# Schema registry is not accepting a type by reference
**URL:** https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526
**Category:** Schema Registry
**Created:** [17 April 2021 16:56 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526 "2021-04-17T16:56:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@wcn00](https://forum.confluent.io/u/wcn00)
#### Post date: [17 April 2021 16:56 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526/1 "2021-04-17T16:56:25Z")
I have the following schemas:
```json
{
"namespace": "org.wcn",
"type": "record",
"name": "Detail",
"fields": [
{
"name": "quantity",
"type": "int"
},
{
"name": "total",
"type": "float"
}
]
}
```
and:
```json
{
"namespace": "org.wcn",
"type": "record",
"doc": "This Schema describes about Order",
"name": "Order",
"fields": [
{
"name": "order_id",
"type": "long"
},
{
"name": "customer_id",
"type": "long"
},
{
"name": "total",
"type": "float"
},
{
"name": "detail",
"type": "org.wcn.Detail"
}
]
}
```
These schemas compile and work in code locally, however:
I can upload the first one to schema registry no problem. The second one gets the error:
```auto
ERROR Could not parse Avro schema (io.confluent.kafka.schemaregistry.avro.AvroSchemaProvider)
org.apache.avro.SchemaParseException: "org.wcn.Detail" is not a defined name. The type of the "detail" field must be a defined name or a {"type": ...} expression.
```
This is thrown by the schema registry.
If I reconfigure the schema to be “all in one”:
```json
{
"namespace": "org.wcn",
"type": "record",
"doc": "This Schema describes about Order",
"name": "OrderComplete",
"fields": [
{
"name": "order_id",
"type": "long"
},
{
"name": "customer_id",
"type": "long"
},
{
"name": "total",
"type": "float"
},
{
"name": "detail",
"type": {
"namespace": "org.wcn",
"type": "record",
"name": "Detail",
"fields": [
{
"name": "quantity",
"type": "int"
},
{
"name": "total",
"type": "float"
}
]
}
}
]
}
```
It will upload with no problems.
However this doesn’t sound like the way schema registry is intended to be used. I thought it would dereference schemas as needed so long as they were previously uploaded.
Your thoughts will be appreciated.
wcn
---
### Author:  [@rick](https://forum.confluent.io/u/rick)
#### Post date: [17 April 2021 21:13 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526/2 "2021-04-17T21:13:31Z")
@wcn00 can you verify the Confluent Platform version you’re using?
---
### Author:  [@wcn00](https://forum.confluent.io/u/wcn00)
#### Post date: [18 April 2021 02:34 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526/3 "2021-04-18T02:34:32Z")
I run it with this image:
confluentinc/cp-schema-registry:6.0.2
Thanks for getting back so fast.
wcn
---
### Author:  [@wcn00](https://forum.confluent.io/u/wcn00)
#### Post date: [18 April 2021 14:24 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526/4 "2021-04-18T14:24:00Z")
This is interesting. The info statement when uploading the “detail” type that cannot subsequently be dereferenced is:
INFO Registering new schema: subject org.wcn.Detail, version null, id null, type null (io.confluent.kafka.schemaregistry.rest.resources.SubjectVersionsResource)
The subject looks sensible, but the type is null. When I look into that I find doc relating to the “references” field when posting a schema. For example:
“references”: [
{
“name”: “com.acme.Referenced”,
“subject”: “childSubject”,
“version”: 1
}
I’ll investigate from that point of view and update here.
Note , that in my schema uploads I am not specifying references.
---
### Author:  [@wcn00](https://forum.confluent.io/u/wcn00)
#### Post date: [18 April 2021 15:52 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526/5 "2021-04-18T15:52:32Z")
Yup, thats it. If you upload a schema which references other schema “types” then they must be explicitly declared in a references list.
ttfn
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forum.confluent.io/u/system)
#### Post date: [25 April 2021 15:53 UTC](https://forum.confluent.io/t/schema-registry-is-not-accepting-a-type-by-reference/1526/6 "2021-04-25T15:53:13Z")
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