JSON columns are variants now
SQE stores JSON as the Iceberg V3 variant type. VARIANT and, on a V3 table, JSON columns hold a binary-encoded value instead of a string, invalid JSON fails the write, and the json functions read both shapes. New tables are V3 by default. Spark 4.1 reads SQE's variants, SQE reads Spark's, and since this week that includes files Spark wrote shredded. SQE still writes unshredded variants and has no typed field access on shredded columns yet.
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