[Flink][Blob phase 1] Allow FlinkSQL reads to materialize OOL blobs
- Dominant language
- Java
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Description
### Task Description
Users should be able to run FlinkSQL queries with `read_blob` against fields that are OOL blobs. Similar to SparkSQL, our implementation should ideally not send a DFS pread request for each field/row - rather we should aim to group requests in batches and issue API calls for consecutive byte ranges. Specifically, `hoodie.blob.batching.max.gap.bytes` and `hoodie.blob.batching.lookahead.size` should still be honored if set by user
### Approach
Instead of adding a read_blob UDF,
- Create a iterator wrapper `ClosableIterator` that, when `next` is invoked, loads a batch of `hoodie.blob.batching.lookahead.size` records, and similar to Spark, sorts them and issues pre-read calls and materializes the blob data in records
- For FlinkV2 - call it in HoodieSplitReaderFunction for each record batch
- For Legacy Flink - call MergeOnReadInputFormat.initIterator
In order for HUDI to be able to infer which blob fields should be "materialized", we can require users to pass in https://github.com/apache/hudi/pull/18958#issuecomment-4725262176 blob-related configs in the Flink DDL.
### Related Issues
**Parent feature issue:** (if applicable )
**Related issues:**
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Contributor guide
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Research direction
Start by reading HoodieSplitReaderFunction for FlinkV2 and MergeOnReadInputFormat.initIterator for legacy Flink, then trace how record batches and OOL blob fields are read. Review the Spark-side batching behavior and the ClosableIterator approach described in the issue. Done means FlinkSQL read_blob works for OOL blobs while honoring hoodie.blob.batching.max.gap.bytes and hoodie.blob.batching.lookahead.size without one DFS pread per field or row.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- java, sql
- Domain
- data-engineering, stream-processing
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 48/100