Realtime Compute for Apache Flink:Faker connector

Background information

The Faker connector is a built-in connector of fully managed Flink. The connector generates test data based on Java Faker expressions that are provided for each field in a table. If you want to use test data to verify the business logic during draft development or deployment testing, we recommend that you use the Faker connector.

Prerequisites

N/A

Limits

• Only Realtime Compute for Apache Flink that uses Ververica Runtime (VVR) 4.0.12 or later supports the Faker connector.
• The Faker connector supports only the following data types: CHAR(n), VARCHAR(n), STRING, TINYINT, SMALLINT, INT, BIGINT, FLOAT, DOUBLE, DECIMAL, BOOLEAN, TIMESTAMP, ARRAY, MAP, MULTISET, and ROW.

Syntax

CREATE TABLE faker_source (
  `name` STRING,
  `age` INT
) WITH (
  'connector' = 'faker',
  'fields.name.expression' = '#{superhero.name}',
  'fields.age.expression' = '#{number.numberBetween ''0'',''1000''}'
);

Parameters in the WITH clause

Sample code

• Sample code for a source table

  CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE heros_source (
    `name` STRING,
    `power` STRING,
    `age` INT
  ) WITH (
    'connector' = 'faker',
    'fields.name.expression' = '#{superhero.name}',
    'fields.power.expression' = '#{superhero.power}',
    'fields.power.null-rate' = '0.05',
    'fields.age.expression' = '#{number.numberBetween ''0'',''1000''}'
  );
  
  CREATE TEMPORARY table blackhole_sink(
    `name` STRING,
    `power` STRING,
    `age` INT
  ) WITH (
    'connector' = 'blackhole'
  );
  
  INSERT INTO blackhole_sink SELECT * FROM heros_source;

• Sample code for a dimension table

  CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE datagen_source (
    `character_id` INT,
    `location` STRING,
    `proctime` AS PROCTIME()
  ) WITH (
    'connector' = 'datagen'
  );
  
  CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE faker_dim (
    `character_id` INT,
    `name` STRING
  ) WITH (
    'connector' = 'faker',
    'fields.character_id.expression' = '#{number.numberBetween ''0'',''100''}',
    'fields.name.expression' = '#{harry_potter.characters}'
  );
  
  SELECT
    c.character_id,
    l.location,
    c.name
  FROM datagen_source AS l
  JOIN faker_dim FOR SYSTEM_TIME AS OF proctime AS c
  ON l.character_id = c.character_id;

Field expression

• Operation
  When you use the Faker connector, you must define an expression in the WITH clause for each field in the DDL statement. The expression is in the 'fields.<field>.expression' = '#{className.methodName ''parameter'', ...}' format. The following table describes the parameters in the expression.

  Parameter	Description
  field	The name of a field in the DDL statement.
  className	The name of a Faker class. Java Faker provides about 80 Faker classes to generate field expressions. You can select the classes based on your business requirements. Note Faker class names are not case-sensitive.
  methodName	The name of a method. Note Method names are not case-sensitive.
  parameter	The input parameters of a method. Note Each input parameter of a method must be enclosed in single quotation marks ('). Separate multiple input parameters with commas (,).

• Example
  This example describes how to generate an SQL expression for a field in a DDL statement based on the Java Faker API documentation. The 'fields.age.expression' = '#{number.numberBetween ''0'',''1000''}' expression for the age field in Syntax is used in this example.

  1. Find the Number class in the Java Faker API documentation.
  2. Find the numberBetween method in the Number class and view the method description.

     The numberBetween method specifies the numbers between which the return value falls.

  3. Obtain the SQL expression 'fields.age.expression' = '#{number.numberBetween ''0'',''1000''}' for the age field based on the Number class and the values 0 and 1000 that are specified by the numberBetween method.

     This expression indicates that the generated value of the age field is in the range of 0 to 1000.