[rahulsmahadev]

Rationale for this change

The file, entry and partition metadata tables raise on any table with a uuid column:

schema = Schema(NestedField(1, "id", LongType()), NestedField(2, "u", UUIDType()))
tbl = catalog.create_table("default.t", schema=schema)
tbl.append(pa.table({"id": pa.array([1], pa.int64()), "u": pa.array([uuid.UUID(int=1).bytes], pa.uuid())}))
tbl.inspect.files()
# pyarrow.lib.ArrowNotImplementedError: extension

readable_metrics holds the uuid bounds as arrow.uuid values inside a struct, and pyarrow cannot build an extension type nested in a struct from Python values, so pa.Table.from_pylist raises. This affects entries(), files(), data_files(), delete_files(), all_files(), all_data_files(), all_delete_files(), and partitions() for a table partitioned by identity on a uuid column, even when the bounds are null.

This change builds these tables with the storage types (fixed_size_binary(16) for a uuid) and casts the result to the unchanged schema. UUID partition values are passed as their 16 bytes, which pyarrow 18 (the minimum supported version) needs. UUID row filters (#2372) are a separate issue and are not touched.

Are these changes tested?

Yes. Three new tests in tests/table/test_inspect.py fail with ArrowNotImplementedError: extension without the fix and pass with it, on pyarrow 25 and 18:

• test_inspect_files_and_entries_render_uuid_bounds: the bounds and the arrow.uuid output type for the file and entry tables.
• test_inspect_files_of_empty_table_with_uuid_column: files() and all_files() on a table without snapshots.
• test_inspect_partitions_and_files_render_uuid_partition: partitions(), files() and entries() for a table partitioned by identity on a uuid column.

Are there any user-facing changes?

Bug fix only: these metadata tables no longer raise on tables with a uuid column. The output schema is unchanged.

This pull request and its description were written by Isaac.

[rahulsmahadev]

@geruh @soumya-ghosh could you take a look when you have a chance? It fixes the file and partition metadata tables from #1626 for tables with uuid columns.