Need help extracting a schema to make use for an avro file in Python

Question

As per the question header, I am learning to use the Avro library. I am looking at original documentation for learning.

So basically, I have to read a AVRO file which is actually obtained from Java. But I did read that the schema is already present in the avro file then why is it that I need to specify a schema file separately for this purpose?

Also there is another package called fastvro which can extract the avro schema directly. Is it a design feature of Python that it has to be done manually?

Is there any automatic way to extract it or am I missing something here? All help is appreciated, cheers!

Answer 1

Hi, nice question.

So what I daily use is Python v3.4 and the Avro v1.7.7 (What do you use?)

And it is quite simple actually. For the schema file I suggest you use the following code I have written to help you out to print out the generated schema:

reader = avro.datafile.DataFileReader(open('file_name.avro',"rb"),avro.io.DatumReader())
schema = reader.meta
print(schema)

I hope this helps, let me know if you need anything else. Cheers!