The earlier change dropped every statement that a materialized view's
source needs stable row ids, because main no longer requires them. That
holds for the local SDK only. Sophon main creates a view through SQL by
default with the creation checks of its pinned lancedb (00f5dd6f), which
predates #4373 and still rejects a source without stable row ids.
The refresh and management pages now say a local view needs no special
source and a deployment may still require stable row ids, and the
architecture, limits, table and database pages note that requirement.
The summaries say a refresh brings a view up to date instead of saying
it recomputes it, since a deployment may reconcile changes rather than
rebuild.
Main now rebuilds a materialized view completely on every refresh
(#4373): there is no incremental mode, no `full` argument and no
stable-row-ID requirement on the source. The example ran against the
SDK built from this branch (0.40.0b13) failed, because a refresh after
adding Bea writes both matching rows, not one.
The example now creates its source with the default options and expects
two rows written by the refresh, and its generated snippet is
regenerated. Separate tests cover `with_no_data` (one matching row on
the first refresh) and refreshing to an earlier source version. The
refresh page explains the full rebuild and keeps the #incremental and
#stable-row-ids anchors for the sections that replace them. Its version
note now says what the published 0.39.0 does differently, as observed
with that release.
The management, table, database, limits, architecture and data-types
pages no longer say a view's source needs stable row ids, and the
feature-engineering and tutorial summaries no longer call refreshes
incremental.
Five pages still said a refresh never revisits a filled row and that a
changed input needs the column dropped and declared again. Since
lancedb#4161 a refresh also recomputes rows whose inputs changed, so the
quickstart, the feature-engineering overview, Guarantees, and the SQL
REFRESH and UPDATE pages now say that.
Retry claims are qualified the same way. A local refresh commits the column
once, and a deployment's job commits finished batches. A retry fills what is
still empty or stale, but can recompute values that were already written (a
refresh whose input record was not saved recomputes next time), so no page
promises that a retry costs only the unfinished rows.
OSS docs now own the full usage content for features that only run against
an Enterprise deployment, since the client interface itself lives here;
Enterprise docs keep only the parts specific to its own behavior. Sophon's
overlay for these five pages is dropped since the OSS versions are now the
complete reference.
SQL Reference is restructured to match an object-type SQL manual (DDL by
object, then DML, then DQL, then Expressions) instead of the old flat,
loosely-ordered page list, absorbing the SQL client-connection guide and
FTS-via-SQL examples into it.
The function catalogue is now real rather than a pointer. Scalar functions are
listed by taxonomy -- math, string, unicode, regex, date/time, array, map,
struct, crypto, type -- and the names come from what datafusion-functions 54
actually registers, not from what DataFusion documents on main. Aggregate and
window pages gain the same treatment.
Two things the audit corrected rather than copied.
SHOW TABLES does not work. DataFusion implements it over information_schema,
which this session does not enable, so it fails at plan time. It was documented
as working here, on the SHOW page and in three Manage tables; all four are
fixed, and the SQL overview now lists the absence alongside SHOW COLUMNS.
Prepared statements are a Flight SQL protocol feature, not a PREPARE statement.
A script carrying PREPARE ... AS SELECT will not run, while the same intent
expressed through a client will. The new page says so rather than copying
DataFusion's syntax.
Every section of the Documentation tab that has a SQL counterpart now links to
it -- 27 of 76 non-SQL pages, each pointing at the specific statement rather
than at the reference index.
Feature engineering is now the overview plus one page per operation: add a
computed column, refresh a column, refresh a materialized view. Computed
columns covered declaring and filling on one page, which are separate decisions
with separate failure modes.
Functions move to Management, where the other catalog objects are, and absorb
the environment-mismatch guidance from the Enterprise page -- a symptom table
worth having beside the parameters that cause it.
The Enterprise feature-engineering page is merged into the overview. Two of its
claims were stale: create_materialized_view is implemented for db:// connections
in remote/db.py, so views are not local-only, and the tier is Enterprise rather
than 'Cloud and Enterprise'.
The REST reference leaves the sidebar. Mintlify only generates per-endpoint
pages from a navigation group -- hidden, dropdowns, global anchors and a
top-level openapi key were all tried -- so removing the group removes those
pages. The overview survives as an unlisted page, linked from SDKs & SQL, and
the spec still ships for anything that wants to read it directly.
The Documentation tab now reads as a manual over Python, TypeScript and SQL
rather than a Python guide with SQL bolted on.
Basics replaces the Catalog section: what the catalog holds, what each API
surface can do, jobs, agentic skills, and what Lance is. Management is new and
is the CRUD and listing reference for every catalog object, with a column per
language so the gaps are visible -- TypeScript has no function or SQL methods,
SQL needs a deployment.
Search becomes Query and gains a SELECT reference, since an analytical query is
a query whether it came from a builder or a statement.
Jobs is new. Every long-running operation already returned the same handle from
an _async method; nothing documented it.
The SQL function reference gains what Lance registers on top of DataFusion:
contains_tokens, backed by the FTS index, and the JSON accessors, backed by a
JSON scalar index. Geospatial st_* functions are behind a build feature LanceDB
does not ship, which is now stated rather than left to a confusing error.
Removes the Geneva pages' orphaned snippets, merges FTS Examples into Full-Text
Search, and splits Query Optimization into Explain and Explain Analyze.
Functions and materialized views are objects in the Lance Multimodal Lakehouse,
alongside tables and indexes — created, versioned and refreshed like anything
else in it. The pages introduced them as client methods, which undersold what
they are and left the capability sounding like a helper rather than part of the
storage layer.
The materialized view page also framed Enterprise availability around which
client you are holding. A reader does not care about that; they care whether
views exist where their data lives. They do, refreshed across the cluster, and
the page now says so and points at the Enterprise documentation rather than
implying the feature is missing.
The feature engineering documentation describes the geneva package, a separate
SDK. The capability it covers now lives in this client — materialized views,
computed columns, and registered functions are all shipped API with no pages
describing them.
Four pages cover the three mechanisms and, more usefully, when each applies.
The overview leads with that choice rather than with concepts, because the
mechanisms overlap and picking the wrong one is the expensive mistake.
Two things they say plainly that the API reference cannot:
Declaring and filling are separate everywhere, and filling never revisits a row
it has already done. That makes refreshes idempotent and appends cheap, and it
means a filled value does not track its inputs — surprising if you expect a
spreadsheet, so it is stated rather than left to be discovered.
The availability split runs the opposite way to expectation. Materialized views
are local only and raise on a remote connection; functions are Cloud and
Enterprise only and raise on a local one. Someone reading about both in one
sitting will otherwise assume the usual direction and be wrong in one of them.
Examples are the tested ones from the docstrings, so they cannot drift from the
behaviour they describe.
The training and tutorial pages that pointed into the geneva documentation now
point here.
Brendan Clement
Jack Ye