Compare schema as logically equivalent to workaround disappearing metadata

[itsjunetime]

Which issue does this PR close?

This works around some problems noted in #12560. It is not a full fix, but just unblocks some other work for me.

Rationale for this change

This check that is being done (which I am changing) only exists to make sure the schema are logically equivalent - if they are different in the metadata of the fields that they contain, that doesn't affect how they are used later on. So it's more 'correct' to just compare them logically as opposed to fully. Comparing them fully does have the benefit of catching issues with lossy transformations between schema (which is probably what is happening in my case to lose the metadata that I mentioned in #12560), but I think that's a benefit that we can get again once we've figured out where metadata is disappearing.

Are these changes tested?

Yes

Are there any user-facing changes?

No

[jayzhan211]

I have some suggestion

1. It would be nice to have a reproducible example to identify why and where the metadata is missing. This could also prevent the issue from recurring if we reintroduce the metadata check without fixing the underlying problem.
2. If the reproducible example is hard to find, we can skip the metadata check for now. However, in addition to logically_equivalent_names_and_types, we should also check for nullable. Consider either modifying logically_equivalent_names_and_types or creating a new function to handle this check. Also, add a TODO comment alongside it.

[alamb]

I think this is a reasonable change, but it does, as you say, potentially cause silent errors rather than explicit ones.

This is a good idea for Influx, but maybe not as good an idea for other users of DataFusion

Something we have done in the past for situations like this was to have a config flag that could control the behavior

For example, this flag

datafusion.optimizer.skip_failed_rules

Controls if a failure in an optimizer rule would reject the entire plan or just skip that particular failed rule

Perhaps we could make a similar flag for schema checks like

datafusion.optimizer.only_compare_logical_types

Or something 🤔

Clicked the wrong button -- I don't think we should merge this on by default

[jayzhan211]

I think this is a reasonable change, but it does, as you say, potentially cause silent errors rather than explicit ones.

This is a good idea for Influx, but maybe not as good an idea for other users of DataFusion

Something we have done in the past for situations like this was to have a config flag that could control the behavior

For example, this flag

datafusion.optimizer.skip_failed_rules

Controls if a failure in an optimizer rule would reject the entire plan or just skip that particular failed rule

Perhaps we could make a similar flag for schema checks like

datafusion.optimizer.only_compare_logical_types

Or something 🤔

Does only_compare_logical_types includes nullable? If yes, it looks good to me. If not should we need another only_compare_logical_types_with_nullable flag as well?

[alamb]

Does only_compare_logical_types includes nullable? If yes, it looks good to me. If not should we need another only_compare_logical_types_with_nullable flag as well?

I agree it should also compare the nullability (but not the metadata)

Looks like the current code doesn't look at nullability though: https://docs.rs/datafusion-common/42.0.0/src/datafusion_common/dfschema.rs.html#974

[alamb]

I filed #12687 to track the underlying issue here. Let's leave this PR as a draft for now until we have a reproducer for the actual problem