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Motivation

Describe the problems you are trying to solve.

Public Interfaces

Syntax

We propose add the following syntax for time travel statement. 

SELECT * FROM paimon_tb AS OF TIMESTAMP '2023-04-27 00:00:00'

Public interfaces

Add a new source ability interface. Different connectors can implement this interfaces to support time travel.

/**
 Enables to push down the timestamp of snapshot into a {@link ScanTableSource}.
 *
 * <p>When a source connector implements the SupportsTimeTravel interface, users can leverage its
 * time-travel functionality to analyze historical data, perform backfilling operations, and more.
 * This can be particularly useful for debugging and data recovery purposes.
 */

@PublicEvolving
public interface SupportsTimeTravel {

    /**
     * @param timestamp The timestamp of the snapshot to apply.
     */
    void applySnapshot(long timestamp);
}

Proposed Changes

1. Add the Source Ability interface to support TimeTravel systems in implementing TimeTravel capabilities.
2. Add corresponding table optimization rules so that during LogicalPlan optimization, the Snapshot interval can be pushed up to the ScanTableSource.
3. To avoid conflicts with Temporal Join, we should apply TimeTravel transformation rules before apply the Temporal Join transformation rules.

Compatibility, Deprecation, and Migration Plan

• What impact (if any) will there be on existing users?
• If we are changing behavior how will we phase out the older behavior?
• If we need special migration tools, describe them here.
• When will we remove the existing behavior?

Test Plan

Describe in few sentences how the FLIP will be tested. We are mostly interested in system tests (since unit-tests are specific to implementation details). How will we know that the implementation works as expected? How will we know nothing broke?

Rejected Alternatives

If there are alternative ways of accomplishing the same thing, what were they? The purpose of this section is to motivate why the design is the way it is and not some other way.