Hey André, The RCK suite uses the catalog tests from reference implementation to ensure consistency across implementations. Your point is valid that as the other languages started to build client/server implementations that didn't have the exact same messaging.
I think we want to push toward some amount of standardization in the error messages. Ideally we'd steer away from anything language specific, but we want the messaging to be clear and consistent for things like what caused a requirement to fail. I think that the solution might be a combination of what you've identified. Possibly relaxing or clarifying some of the messaging but also leaving room so that requirements aren't overly strict. Also, I think we're open to just better/more consistent messaging because we didn't focus too much on it when building the java tests. Having the other language clients use the RCK would also help drive consistency. If there are specific examples, we might want to start with a couple failures and see what makes sense as a solution. -Dan On Tue, Aug 5, 2025 at 8:14 AM André Luis Anastácio <ndrl...@proton.me.invalid> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > When I was running the RCK against Lakekeeper, I noticed that RCK verifies > not only the exception type but also the error message. RCK verifies the > messages as they are written in the Java implementation, and since > Lakekeeper uses iceberg-rust, we have different error messages [1] Java [2] > Rust. However, the error messages are written differently in other clients > as well [3] Python [4] Go. > > This could become a broader compatibility issue as we see more REST > implementations built on different language foundations. > > Should we standardize the error messages across all implementations, make > RCK more permissive by focusing only on exception types, or handle this at > the REST server implementation level where each implementation adapts to > match RCK expectations? > > Are there other solutions I haven't considered? > > > 1. > > https://github.com/apache/iceberg/blob/fa80ba787af776f516e772f27bf746756de93b70/core/src/main/java/org/apache/iceberg/UpdateRequirement.java#L186 > 2. > > https://github.com/apache/iceberg-rust/blob/e7160df4a0cb8f2f6ce12681053e8cb1a43b74e1/crates/iceberg/src/catalog/mod.rs#L711 > 3. > > https://github.com/apache/iceberg-python/blob/main/pyiceberg/table/update/__init__.py#L801 > 4. > > https://github.com/apache/iceberg-go/blob/b4babc8b919258be7b25f5cc295fc68a458f9559/table/requirements.go#L268 > > > > André Anastácio >
