[IMPORTANT] Extending attribute value types is no longer a breaking change#4614
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### Entities - Specify entity information via an environment variable. ([#4594](#4594)) ### Common - OTLP Exporters may allow devs to prepend a product identifier in `User-Agent` header. ([#4560](#4560)) -⚠️ **IMPORTANT**: Extending the set of standard attribute value types is no longer a breaking change. ([#4614](#4614)) ### OTEPs - Clarify in Composite Samplers OTEP the unreliable threshold case. ([#4569](#4569)) --------- Co-authored-by: Armin Ruech <7052238+arminru@users.noreply.github.com>
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## Changes - Introduce of `AnyValue` type supporting complex data structures (empty value, byte arrays, heterogeneous arrays and maps). - Consolidate of attribute definitions across signals to use the unified `AnyValue` type. - Update attribute limits to accommodate new value types. - Allow attribute collections to contain duplicate keys via an opt-in configuration (as this is [allowed for log attributes](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/specification/logs/data-model.md#type-mapstring-any)). - Remove "standard attribute" terminology in favor of general "attribute". ### Extend attribute types Prior-art (this PR guides towards this): #4636 Prototype: open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go#6809 Follows #4614 Related to #4602 Related proto PR: open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto#707 https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/oteps/4485-extending-attributes-to-support-complex-values.md#how describes how languages should add support for new attribute value types. Closes #4460 (no longer needed - feature is removed) ### OTEP changes Notice that this PR has changed the strategy for https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/oteps/4485-extending-attributes-to-support-complex-values.md#api from: > OTel API **MAY** support setting complex attributes on metrics, resources, instrumentation scope, span events, and as identifying entity attribute to simply: > OTel API **MUST** support setting complex attribute. This is the agreement up to this point: #4651 (comment) The other change in the OTEP is because of #4651 (comment). ### Attribute limit updates Towards #4487 This also proposes **minimal and non-breaking** additions for the attribute limits: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/oteps/4485-extending-attributes-to-support-complex-values.md#attribute-limits. The proposal for **attribute count limit** is proposed because of #4651 (comment). - **Predictability:** Users can more easily understand and predict when they'll hit the limit. Especially given the existing behavior of attribute count limit. - **Practical usage:** Maps are typically used as cohesive units of related data, so counting them as single attributes aligns with their semantic purpose. Without this rule, a single map attribute with many internal key-value pairs could quickly exhaust the attribute count limit, which would be surprising behavior for users. The proposal for **attribute value length limit** seems the most logical to me. ## Comments to be addressed as followups I am going to create issues to be created after this is PR merged: - #4651 (comment) - #4651 (comment) - #4651 (comment) --------- Co-authored-by: Tyler Yahn <MrAlias@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Liudmila Molkova <neskazu@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Martin Costello <martin@martincostello.com>
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Towards #4602
Per OTEP: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/oteps/4485-extending-attributes-to-support-complex-values.md#why-doesnt-this-require-a-major-version-bump
This basically reverts:
Before we did not have a consensus to extend the attribute value types. However, this has changed with:
Related proto PR:
As a follow-up I plan to create issues in all language repositories so that they can prepare their APIs and SDKs to extend the attribute value types.