How to add a new Attribute¶

Information

The metadata API will sanitize spaces in characters if they are provided in Entity or Attribute names, by replacing with `_` character. This tutorial applies to intakes of Landing Zone type.

An Attribute in Sidra represents one of the fields or columns of an Entity.

So, after the creation of a new Entity, the next step is to create new Attributes for that Entity, one for each of the fields/columns of the Asset that is represented by the Entity.

If the Entity is not created yet, this tutorial How to add a new Entity can be used to create it.

Attributes provide details about the structure of the Asset and they will be used, along with Provider and Entity, to generate pipelines, transfer queries, data lake table creations, etc.

Attributes are stored in the Attribute table in the Sidra Core metadata database.

The way to create a new Attribute entry is by using the Sidra API endpoint.

Add an Attribute by using the Sidra API¶

Sidra API requires requests to be authenticated, the section How to use Sidra API explains how to create an authenticated requests. For the rest of the document, it is going to be supposed that Sidra API is deployed in the following URL:

https://core-mycompany-dev-wst-api.azurewebsites.net

Before creating an Attribute, it is required to know the Id of the Entity to which the Attribute belongs.

Create a new Attribute¶

By using the Sidra API some of the fields of the Attribute are automatically populated -like Id or ParentSecurityPath-. Once the rest of the information of the Attribute is gathered, it can be created using the following request:

Request¶

POST https://core-mycompany-dev-wst-api.azurewebsites.net/api/metadata/attributes?api-version=1.0

And adding the following content as part of the body:

Request body¶

{
    "idEntity": 1200,
    "name": "MyNewAttributeviaAPI",
    "description": "Description",
    "hiveType": "INT",
    "sqlType": "INT",
    "isMetadata": false,
    "isPartitionColumn": false,
    "isCalculated": false,
    "order": 1,
    "isPrimaryKey": false,
    "treatEmptyAsNull": false,
    "removeQuotes": false,
    "needTrim": false,
    "isNullable": true,
    "isEncrypted":false,
    "dataMask":null,
    "sourceType":"INT",
    "replacedText":null,
    "replacementText":null,
    "specialFormat":null,
    "maxLen":100
}

The response will return the Id of the Attribute created. A different request must be done for each of the Attributes that want to be created, since, currently, Sidra API does not support creating Attributes in bulk.

Response¶

{
  "id": 1500,
  "attributeFormats": null,
  "tags": null,
  "sqlType": "INT",
  "isMetadata": false,
  "isPartitionColumn": false,
  "isCalculated": false,
  "order": 1,
  "isPrimaryKey": false,
  "treatEmptyAsNull": false,
  "specialFormat": null,
  "replacementText": null,
  "replacedText": null,
  "removeQuotes": false,
  "needTrim": false,
  "isNullable": true,
  "maxLen": 100,
  "hiveType": "INT",
  "name": "MyNewAttributeviaAPI",
  "idEntity": 1200,
  "validationText": null,
  "description": "Description",
  "sourceName": "MyNewAttributeviaAPI",
  "isEncrypted": false,
  "itemId": "191b09bb-9127-40ed-8549-19be9ccc848e",
  "idProvider": 10,
  "idDataStorageUnit": 1,
  "dataMask": null,
  "parentSecurityPath": "1/10/1200",
  "securityPath": "1/10/1200",
  "sourceType": "INT"
}

Adding Sidra system Attributes¶

In order to add the system Attributes, the same request can be used but using the following content in the body:

Information

The fields `idEntity` and `order` must be properly configured.

Request body¶

{
    "idEntity": 1200,
    "name": "MyNewAttributeviaAPI2",
    "description": "Description", 
    "hiveType": "INT",
    "sqlType": "INT",
    "isMetadata": true,
    "isPartitionColumn": false,
    "isCalculated": false,
    "order": 2,
    "isPrimaryKey": false,
    "treatEmptyAsNull": false,
    "removeQuotes": false,
    "needTrim": false,
    "isNullable": false,
    "isEncrypted":false,
    "dataMask":null,
    "sourceType":"INT",
    "replacedText":null,
    "replacementText":null,
    "specialFormat":"BLOCK__OFFSET__INSIDE__FILE",
    "maxLen":100
}

{
    "idEntity": 1200,
    "name": "MyNewAttributeviaAPI3",
    "description": "Description", 
    "hiveType": "STRING",
    "sqlType": "DATETIME2",
    "isMetadata": true,
    "isPartitionColumn": false,
    "isCalculated": true,
    "order": 3,
    "isPrimaryKey": false,
    "treatEmptyAsNull": false,
    "removeQuotes": false,
    "needTrim": false,
    "isNullable": false,
    "isEncrypted":false,
    "dataMask":null,
    "sourceType":"INT",
    "replacedText":null,
    "replacementText":null,
    "specialFormat":"FROM_UNIXTIME(UNIX_TIMESTAMP())",
    "maxLen":100
}

{
    "idEntity": 1200,
    "name": "MyNewAttributeviaAPI4",
    "description": "Description", 
    "hiveType": "BOOLEAN",
    "sqlType": "BIT",
    "isMetadata": true,
    "isPartitionColumn": false,
    "isCalculated": true,
    "order": 4,
    "isPrimaryKey": false,
    "treatEmptyAsNull": false,
    "removeQuotes": false,
    "needTrim": false,
    "isNullable": false,
    "isEncrypted":false,
    "dataMask":null,
    "sourceType":"INT",
    "replacedText":null,
    "replacementText":null,
    "specialFormat":"FALSE",
    "maxLen":100
}

For more information about the Attribute fields, please check this page.