What changes were proposed in this pull request?

This PR introduces two new built-in SQL functions for detecting structs where all fields are null:

• is_struct_empty(struct) — Returns true if the struct is non-null and all of its fields are null. Returns null if the struct itself is null.
• is_struct_non_empty(struct) — Returns true if the struct is non-null and at least one field is non-null. Returns null if the struct itself is null.

Both functions perform a shallow check only: nested structs that are themselves non-null (even if all their children are null) count as non-null at the parent level.

The implementation includes:

• Expression classes (IsStructEmpty, IsStructNonEmpty) with full codegen support in complexTypeCreator.scala, including an unrolled AND/OR chain for narrow structs (≤8 fields) and a loop with early exit for wider structs.
• Registration in FunctionRegistry.
• Scala API methods in functions.scala.

Why are the changes needed?

In Structured Streaming pipelines with Kafka + Avro deserialization, permissive failure handlers (e.g. PermissiveRecordExceptionHandler) replace malformed records with structs that are non-null but have all fields set to null. These "empty" structs can propagate downstream and cause runtime failures in sinks like Apache Kudu when struct fields map to primary keys that cannot be NULL.

Currently the only workaround is to_json(col) != "{}", which:

• Forces full JSON serialization per row (heavy object allocation and GC pressure).
• Relies on magic string comparison (not type-aware).
• Breaks whole-stage codegen optimization.

The proposed functions replace this pattern with an efficient, schema-agnostic null-check that requires zero serialization, supports short-circuit evaluation, and participates fully in whole-stage codegen.

Does this PR introduce any user-facing change?

Yes. Two new built-in SQL functions are added:

-- Filter out malformed records (all-null structs) from Kafka stream
SELECT * FROM kafka_messages
WHERE value IS NOT NULL AND is_struct_non_empty(value)

Previously, users had to rely on to_json:

SELECT * FROM kafka_messages
WHERE value IS NOT NULL AND to_json(value) != '{}'

How was this patch tested?

• Unit tests in ComplexTypeSuite covering: non-null structs, all-null structs, null struct input, mixed nulls, single-field structs, zero-field (empty schema) structs, nested structs, structs with array/map fields, type validation, and nullable semantics.
• Integration tests in DataFrameComplexTypeSuite simulating the Avro permissive handler use case end-to-end (both DataFrame API and SQL syntax), including equivalence check against the to_json workaround.
• A dedicated wide-struct test (12 fields) to exercise the loop codegen path.

Was this patch authored or co-authored using generative AI tooling?

Generated-by: Claude Code (Claude Opus 4.6)