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RAN-DBDEA-00235
Ranvier · DBDEA

Exam DBDEA Topics: transformation Difficulty: medium

An ingestion job appends a DataFrame to catalog.sales.customers, an existing Delta table. This week the source schema added a new column, loyalty_tier, and the append now fails Delta's schema enforcement. The team wants the write to succeed by adding the new column to the table, and no existing rows should be rewritten. Which write option achieves this?

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  1. A. Use .option('overwriteSchema', 'true'), which adds the new column to the table while leaving every previously written row untouched
  2. B. Use .option('mergeSchema', 'true'), which evolves the table schema additively — the new column is added with no rewrite
  3. C. Use a TBLPROPERTIES change that turns schema enforcement off permanently, so that no write option is ever needed again
  4. D. Use mergeSchema, keeping in mind that it also drops table columns that the incoming DataFrame no longer carries
Reveal answer

Correct answer: Use .option('mergeSchema', 'true'), which evolves the table schema additively — the new column is added with no rewrite

Reference: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/delta/best-practices

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Official Answer (B): Use .option('mergeSchema', 'true'), which evolves the table schema additively — the new column is added with no rewrite

⚓ Official Documentation Anchor: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/delta/best-practices
Ranvier · DBDEA

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