Question

A data engineer is using Auto Loader to ingest JSON files into a bronze Delta table. Auto Loader correctly infers most columns, but the 'transaction_amount' field is being inferred as a STRING because some early files contained values wrapped in quotes. The engineer wants Auto Loader to treat this specific column as a DECIMAL while still inferring all other columns automatically. What is the most appropriate approach?

Accepted Answer

Set the 'cloudFiles.schemaHints' option to specify 'transaction_amount DECIMAL(10,2)' while leaving the rest of the schema to be inferred

Answer

Disable schema inference entirely and provide a full explicit schema for every column using the .schema() method

Answer

Set 'cloudFiles.inferColumnTypes' to false so all columns default to correct types automatically

Answer

Enable 'cloudFiles.schemaEvolutionMode' to 'rescue' so the incorrectly typed column is fixed on the next run