How to create table without schema in BigQuery by API? - json

Question

Simply speaking I would create table with given name providing only data.
I have some JUnit's with sample data (jsons)
I have to provide schema for above files to create tables for them
I suppose that don't need provide above schemas.
Why? Because in BigQuery console I can create table from query (even such simple like: select 1, 'test') or I can upload json to create table with schema autodetection => probably could also do it programatically
I saw https://chartio.com/resources/tutorials/how-to-create-a-table-from-a-query-in-google-bigquery/#using-the-api and know that could parse jsons with data to queries and use Jobs.insert API to run them but it's over engineered and has some other disadvanteges e.g. boilerplate code.
After some research I found possibly simpler way of creating table on fly, but it doesn't work for me, code below:
Insert insert = bigquery.jobs().insert(projectId,
new Job().setConfiguration(
new JobConfiguration().setLoad(
new JobConfigurationLoad()
.setSourceFormat("NEWLINE_DELIMITED_JSON")
.setDestinationTable(
new TableReference()
.setProjectId(projectId)
.setDatasetId(dataSetId)
.setTableId(tableId)
)
.setCreateDisposition("CREATE_IF_NEEDED")
.setWriteDisposition(writeDisposition)
.setSourceUris(Collections.singletonList(sourceUri))
.setAutodetect(true)
)
));
Job myInsertJob = insert.execute();
JSON file which is used as a source data is pointed by sourceUri, looks like:
[
{
"stringField1": "value1",
"numberField2": "123456789"
}
]
Even if I used setCreateDisposition("CREATE_IF_NEEDED") I still receive error: "Not found: Table ..."
Is there any other method in API or better approach than above to exclude schema?

Answer 1

The code in your question is perfectly fine, and it does create table if it doesn't exist. However, it fails when you use partition id in place of table id, i.e. when destination table id is "table$20170323" which is what you used in your job. In order to write to partition, you will have to create table first.