Hi Iceberg Community, Currently there is no relation between TableMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/TableMetadata.java> and ViewMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/view/ViewMetadata.java>. Which causes many duplicate codes just to use commonTable/View definitions like Schema/MetadataLocation/Properties.
At many places we have similar methods with overloaded parameters like TableMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/TableMetadata.java> and ViewMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/view/ViewMetadata.java>. To support purge <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/issues/9433> on view it is difficult to traverse to the historical metadata files. I would like to start a discussion on potential enhancement of ViewMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/view/ViewMetadata.java>. 1. An abstract class such as *IcebergMetadata* with common definition from TableMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/TableMetadata.java> and ViewMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/view/ViewMetadata.java>. 2. Add something similar of MetadataLogEntry <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/TableMetadata.java#L195> for ViewMetadata <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/b3273276fa4bac384b2429b7218fd18b242beefe/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/view/ViewMetadata.java> too. Please share your thoughts. Ref: https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/8907#discussion_r1441986754 Regards, Naveen Kumar
