feat: fix creating empty table and creating table by a list of RecordBatch for remote python sdk (#1650)

Closes #1637

python/python/lancedb/table.py

@@ -94,6 +94,8 @@ def _coerce_to_table(data, schema: Optional[pa.Schema] = None) -> pa.Table:
                 schema = data[0].__class__.to_arrow_schema()
             data = [model_to_dict(d) for d in data]
             return pa.Table.from_pylist(data, schema=schema)
+        elif isinstance(data[0], pa.RecordBatch):
+            return pa.Table.from_batches(data, schema=schema)
         else:
             return pa.Table.from_pylist(data)
     elif isinstance(data, dict):
@@ -173,6 +175,9 @@ def sanitize_create_table(
             on_bad_vectors=on_bad_vectors,
             fill_value=fill_value,
         )
+    else:
+        if schema is not None:
+            data = pa.Table.from_pylist([], schema)
     if schema is None:
         if data is None:
             raise ValueError("Either data or schema must be provided")

python/python/tests/test_remote_db.py

@@ -1,15 +1,7 @@
-#  Copyright 2023 LanceDB Developers
-#
-#  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
-#  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
-#  You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-#  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-#  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
-#  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
-#  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
-#  limitations under the License.
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright The LanceDB Authors
+
+from unittest.mock import MagicMock
 
 import lancedb
 import pyarrow as pa
@@ -39,3 +31,53 @@ def test_remote_db():
     table = conn["test"]
     table.schema = pa.schema([pa.field("vector", pa.list_(pa.float32(), 2))])
     table.search([1.0, 2.0]).to_pandas()
+
+
+def test_create_empty_table():
+    client = MagicMock()
+    conn = lancedb.connect("db://client-will-be-injected", api_key="fake")
+
+    conn._client = client
+
+    schema = pa.schema([pa.field("vector", pa.list_(pa.float32(), 2))])
+
+    client.post.return_value = {"status": "ok"}
+    table = conn.create_table("test", schema=schema)
+    assert table.name == "test"
+    assert client.post.call_args[0][0] == "/v1/table/test/create/"
+
+    json_schema = {
+        "fields": [
+            {
+                "name": "vector",
+                "nullable": True,
+                "type": {
+                    "type": "fixed_size_list",
+                    "fields": [
+                        {"name": "item", "nullable": True, "type": {"type": "float"}}
+                    ],
+                    "length": 2,
+                },
+            },
+        ]
+    }
+    client.post.return_value = {"schema": json_schema}
+    assert table.schema == schema
+    assert client.post.call_args[0][0] == "/v1/table/test/describe/"
+
+    client.post.return_value = 0
+    assert table.count_rows(None) == 0
+
+
+def test_create_table_with_recordbatches():
+    client = MagicMock()
+    conn = lancedb.connect("db://client-will-be-injected", api_key="fake")
+
+    conn._client = client
+
+    batch = pa.RecordBatch.from_arrays([pa.array([[1.0, 2.0], [3.0, 4.0]])], ["vector"])
+
+    client.post.return_value = {"status": "ok"}
+    table = conn.create_table("test", [batch], schema=batch.schema)
+    assert table.name == "test"
+    assert client.post.call_args[0][0] == "/v1/table/test/create/"