Minor Description
We should consider adding a resolution rule that can promote an enum to a string using the enum's symbol.
I have an Avro schema that has a field with an enum type. However, I have realized that an enum is not the type I actually wanted. I would much rather have the type of the field be a string. I went to change this, but of course this type of change (enum -> string) is not within the bounds of Avro's schema evolution. Therefore a reader with this changed schema is not be able to read an object written with the old schema.
For example, if the writer schema was:
enum Colour {
RED, YELLOW, GREEN
}
protocol stoplight {
Colour colour;
}
And the reader schema was:
protocol stoplight {
string colour;
}
Then when you access the colour field of your object, you get the string representation of the enum value's symbol .
For example, Colour.RED => "RED", Colour.YELLOW => "YELLOW", Colour.GREEN => "GREEN"