to you.

I believe this was addressed in #498, which updated the SDK to include the new TablesAPI.create(CreateTableRequest) method (backed by POST /api/2.1/unity-catalog/tables). Note that this endpoint only supports creating external delta tables; managed tables, views, and non-delta formats still require SQL or Spark. If this is incorrect, please re-open this issue.

Thanks!