[BEAM-7344] Consider removing the requirement that users need to base64-encode their BYTES before passing them to BQ IO connector.

• Type: Bug
• Status: Open
• Priority: P3
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: io-java-gcp, io-py-gcp
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Valentyn Tymofieiev
• Created: 16/May/19 22:47
• Updated: 03/Jun/22 23:52

Description

Currently, when BigQuery IO connector reads or stores BYTES datatype in BigQuery, there is an expectation that users base64-encode the bytes before passing them to the connector, see [1,2].
This may be an extra overhead for users to do base64 encoding when interacting with Beam, that is possible to avoid. Filing this issue to reconsider this behavior.

cc: chamikara.

[1] https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/0c2178cf8e5d9e77c4f233f05a0b87b6011a1daa1a5ae47b41463af5@%3Cdev.beam.apache.org%3E
[2] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/BEAM-7326