VARIANT type

Applies to: check marked yes Databricks Runtime 15.3 and later

Represents semi-structured data.

Syntax

VARIANT

Limits

The type supports storing any semi-structured data, including STRUCT, ARRAY, MAP, and scalar types. VARIANT can only store MAP types with keys of type STRING.

Literals

See parse_json function function for details on creating a VARIANT value. You can also use the CAST function to convert a literal of some type to VARIANT.

Notes

Examples

> SELECT parse_json('{"key": 123, "data": [4, 5, "str"]}');
  {"data":[4,5,"str"],"key":123}

> SELECT parse_json(null);
  null

> SELECT parse_json('123');
  123

> SELECT CAST(123.456 AS VARIANT);
  123.456