fix(core): re-derive field reference types when copy-on-write replaces a relation - #1061
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…s a relation A FieldReference caches the type of the field it references. RelCopyOnWriteVisitor copied those references over verbatim, so replacing a subtree with one that emits a different record type left every reference above it carrying the type of the relation that is no longer there — and the record types derived from those references, such as a Project's, were wrong in turn. The visitor now tracks the record type that each relation's own expressions resolve against and re-derives the cached type of every field reference it rewrites from it. Inputs are rewritten before their relation's expressions so the scope is the type a replaced input emits, and enclosing scopes are tracked per subquery boundary so an outer reference re-derives against the relation it steps out to. References that resolve against something else are left as they are: a lambda parameter, an outer reference identified by rel anchor, the filter of a read relation, and a reference a rewrite has left selecting a field its input no longer has. The types cached on function invocations are still not re-derived — that needs the function declarations, which the visitor does not have — so a relation whose record type comes from a measure or window function can still be stale. Whether these types should be cached on the POJOs at all is the broader question the issue raises. Three neighbouring bugs surfaced while wiring this up and are fixed as well: - visitFieldReference built its replacement without copying the original, dropping the segments and the type. Since the type is mandatory, rewriting any reference rooted at an expression threw instead of returning the rewritten reference. - The input of a ConsistentPartitionWindow was never visited, so no subtree beneath a window relation could be replaced. - MultiBucketExchange reported no change when only its expression had been rewritten, discarding that rewrite. Closes substrait-io#185
nielspardon
marked this pull request as draft
August 5, 2026 12:11
…r side Two defects in the field-reference retyping, both found reviewing it. Segment resolution was guarded one segment deep. The guard checked only that the outermost segment selected a field the new record type has, so a reference into a nested type that had been reshaped reached the derivation anyway and threw — a bare IndexOutOfBoundsException out of a struct-field finder, or an IllegalArgumentException or UnsupportedOperationException for a list or map segment. That contradicted the guard's own promise to leave an unresolvable reference alone, and it made a narrowing rewrite fail where it previously produced a stale type. Resolution is now total: FieldReference.resolveType reports the type a chain of segments selects, or nothing, at any depth and for every kind of segment. It lives beside the finders whose rules it mirrors, so the two cannot drift apart unnoticed without the parity test that pins them going red. It mirrors those rules exactly, including the two asymmetries that matter: a list element offset is not bounds checked, because the length of a list is not part of its type, and a map key type is compared exactly, nullability included. The visitor's one-deep guard and its defensive segment copy both go, and the same guarantee now covers a reference rooted at another expression, which had no guard at all. Join keys were retyped against the wrong scope. The offsets of a hash or merge join key are relative to the side of the join the key selects from, not to the two inputs combined — proto conversion types each side with its own converter, and only the condition, post-join filter and residual expression use the combined type. Retyping both sides against the combined type silently resolved a right-side offset to a left column. Each side is now rewritten against its own input, which changes the signature of visitComparisonJoinKey; the method could not previously return a usable reference at all, so nothing can have depended on the old one. Two things this deliberately does not do: the off-by-one bound check in StructFieldFinder stays, because the exception it produces is part of what ProtoExpressionConverter reports for a malformed plan; and MergeJoin.deriveRecordType reads its right input for both sides, which is a separate bug in a relation this change only passes through.
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A
FieldReferencecaches the type of the field it references.RelCopyOnWriteVisitorcopied those references over verbatim, so replacing a subtree with one that emits a different record type left every reference above it carrying the type of the relation that is no longer there — and the record types derived from those references, such as aProject's, were wrong in turn.The visitor now tracks the record type that each relation's own expressions resolve against and re-derives the cached type of every field reference it rewrites from it. Inputs are rewritten before their relation's expressions so the scope is the type a replaced input emits, and enclosing scopes are tracked per subquery boundary so an outer reference re-derives against the relation it steps out to.
Each scope is the one the reference actually resolves against, which is not always the relation's inputs concatenated:
References that resolve against something outside the tracked scopes are left as they are: a lambda parameter, and an outer reference identified by rel anchor rather than by stepping out (which is how a lateral join's right input references the current left row — resolving an anchor needs plan-wide context this visitor does not have).
Resolving a reference is total
Re-deriving a type must not become a new way for a rewrite to fail. A rewrite that drops a column, reshapes a nested type, or changes a container kind can leave a reference selecting something its input no longer has; the resulting tree is invalid either way, so such a reference keeps its cached type instead.
Delivering that needed the resolution itself to be total, not a guard in front of a throwing derivation — a guard that checks only the outermost segment still lets a nested reference reach the derivation and throw.
FieldReference.resolveTypereports the type a chain of segments selects, or nothing, at any depth and for every kind of segment. It sits beside the finders whose rules it mirrors so the two cannot drift apart silently, and it mirrors them exactly, including the two asymmetries that matter: a list element offset is not bounds-checked, because the length of a list is not part of its type, and a map key type is compared exactly, nullability included. A parity test assertsresolveTypeselects something exactly whenofRoot/ofExpressiondo not throw, which is what keeps the two in step.Not fixed here
The types cached on function invocations are not re-derived — that needs the function declarations, which the visitor does not have — so a relation whose record type comes from a measure or window function can still be stale.
Expression.ScalarSubquerycaches its type the same way. Whether these types should be cached on the POJOs at all is the broader question the issue raises; this is the short-term fix it asks for.Two neighbouring bugs are deliberately left alone rather than folded in, and filed separately: the bound check in
StructFieldFinderis off by one (#1068 — the exception it produces is part of whatProtoExpressionConverterreports for a malformed plan, so changing it is not a free fix), andMergeJoin.deriveRecordTypereads its right input for both sides (#1067).Behaviour worth calling out
visitComparisonJoinKeytakes the two side record types now. It could not previously return a usable reference at all, so nothing can have depended on the old signature.Three further bugs surfaced while wiring this up and are fixed as well:
visitFieldReferencebuilt its replacement without copying the original, dropping the segments and the type. Since the type is mandatory, rewriting any reference rooted at an expression threw instead of returning the rewritten reference.ConsistentPartitionWindowwas never visited, so no subtree beneath a window relation could be replaced.MultiBucketExchangereported no change when only its expression had been rewritten, discarding that rewrite.Closes #185
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