Compute Functions

The generic Compute API

Functions and function registry

Functions represent compute operations over inputs of possibly varying types. Internally, a function is implemented by one or several “kernels”, depending on the concrete input types (for example, a function adding values from two inputs can have different kernels depending on whether the inputs are integral or floating-point).

Functions are stored in a global FunctionRegistry where they can be looked up by name.

Input shapes

Computation inputs are represented as a general Datum class, which is a tagged union of several shapes of data such as Scalar, Array and ChunkedArray. Many compute functions support both array (chunked or not) and scalar inputs, however some will mandate particular input types. For example, while array_sort_indices requires its first and only input to be an array, the generalized sort_indices function accepts an array, chunked array, record batch or table.

Invoking functions

Compute functions can be invoked by name using arrow::compute::CallFunction():

std::shared_ptr<arrow::Array> numbers_array = ...;
std::shared_ptr<arrow::Scalar> increment = ...;
arrow::Datum incremented_datum;

ARROW_ASSIGN_OR_RAISE(incremented_datum,
                      arrow::compute::CallFunction("add", {numbers_array, increment}));
std::shared_ptr<Array> incremented_array = std::move(incremented_datum).make_array();

(note this example uses implicit conversion from std::shared_ptr<Array> to Datum)

Many compute functions are also available directly as concrete APIs, here arrow::compute::Add():

std::shared_ptr<arrow::Array> numbers_array = ...;
std::shared_ptr<arrow::Scalar> increment = ...;
arrow::Datum incremented_datum;

ARROW_ASSIGN_OR_RAISE(incremented_datum,
                      arrow::compute::Add(numbers_array, increment));
std::shared_ptr<Array> incremented_array = std::move(incremented_datum).make_array();

Some functions accept or require an options structure that determines the exact semantics of the function:

ScalarAggregateOptions scalar_aggregate_options;
scalar_aggregate_options.skip_nulls = false;

std::shared_ptr<arrow::Array> array = ...;
arrow::Datum min_max;

ARROW_ASSIGN_OR_RAISE(min_max,
                      arrow::compute::CallFunction("min_max", {array},
                                                   &scalar_aggregate_options));

// Unpack struct scalar result (a two-field {"min", "max"} scalar)
std::shared_ptr<arrow::Scalar> min_value, max_value;
min_value = min_max.scalar_as<arrow::StructScalar>().value[0];
max_value = min_max.scalar_as<arrow::StructScalar>().value[1];

However, Grouped Aggregations are not invocable via CallFunction.

Implicit casts

Functions may require conversion of their arguments before execution if a kernel does not match the argument types precisely. For example comparison of dictionary encoded arrays is not directly supported by any kernel, but an implicit cast can be made allowing comparison against the decoded array.

Each function may define implicit cast behaviour as appropriate. For example comparison and arithmetic kernels require identically typed arguments, and support execution against differing numeric types by promoting their arguments to numeric type which can accommodate any value from either input.

Common numeric type

The common numeric type of a set of input numeric types is the smallest numeric type which can accommodate any value of any input. If any input is a floating point type the common numeric type is the widest floating point type among the inputs. Otherwise the common numeric type is integral and is signed if any input is signed. For example:

Input types

Common numeric type

Notes

int32, int32

int32

int16, int32

int32

Max width is 32, promote LHS to int32

uint16, int32

int32

One input signed, override unsigned

uint32, int32

int64

Widen to accommodate range of uint32

uint16, uint32

uint32

All inputs unsigned, maintain unsigned

int16, uint32

int64

uint64, int16

int64

int64 cannot accommodate all uint64 values

float32, int32

float32

Promote RHS to float32

float32, float64

float64

float32, int64

float32

int64 is wider, still promotes to float32

In particulary, note that comparing a uint64 column to an int16 column may emit an error if one of the uint64 values cannot be expressed as the common type int64 (for example, 2 ** 63).

Available functions

Type categories

To avoid exhaustively listing supported types, the tables below use a number of general type categories:

  • “Numeric”: Integer types (Int8, etc.) and Floating-point types (Float32, Float64, sometimes Float16). Some functions also accept Decimal128 and Decimal256 input.

  • “Temporal”: Date types (Date32, Date64), Time types (Time32, Time64), Timestamp, Duration, Interval.

  • “Binary-like”: Binary, LargeBinary, sometimes also FixedSizeBinary.

  • “String-like”: String, LargeString.

  • “List-like”: List, LargeList, sometimes also FixedSizeList.

  • “Nested”: List-likes (including FixedSizeList), Struct, Union, and related types like Map.

If you are unsure whether a function supports a concrete input type, we recommend you try it out. Unsupported input types return a TypeError Status.

Aggregations

Scalar aggregations operate on a (chunked) array or scalar value and reduce the input to a single output value.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

all

Unary

Boolean

Scalar Boolean

ScalarAggregateOptions

(1)

any

Unary

Boolean

Scalar Boolean

ScalarAggregateOptions

(1)

approximate_median

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Float64

ScalarAggregateOptions

count

Unary

Any

Scalar Int64

CountOptions

(2)

count_all

Nullary

Scalar Int64

count_distinct

Unary

Non-nested types

Scalar Int64

CountOptions

(2)

first

Unary

Numeric, Binary

Scalar Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

(11)

first_last

Unary

Numeric, Binary

Scalar Struct

ScalarAggregateOptions

(11)

index

Unary

Any

Scalar Int64

IndexOptions

(3)

last

Unary

Numeric, Binary

Scalar Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

(11)

max

Unary

Non-nested types

Scalar Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

mean

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Decimal/Float64

ScalarAggregateOptions

(4)

min

Unary

Non-nested types

Scalar Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

min_max

Unary

Non-nested types

Scalar Struct

ScalarAggregateOptions

(5)

mode

Unary

Numeric

Struct

ModeOptions

(6)

product

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Numeric

ScalarAggregateOptions

(7)

quantile

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Numeric

QuantileOptions

(8)

stddev

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Float64

VarianceOptions

(9)

sum

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Numeric

ScalarAggregateOptions

(7)

tdigest

Unary

Numeric

Float64

TDigestOptions

(10)

variance

Unary

Numeric

Scalar Float64

VarianceOptions

(9)

  • (1) If null values are taken into account, by setting the ScalarAggregateOptions parameter skip_nulls = false, then Kleene logic logic is applied. The min_count option is not respected.

  • (2) CountMode controls whether only non-null values are counted (the default), only null values are counted, or all values are counted.

  • (3) Returns -1 if the value is not found. The index of a null value is always -1, regardless of whether there are nulls in the input.

  • (4) For decimal inputs, the resulting decimal will have the same precision and scale. The result is rounded away from zero.

  • (5) Output is a {"min": input type, "max": input type} Struct.

    Of the interval types, only the month interval is supported, as the day-time and month-day-nano types are not sortable.

  • (6) Output is an array of {"mode": input type, "count": Int64} Struct. It contains the N most common elements in the input, in descending order, where N is given in ModeOptions::n. If two values have the same count, the smallest one comes first. Note that the output can have less than N elements if the input has less than N distinct values.

  • (7) Output is Int64, UInt64, Float64, or Decimal128/256, depending on the input type.

  • (8) Output is Float64 or input type, depending on QuantileOptions.

  • (9) Decimal arguments are cast to Float64 first.

  • (10) tdigest/t-digest computes approximate quantiles, and so only needs a fixed amount of memory. See the reference implementation for details.

  • (11) Result is based on the ordering of input data

    Decimal arguments are cast to Float64 first.

Grouped Aggregations (“group by”)

Grouped aggregations are not directly invokable, but are used as part of a SQL-style “group by” operation. Like scalar aggregations, grouped aggregations reduce multiple input values to a single output value. Instead of aggregating all values of the input, however, grouped aggregations partition the input values on some set of “key” columns, then aggregate each group individually, emitting one output value per input group.

As an example, for the following table:

Column key

Column x

“a”

2

“a”

5

“b”

null

“b”

null

null

null

null

9

we can compute a sum of the column x, grouped on the column key. This gives us three groups, with the following results. Note that null is treated as a distinct key value.

Column key

Column sum(x)

“a”

7

“b”

null

null

9

The supported aggregation functions are as follows. All function names are prefixed with hash_, which differentiates them from their scalar equivalents above and reflects how they are implemented internally.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

hash_all

Unary

Boolean

Boolean

ScalarAggregateOptions

(1)

hash_any

Unary

Boolean

Boolean

ScalarAggregateOptions

(1)

hash_approximate_median

Unary

Numeric

Float64

ScalarAggregateOptions

hash_count

Unary

Any

Int64

CountOptions

(2)

hash_count_all

Nullary

Int64

hash_count_distinct

Unary

Any

Int64

CountOptions

(2)

hash_distinct

Unary

Any

List of input type

CountOptions

(2) (3)

hash_first

Unary

Numeric, Binary

Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

(10)

hash_first_last

Unary

Numeric, Binary

Struct

ScalarAggregateOptions

(10)

hash_last

Unary

Numeric, Binary

Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

(10)

hash_list

Unary

Any

List of input type

(3)

hash_max

Unary

Non-nested, non-binary/string-like

Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

hash_mean

Unary

Numeric

Decimal/Float64

ScalarAggregateOptions

(4)

hash_min

Unary

Non-nested, non-binary/string-like

Input type

ScalarAggregateOptions

hash_min_max

Unary

Non-nested types

Struct

ScalarAggregateOptions

(5)

hash_one

Unary

Any

Input type

(6)

hash_product

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

ScalarAggregateOptions

(7)

hash_stddev

Unary

Numeric

Float64

VarianceOptions

(8)

hash_sum

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

ScalarAggregateOptions

(7)

hash_tdigest

Unary

Numeric

FixedSizeList[Float64]

TDigestOptions

(9)

hash_variance

Unary

Numeric

Float64

VarianceOptions

(8)

  • (1) If null values are taken into account, by setting the ScalarAggregateOptions::skip_nulls to false, then Kleene logic logic is applied. The min_count option is not respected.

  • (2) CountMode controls whether only non-null values are counted (the default), only null values are counted, or all values are counted. For hash_distinct, it instead controls whether null values are emitted. This never affects the grouping keys, only group values (i.e. you may get a group where the key is null).

  • (3) hash_distinct and hash_list gather the grouped values into a list array.

  • (4) For decimal inputs, the resulting decimal will have the same precision and scale. The result is rounded away from zero.

  • (5) Output is a {"min": input type, "max": input type} Struct array.

    Of the interval types, only the month interval is supported, as the day-time and month-day-nano types are not sortable.

  • (6) hash_one returns one arbitrary value from the input for each group. The function is biased towards non-null values: if there is at least one non-null value for a certain group, that value is returned, and only if all the values are null for the group will the function return null.

  • (7) Output is Int64, UInt64, Float64, or Decimal128/256, depending on the input type.

  • (8) Decimal arguments are cast to Float64 first.

  • (9) T-digest computes approximate quantiles, and so only needs a fixed amount of memory. See the reference implementation for details.

  • (10) Result is based on ordering of the input data.

    Decimal arguments are cast to Float64 first.

Element-wise (“scalar”) functions

All element-wise functions accept both arrays and scalars as input. The semantics for unary functions are as follow:

  • scalar inputs produce a scalar output

  • array inputs produce an array output

Binary functions have the following semantics (which is sometimes called “broadcasting” in other systems such as NumPy):

  • (scalar, scalar) inputs produce a scalar output

  • (array, array) inputs produce an array output (and both inputs must be of the same length)

  • (scalar, array) and (array, scalar) produce an array output. The scalar input is handled as if it were an array of the same length N as the other input, with the same value repeated N times.

Arithmetic functions

These functions expect inputs of numeric type and apply a given arithmetic operation to each element(s) gathered from the input(s). If any of the input element(s) is null, the corresponding output element is null. For binary functions, input(s) will be cast to the common numeric type (and dictionary decoded, if applicable) before the operation is applied.

The default variant of these functions does not detect overflow (the result then typically wraps around). Most functions are also available in an overflow-checking variant, suffixed _checked, which returns an Invalid Status when overflow is detected.

For functions which support decimal inputs (currently add, subtract, multiply, and divide and their checked variants), decimals of different precisions/scales will be promoted appropriately. Mixed decimal and floating-point arguments will cast all arguments to floating-point, while mixed decimal and integer arguments will cast all arguments to decimals. Mixed time resolution temporal inputs will be cast to finest input resolution.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Notes

abs

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

abs_checked

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

add

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

add_checked

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

divide

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

divide_checked

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

exp

Unary

Numeric

Float32/Float64

multiply

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

multiply_checked

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

negate

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

negate_checked

Unary

Signed Numeric

Signed Numeric

power

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

power_checked

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

sign

Unary

Numeric

Int8/Float32/Float64

(2)

sqrt

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

sqrt_checked

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

subtract

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

subtract_checked

Binary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

(1)

  • (1) Precision and scale of computed DECIMAL results

    Operation

    Result precision and scale

    add
    subtract
    scale = max(s1, s2)
    precision = max(p1-s1, p2-s2) + 1 + scale

    multiply

    scale = s1 + s2
    precision = p1 + p2 + 1

    divide

    scale = max(4, s1 + p2 - s2 + 1)
    precision = p1 - s1 + s2 + scale

    It’s compatible with Redshift’s decimal promotion rules. All decimal digits are preserved for add, subtract and multiply operations. The result precision of divide is at least the sum of precisions of both operands with enough scale kept. Error is returned if the result precision is beyond the decimal value range.

  • (2) Output is any of (-1,1) for nonzero inputs and 0 for zero input. NaN values return NaN. Integral and decimal values return signedness as Int8 and floating-point values return it with the same type as the input values.

Bit-wise functions

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

bit_wise_and

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

bit_wise_not

Unary

Numeric

Numeric

bit_wise_or

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

bit_wise_xor

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

shift_left

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

shift_left_checked

Binary

Numeric

Numeric (1)

shift_right

Binary

Numeric

Numeric

shift_right_checked

Binary

Numeric

Numeric (1)

  • (1) An error is emitted if the shift amount (i.e. the second input) is out of bounds for the data type. However, an overflow when shifting the first input is not error (truncated bits are silently discarded).

Rounding functions

Rounding functions displace numeric inputs to an approximate value with a simpler representation based on the rounding criterion.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

ceil

Unary

Numeric

Float32/Float64/Decimal

floor

Unary

Numeric

Float32/Float64/Decimal

round

Unary

Numeric

Float32/Float64/Decimal

RoundOptions

(1)(2)

round_to_multiple

Unary

Numeric

Float32/Float64/Decimal

RoundToMultipleOptions

(1)(3)

trunc

Unary

Numeric

Float32/Float64/Decimal

  • (1) Output value is a 64-bit floating-point for integral inputs and the retains the same type for floating-point and decimal inputs. By default rounding functions displace a value to the nearest integer using HALF_TO_EVEN to resolve ties. Options are available to control the rounding criterion. Both round and round_to_multiple have the round_mode option to set the rounding mode.

  • (2) Round to a number of digits where the ndigits option of RoundOptions specifies the rounding precision in terms of number of digits. A negative value corresponds to digits in the non-fractional part. For example, -2 corresponds to rounding to the nearest multiple of 100 (zeroing the ones and tens digits). Default value of ndigits is 0 which rounds to the nearest integer.

  • (3) Round to a multiple where the multiple option of RoundToMultipleOptions specifies the rounding scale. The rounding multiple has to be a positive value. For example, 100 corresponds to rounding to the nearest multiple of 100 (zeroing the ones and tens digits). Default value of multiple is 1 which rounds to the nearest integer.

For round and round_to_multiple, the following rounding modes are available. Tie-breaking modes are prefixed with HALF and round non-ties to the nearest integer. The example values are given for default values of ndigits and multiple.

round_mode

Operation performed

Example values

DOWN

Round to nearest integer less than or equal in magnitude; also known as floor(x)

3.2 -> 3, 3.7 -> 3, -3.2 -> -4, -3.7 -> -4

UP

Round to nearest integer greater than or equal in magnitude; also known as ceil(x)

3.2 -> 4, 3.7 -> 4, -3.2 -> -3, -3.7 -> -3

TOWARDS_ZERO

Get the integral part without fractional digits; also known as trunc(x)

3.2 -> 3, 3.7 -> 3, -3.2 -> -3, -3.7 -> -3

TOWARDS_INFINITY

Round negative values with DOWN rule, round positive values with UP rule

3.2 -> 4, 3.7 -> 4, -3.2 -> -4, -3.7 -> -4

HALF_DOWN

Round ties with DOWN rule

3.5 -> 3, 4.5 -> 4, -3.5 -> -4, -4.5 -> -5

HALF_UP

Round ties with UP rule

3.5 -> 4, 4.5 -> 5, -3.5 -> -3, -4.5 -> -4

HALF_TOWARDS_ZERO

Round ties with TOWARDS_ZERO rule

3.5 -> 3, 4.5 -> 4, -3.5 -> -3, -4.5 -> -4

HALF_TOWARDS_INFINITY

Round ties with TOWARDS_INFINITY rule

3.5 -> 4, 4.5 -> 5, -3.5 -> -4, -4.5 -> -5

HALF_TO_EVEN

Round ties to nearest even integer

3.5 -> 4, 4.5 -> 4, -3.5 -> -4, -4.5 -> -4

HALF_TO_ODD

Round ties to nearest odd integer

3.5 -> 3, 4.5 -> 5, -3.5 -> -3, -4.5 -> -5

The following table gives examples of how ndigits (for the round function) and multiple (for round_to_multiple) influence the operance performed, respectively.

Round multiple

Round ndigits

Operation performed

1

0

Round to integer

0.001

3

Round to 3 decimal places

10

-1

Round to multiple of 10

2

NA

Round to multiple of 2

Logarithmic functions

Logarithmic functions are also supported, and also offer _checked variants that check for domain errors if needed.

Decimal values are accepted, but are cast to Float64 first.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

ln

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

ln_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

log10

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

log10_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

log1p

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

log1p_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

log2

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

log2_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

logb

Binary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

logb_checked

Binary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

Trigonometric functions

Trigonometric functions are also supported, and also offer _checked variants that check for domain errors if needed.

Decimal values are accepted, but are cast to Float64 first.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

acos

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

acos_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

asin

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

asin_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

atan

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

atan2

Binary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

cos

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

cos_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

sin

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

sin_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

tan

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

tan_checked

Unary

Float32/Float64/Decimal

Float32/Float64

Comparisons

These functions expect two inputs of numeric type (in which case they will be cast to the common numeric type before comparison), or two inputs of Binary- or String-like types, or two inputs of Temporal types. If any input is dictionary encoded it will be expanded for the purposes of comparison. If any of the input elements in a pair is null, the corresponding output element is null. Decimal arguments will be promoted in the same way as for add and subtract.

Function names

Arity

Input types

Output type

equal

Binary

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

greater

Binary

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

greater_equal

Binary

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

less

Binary

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

less_equal

Binary

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

not_equal

Binary

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

These functions take any number of inputs of numeric type (in which case they will be cast to the common numeric type before comparison) or of temporal types. If any input is dictionary encoded it will be expanded for the purposes of comparison.

Function names

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

max_element_wise

Varargs

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Numeric or Temporal

ElementWiseAggregateOptions

(1)

min_element_wise

Varargs

Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Numeric or Temporal

ElementWiseAggregateOptions

(1)

  • (1) By default, nulls are skipped (but the kernel can be configured to propagate nulls). For floating point values, NaN will be taken over null but not over any other value. For binary- and string-like values, only identical type parameters are supported.

Logical functions

The normal behaviour for these functions is to emit a null if any of the inputs is null (similar to the semantics of NaN in floating-point computations).

Some of them are also available in a Kleene logic variant (suffixed _kleene) where null is taken to mean “undefined”. This is the interpretation of null used in SQL systems as well as R and Julia, for example.

For the Kleene logic variants, therefore:

  • “true AND null”, “null AND true” give “null” (the result is undefined)

  • “true OR null”, “null OR true” give “true”

  • “false AND null”, “null AND false” give “false”

  • “false OR null”, “null OR false” give “null” (the result is undefined)

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

and

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

and_kleene

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

and_not

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

and_not_kleene

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

invert

Unary

Boolean

Boolean

or

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

or_kleene

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

xor

Binary

Boolean

Boolean

String predicates

These functions classify the input string elements according to their character contents. An empty string element emits false in the output. For ASCII variants of the functions (prefixed ascii_), a string element with non-ASCII characters emits false in the output.

The first set of functions operates on a character-per-character basis, and emit true in the output if the input contains only characters of a given class:

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Matched character class

Notes

ascii_is_alnum

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Alphanumeric ASCII

ascii_is_alpha

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Alphabetic ASCII

ascii_is_decimal

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Decimal ASCII

(1)

ascii_is_lower

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Lowercase ASCII

(2)

ascii_is_printable

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Printable ASCII

ascii_is_space

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Whitespace ASCII

ascii_is_upper

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Uppercase ASCII

(2)

utf8_is_alnum

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Alphanumeric Unicode

utf8_is_alpha

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Alphabetic Unicode

utf8_is_decimal

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Decimal Unicode

utf8_is_digit

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Unicode digit

(3)

utf8_is_lower

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Lowercase Unicode

(2)

utf8_is_numeric

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Numeric Unicode

(4)

utf8_is_printable

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Printable Unicode

utf8_is_space

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Whitespace Unicode

utf8_is_upper

Unary

String-like

Boolean

Uppercase Unicode

(2)

  • (1) Also matches all numeric ASCII characters and all ASCII digits.

  • (2) Non-cased characters, such as punctuation, do not match.

  • (3) This is currently the same as utf8_is_decimal.

  • (4) Unlike utf8_is_decimal, non-decimal numeric characters also match.

The second set of functions also consider the character order in a string element:

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Notes

ascii_is_title

Unary

String-like

Boolean

(1)

utf8_is_title

Unary

String-like

Boolean

(1)

  • (1) Output is true iff the input string element is title-cased, i.e. any word starts with an uppercase character, followed by lowercase characters. Word boundaries are defined by non-cased characters.

The third set of functions examines string elements on a byte-per-byte basis:

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Notes

string_is_ascii

Unary

String-like

Boolean

(1)

  • (1) Output is true iff the input string element contains only ASCII characters, i.e. only bytes in [0, 127].

String transforms

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

ascii_capitalize

Unary

String-like

String-like

(1)

ascii_lower

Unary

String-like

String-like

(1)

ascii_reverse

Unary

String-like

String-like

(2)

ascii_swapcase

Unary

String-like

String-like

(1)

ascii_title

Unary

String-like

String-like

(1)

ascii_upper

Unary

String-like

String-like

(1)

binary_length

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Int32 or Int64

(3)

binary_repeat

Binary

Binary/String (Arg 0); Integral (Arg 1)

Binary- or String-like

(4)

binary_replace_slice

Unary

String-like

Binary- or String-like

ReplaceSliceOptions

(5)

binary_reverse

Unary

Binary

Binary

(6)

replace_substring

Unary

String-like

String-like

ReplaceSubstringOptions

(7)

replace_substring_regex

Unary

String-like

String-like

ReplaceSubstringOptions

(8)

utf8_capitalize

Unary

String-like

String-like

(9)

utf8_length

Unary

String-like

Int32 or Int64

(10)

utf8_lower

Unary

String-like

String-like

(9)

utf8_replace_slice

Unary

String-like

String-like

ReplaceSliceOptions

(7)

utf8_reverse

Unary

String-like

String-like

(11)

utf8_swapcase

Unary

String-like

String-like

(9)

utf8_title

Unary

String-like

String-like

(9)

utf8_upper

Unary

String-like

String-like

(9)

  • (1) Each ASCII character in the input is converted to lowercase or uppercase. Non-ASCII characters are left untouched.

  • (2) ASCII input is reversed to the output. If non-ASCII characters are present, Invalid Status will be returned.

  • (3) Output is the physical length in bytes of each input element. Output type is Int32 for Binary/String, Int64 for LargeBinary/LargeString.

  • (4) Repeat the input binary string a given number of times.

  • (5) Replace the slice of the substring from ReplaceSliceOptions::start (inclusive) to ReplaceSliceOptions::stop (exclusive) by ReplaceSubstringOptions::replacement. The binary kernel measures the slice in bytes, while the UTF8 kernel measures the slice in codeunits.

  • (6) Perform a byte-level reverse.

  • (7) Replace non-overlapping substrings that match to ReplaceSubstringOptions::pattern by ReplaceSubstringOptions::replacement. If ReplaceSubstringOptions::max_replacements != -1, it determines the maximum number of replacements made, counting from the left.

  • (8) Replace non-overlapping substrings that match to the regular expression ReplaceSubstringOptions::pattern by ReplaceSubstringOptions::replacement, using the Google RE2 library. If ReplaceSubstringOptions::max_replacements != -1, it determines the maximum number of replacements made, counting from the left. Note that if the pattern contains groups, backreferencing can be used.

  • (9) Each UTF8-encoded character in the input is converted to lowercase or uppercase.

  • (10) Output is the number of characters (not bytes) of each input element. Output type is Int32 for String, Int64 for LargeString.

  • (11) Each UTF8-encoded code unit is written in reverse order to the output. If the input is not valid UTF8, then the output is undefined (but the size of output buffers will be preserved).

String padding

These functions append/prepend a given padding byte (ASCII) or codepoint (UTF8) in order to center (center), right-align (lpad), or left-align (rpad) a string.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

ascii_center

Unary

String-like

String-like

PadOptions

ascii_lpad

Unary

String-like

String-like

PadOptions

ascii_rpad

Unary

String-like

String-like

PadOptions

utf8_center

Unary

String-like

String-like

PadOptions

utf8_lpad

Unary

String-like

String-like

PadOptions

utf8_rpad

Unary

String-like

String-like

PadOptions

String trimming

These functions trim off characters on both sides (trim), or the left (ltrim) or right side (rtrim).

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

ascii_ltrim

Unary

String-like

String-like

TrimOptions

(1)

ascii_ltrim_whitespace

Unary

String-like

String-like

(2)

ascii_rtrim

Unary

String-like

String-like

TrimOptions

(1)

ascii_rtrim_whitespace

Unary

String-like

String-like

(2)

ascii_trim

Unary

String-like

String-like

TrimOptions

(1)

ascii_trim_whitespace

Unary

String-like

String-like

(2)

utf8_ltrim

Unary

String-like

String-like

TrimOptions

(3)

utf8_ltrim_whitespace

Unary

String-like

String-like

(4)

utf8_rtrim

Unary

String-like

String-like

TrimOptions

(3)

utf8_rtrim_whitespace

Unary

String-like

String-like

(4)

utf8_trim

Unary

String-like

String-like

TrimOptions

(3)

utf8_trim_whitespace

Unary

String-like

String-like

(4)

  • (1) Only characters specified in TrimOptions::characters will be trimmed off. Both the input string and the characters argument are interpreted as ASCII characters.

  • (2) Only trim off ASCII whitespace characters ('\t', '\n', '\v', '\f', '\r' and ' ').

  • (3) Only characters specified in TrimOptions::characters will be trimmed off.

  • (4) Only trim off Unicode whitespace characters.

String splitting

These functions split strings into lists of strings. All kernels can optionally be configured with a max_splits and a reverse parameter, where max_splits == -1 means no limit (the default). When reverse is true, the splitting is done starting from the end of the string; this is only relevant when a positive max_splits is given.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

ascii_split_whitespace

Unary

String-like

List-like

SplitOptions

(1)

split_pattern

Unary

Binary- or String-like

List-like

SplitPatternOptions

(2)

split_pattern_regex

Unary

Binary- or String-like

List-like

SplitPatternOptions

(3)

utf8_split_whitespace

Unary

String-like

List-like

SplitOptions

(4)

  • (1) A non-zero length sequence of ASCII defined whitespace bytes ('\t', '\n', '\v', '\f', '\r' and ' ') is seen as separator.

  • (2) The string is split when an exact pattern is found (the pattern itself is not included in the output).

  • (3) The string is split when a regex match is found (the matched substring itself is not included in the output).

  • (4) A non-zero length sequence of Unicode defined whitespace codepoints is seen as separator.

String component extraction

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

extract_regex

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Struct

ExtractRegexOptions

(1)

  • (1) Extract substrings defined by a regular expression using the Google RE2 library. The output struct field names refer to the named capture groups, e.g. ‘letter’ and ‘digit’ for the regular expression (?P<letter>[ab])(?P<digit>\\d).

String joining

These functions do the inverse of string splitting.

Function name

Arity

Input type 1

Input type 2

Output type

Options class

Notes

binary_join

Binary

List of Binary- or String-like

String-like

String-like

(1)

binary_join_element_wise

Varargs

Binary- or String-like (varargs)

Binary- or String-like

Binary- or String-like

JoinOptions

(2)

  • (1) The first input must be an array, while the second can be a scalar or array. Each list of values in the first input is joined using each second input as separator. If any input list is null or contains a null, the corresponding output will be null.

  • (2) All arguments are concatenated element-wise, with the last argument treated as the separator (scalars are recycled in either case). Null separators emit null. If any other argument is null, by default the corresponding output will be null, but it can instead either be skipped or replaced with a given string.

String Slicing

This function transforms each sequence of the array to a subsequence, according to start and stop indices, and a non-zero step (defaulting to 1). Slicing semantics follow Python slicing semantics: the start index is inclusive, the stop index exclusive; if the step is negative, the sequence is followed in reverse order.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

binary_slice

Unary

Binary-like

Binary-like

SliceOptions

(1)

utf8_slice_codeunits

Unary

String-like

String-like

SliceOptions

(2)

  • (1) Slice string into a substring defined by (start, stop, step) as given by SliceOptions where start and stop are measured in bytes. Null inputs emit null.

  • (2) Slice string into a substring defined by (start, stop, step) as given by SliceOptions where start and stop are measured in codeunits. Null inputs emit null.

Containment tests

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

count_substring

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Int32 or Int64

MatchSubstringOptions

(1)

count_substring_regex

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Int32 or Int64

MatchSubstringOptions

(1)

ends_with

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Boolean

MatchSubstringOptions

(2)

find_substring

Unary

Binary- and String-like

Int32 or Int64

MatchSubstringOptions

(3)

find_substring_regex

Unary

Binary- and String-like

Int32 or Int64

MatchSubstringOptions

(3)

index_in

Unary

Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Int32

SetLookupOptions

(4)

is_in

Unary

Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Boolean

SetLookupOptions

(5)

match_like

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Boolean

MatchSubstringOptions

(6)

match_substring

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Boolean

MatchSubstringOptions

(7)

match_substring_regex

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Boolean

MatchSubstringOptions

(8)

starts_with

Unary

Binary- or String-like

Boolean

MatchSubstringOptions

(2)

  • (1) Output is the number of occurrences of MatchSubstringOptions::pattern in the corresponding input string. Output type is Int32 for Binary/String, Int64 for LargeBinary/LargeString.

  • (2) Output is true iff MatchSubstringOptions::pattern is a suffix/prefix of the corresponding input.

  • (3) Output is the index of the first occurrence of MatchSubstringOptions::pattern in the corresponding input string, otherwise -1. Output type is Int32 for Binary/String, Int64 for LargeBinary/LargeString.

  • (4) Output is the index of the corresponding input element in SetLookupOptions::value_set, if found there. Otherwise, output is null.

  • (5) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is equal to one of the elements in SetLookupOptions::value_set.

  • (6) Output is true iff the SQL-style LIKE pattern MatchSubstringOptions::pattern fully matches the corresponding input element. That is, % will match any number of characters, _ will match exactly one character, and any other character matches itself. To match a literal percent sign or underscore, precede the character with a backslash.

  • (7) Output is true iff MatchSubstringOptions::pattern is a substring of the corresponding input element.

  • (8) Output is true iff MatchSubstringOptions::pattern matches the corresponding input element at any position.

Categorizations

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

is_finite

Unary

Null, Numeric

Boolean

(1)

is_inf

Unary

Null, Numeric

Boolean

(2)

is_nan

Unary

Null, Numeric

Boolean

(3)

is_null

Unary

Any

Boolean

NullOptions

(4)

is_valid

Unary

Any

Boolean

(5)

true_unless_null

Unary

Any

Boolean

(6)

  • (1) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is finite (neither Infinity, -Infinity, nor NaN). Hence, for Decimal and integer inputs this always returns true.

  • (2) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is Infinity/-Infinity. Hence, for Decimal and integer inputs this always returns false.

  • (3) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is NaN. Hence, for Decimal and integer inputs this always returns false.

  • (4) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is null. NaN values can also be considered null by setting NullOptions::nan_is_null.

  • (5) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is non-null, else false.

  • (6) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is non-null, else null.

    Mostly intended for expression simplification/guarantees.

Selecting / multiplexing

For each “row” of input values, these functions emit one of the input values, depending on a condition.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Notes

case_when

Varargs

Struct of Boolean (Arg 0), Any (rest)

Input type

(1)

choose

Varargs

Integral (Arg 0), Fixed-width/Binary-like (rest)

Input type

(2)

coalesce

Varargs

Any

Input type

(3)

if_else

Ternary

Boolean (Arg 0), Any (rest)

Input type

(4)

  • (1) This function acts like a SQL “case when” statement or switch-case. The input is a “condition” value, which is a struct of Booleans, followed by the values for each “branch”. There must be either exactly one value argument for each child of the condition struct, or one more value argument than children (in which case we have an “else” or “default” value). The output is of the same type as the value inputs; each row will be the corresponding value from the first value datum for which the corresponding Boolean is true, or the corresponding value from the “default” input, or null otherwise.

    Note that currently, while all types are supported, dictionaries will be unpacked.

  • (2) The first input must be an integral type. The rest of the arguments can be any type, but must all be the same type or promotable to a common type. Each value of the first input (the ‘index’) is used as a zero-based index into the remaining arguments (i.e. index 0 is the second argument, index 1 is the third argument, etc.), and the value of the output for that row will be the corresponding value of the selected input at that row. If the index is null, then the output will also be null.

  • (3) Each row of the output will be the corresponding value of the first input which is non-null for that row, otherwise null.

  • (4) First input must be a Boolean scalar or array. Second and third inputs could be scalars or arrays and must be of the same type. Output is an array (or scalar if all inputs are scalar) of the same type as the second/ third input. If the nulls present on the first input, they will be promoted to the output, otherwise nulls will be chosen based on the first input values.

    Also see: replace_with_mask.

Structural transforms

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

list_value_length

Unary

List-like

Int32 or Int64

(1)

make_struct

Varargs

Any

Struct

MakeStructOptions

(2)

  • (1) Each output element is the length of the corresponding input element (null if input is null). Output type is Int32 for List and FixedSizeList, Int64 for LargeList.

  • (2) The output struct’s field types are the types of its arguments. The field names are specified using an instance of MakeStructOptions. The output shape will be scalar if all inputs are scalar, otherwise any scalars will be broadcast to arrays.

Conversions

A general conversion function named cast is provided which accepts a large number of input and output types. The type to cast to can be passed in a CastOptions instance. As an alternative, the same service is provided by a concrete function Cast().

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

ceil_temporal

Unary

Temporal

Temporal

RoundTemporalOptions

floor_temporal

Unary

Temporal

Temporal

RoundTemporalOptions

round_temporal

Unary

Temporal

Temporal

RoundTemporalOptions

cast

Unary

Many

Variable

CastOptions

strftime

Unary

Temporal

String

StrftimeOptions

(1)

strptime

Unary

String-like

Timestamp

StrptimeOptions

The conversions available with cast are listed below. In all cases, a null input value is converted into a null output value.

  • (1) Output precision of %S (seconds) flag depends on the input timestamp precision. Timestamps with second precision are represented as integers while milliseconds, microsecond and nanoseconds are represented as fixed floating point numbers with 3, 6 and 9 decimal places respectively. To obtain integer seconds, cast to timestamp with second resolution. The character for the decimal point is localized according to the locale. See detailed formatting documentation for descriptions of other flags.

Truth value extraction

Input type

Output type

Notes

Binary- and String-like

Boolean

(1)

Numeric

Boolean

(2)

  • (1) Output is true iff the corresponding input value has non-zero length.

  • (2) Output is true iff the corresponding input value is non-zero.

Same-kind conversion

Input type

Output type

Notes

Int32

32-bit Temporal

(1)

Int64

64-bit Temporal

(1)

(Large)Binary

(Large)String

(2)

(Large)String

(Large)Binary

(3)

Numeric

Numeric

(4) (5)

32-bit Temporal

Int32

(1)

64-bit Temporal

Int64

(1)

Temporal

Temporal

(4) (5)

  • (1) No-operation cast: the raw values are kept identical, only the type is changed.

  • (2) Validates the contents if CastOptions::allow_invalid_utf8 is false.

  • (3) No-operation cast: only the type is changed.

  • (4) Overflow and truncation checks are enabled depending on the given CastOptions.

  • (5) Not all such casts have been implemented.

String representations

Input type

Output type

Notes

Boolean

String-like

Numeric

String-like

Generic conversions

Input type

Output type

Notes

Dictionary

Dictionary value type

(1)

Extension

Extension storage type

Struct

Struct

(2)

List-like

List-like

(3)

Map

Map or List of two-field struct

(4)

Null

Any

Any

Extension

(5)

  • (1) The dictionary indices are unchanged, the dictionary values are cast from the input value type to the output value type (if a conversion is available).

  • (2) The field names of the output type must be the same or a subset of the field names of the input type; they also must have the same order. Casting to a subset of field names “selects” those fields such that each output field matches the data of the input field with the same name.

  • (3) The list offsets are unchanged, the list values are cast from the input value type to the output value type (if a conversion is available).

  • (4) Offsets are unchanged, the keys and values are cast from respective input to output types (if a conversion is available). If output type is a list of struct, the key field is output as the first field and the value field the second field, regardless of field names chosen.

  • (5) Any input type that can be cast to the resulting extension’s storage type. This excludes extension types, unless being cast to the same extension type.

Temporal component extraction

These functions extract datetime components (year, month, day, etc) from temporal types. For timestamps inputs with non-empty timezone, localized timestamp components will be returned.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

day

Unary

Temporal

Int64

day_of_week

Unary

Temporal

Int64

DayOfWeekOptions

(1)

day_of_year

Unary

Temporal

Int64

hour

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Int64

is_dst

Unary

Timestamp

Boolean

iso_week

Unary

Temporal

Int64

(2)

iso_year

Unary

Temporal

Int64

(2)

iso_calendar

Unary

Temporal

Struct

(3)

is_leap_year

Unary

Timestamp, Date

Boolean

microsecond

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Int64

millisecond

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Int64

minute

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Int64

month

Unary

Temporal

Int64

nanosecond

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Int64

quarter

Unary

Temporal

Int64

second

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Int64

subsecond

Unary

Timestamp, Time

Float64

us_week

Unary

Temporal

Int64

(4)

us_year

Unary

Temporal

Int64

(4)

week

Unary

Timestamp

Int64

WeekOptions

(5)

year

Unary

Temporal

Int64

year_month_day

Unary

Temporal

Struct

(6)

  • (1) Outputs the number of the day of the week. By default week begins on Monday represented by 0 and ends on Sunday represented by 6. Day numbering can start with 0 or 1 based on DayOfWeekOptions::count_from_zero parameter. DayOfWeekOptions::week_start can be used to set the starting day of the week using ISO convention (Monday=1, Sunday=7). DayOfWeekOptions::week_start parameter is not affected by DayOfWeekOptions::count_from_zero.

  • (2) First ISO week has the majority (4 or more) of it’s days in January. ISO year starts with the first ISO week. ISO week starts on Monday. See ISO 8601 week date definition for more details.

  • (3) Output is a {"iso_year": output type, "iso_week": output type, "iso_day_of_week":  output type} Struct.

  • (4) First US week has the majority (4 or more) of its days in January. US year starts with the first US week. US week starts on Sunday.

  • (5) Returns week number allowing for setting several parameters. If WeekOptions::week_starts_monday is true, the week starts with Monday, else Sunday if false. If WeekOptions::count_from_zero is true, dates from the current year that fall into the last ISO week of the previous year are numbered as week 0, else week 52 or 53 if false. If WeekOptions::first_week_is_fully_in_year is true, the first week (week 1) must fully be in January; else if false, a week that begins on December 29, 30, or 31 is considered the first week of the new year.

  • (6) Output is a {"year": int64(), "month": int64(), "day": int64()} Struct.

Temporal difference

These functions compute the difference between two timestamps in the specified unit. The difference is determined by the number of boundaries crossed, not the span of time. For example, the difference in days between 23:59:59 on one day and 00:00:01 on the next day is one day (since midnight was crossed), not zero days (even though less than 24 hours elapsed). Additionally, if the timestamp has a defined timezone, the difference is calculated in the local timezone. For instance, the difference in years between “2019-12-31 18:00:00-0500” and “2019-12-31 23:00:00-0500” is zero years, because the local year is the same, even though the UTC years would be different.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

day_time_interval_between

Binary

Temporal

DayTime interval

days_between

Binary

Timestamp, Date

Int64

hours_between

Binary

Temporal

Int64

microseconds_between

Binary

Temporal

Int64

milliseconds_between

Binary

Temporal

Int64

minutes_between

Binary

Temporal

Int64

month_day_nano_interval_between

Binary

Temporal

MonthDayNano interval

month_interval_between

Binary

Timestamp, Date

Month interval

nanoseconds_between

Binary

Temporal

Int64

quarters_between

Binary

Timestamp, Date

Int64

seconds_between

Binary

Temporal

Int64

weeks_between

Binary

Timestamp, Date

Int64

DayOfWeekOptions

years_between

Binary

Timestamp, Date

Int64

Timezone handling

assume_timezone function is meant to be used when an external system produces “timezone-naive” timestamps which need to be converted to “timezone-aware” timestamps (see for example the definition in the Python documentation).

Input timestamps are assumed to be relative to the timezone given in AssumeTimezoneOptions::timezone. They are converted to UTC-relative timestamps with the timezone metadata set to the above value. An error is returned if the timestamps already have the timezone metadata set.

local_timestamp function converts UTC-relative timestamps to local “timezone-naive” timestamps. The timezone is taken from the timezone metadata of the input timestamps. This function is the inverse of assume_timezone. Please note: all temporal functions already operate on timestamps as if they were in local time of the metadata provided timezone. Using local_timestamp is only meant to be used when an external system expects local timestamps.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

assume_timezone

Unary

Timestamp

Timestamp

AssumeTimezoneOptions

(1)

local_timestamp

Unary

Timestamp

Timestamp

(2)

  • (1) In addition to the timezone value, AssumeTimezoneOptions allows choosing the behaviour when a timestamp is ambiguous or nonexistent in the given timezone (because of DST shifts).

Random number generation

This function generates an array of uniformly-distributed double-precision numbers in range [0, 1). The options provide the length of the output and the algorithm for generating the random numbers, using either a seed or a system-provided, platform-specific random generator.

Function name

Arity

Output type

Options class

random

Nullary

Float64

RandomOptions

Array-wise (“vector”) functions

Cumulative Functions

Cumulative functions are vector functions that perform a running accumulation on their input using a given binary associative operation with an identidy element (a monoid) and output an array containing the corresponding intermediate running values. The input is expected to be of numeric type. By default these functions do not detect overflow. They are alsoavailable in an overflow-checking variant, suffixed _checked, which returns an Invalid Status when overflow is detected.

  • (1) CumulativeOptions has two optional parameters. The first parameter CumulativeOptions::start is a starting value for the running accumulation. It has a default value of 0 for sum, 1 for prod, min of input type for max, and max of input type for min. Specified values of start must be castable to the input type. The second parameter CumulativeOptions::skip_nulls is a boolean. When set to false (the default), the first encountered null is propagated. When set to true, each null in the input produces a corresponding null in the output and doesn’t affect the accumulation forward.

Associative transforms

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Notes

dictionary_encode

Unary

Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Dictionary

(1)

unique

Unary

Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Input type

(2)

value_counts

Unary

Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

Input type

(3)

  • (1) Output is Dictionary(Int32, input type).

  • (2) Duplicates are removed from the output while the original order is maintained.

  • (3) Output is a {"values": input type, "counts": Int64} Struct. Each output element corresponds to a unique value in the input, along with the number of times this value has appeared.

Selections

These functions select and return a subset of their input.

Function name

Arity

Input type 1

Input type 2

Output type

Options class

Notes

array_filter

Binary

Any

Boolean

Input type 1

FilterOptions

(1) (3)

array_take

Binary

Any

Integer

Input type 1

TakeOptions

(1) (4)

drop_null

Unary

Any

Input type 1

(1) (2)

filter

Binary

Any

Boolean

Input type 1

FilterOptions

(1) (3)

take

Binary

Any

Integer

Input type 1

TakeOptions

(1) (4)

  • (1) Sparse unions are unsupported.

  • (2) Each element in the input is appended to the output iff it is non-null. If the input is a record batch or table, any null value in a column drops the entire row.

  • (3) Each element in input 1 (the values) is appended to the output iff the corresponding element in input 2 (the filter) is true. How nulls in the filter are handled can be configured using FilterOptions.

  • (4) For each element i in input 2 (the indices), the i’th element in input 1 (the values) is appended to the output.

Containment tests

This function returns the indices at which array elements are non-null and non-zero.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

indices_nonzero

Unary

Boolean, Null, Numeric, Decimal

UInt64

Sorts and partitions

By default, in these functions, nulls are considered greater than any other value (they will be sorted or partitioned at the end of the array). Floating-point NaN values are considered greater than any other non-null value, but smaller than nulls. This behaviour can be changed using the null_placement setting in the respective option classes.

Note

Binary- and String-like inputs are ordered lexicographically as bytestrings, even for String types.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

array_sort_indices

Unary

Boolean, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

UInt64

ArraySortOptions

(1) (2)

partition_nth_indices

Unary

Boolean, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

UInt64

PartitionNthOptions

(3)

rank

Unary

Boolean, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

UInt64

RankOptions

(4)

select_k_unstable

Unary

Boolean, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

UInt64

SelectKOptions

(5) (6)

sort_indices

Unary

Boolean, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like

UInt64

SortOptions

(1) (5)

  • (1) The output is an array of indices into the input, that define a stable sort of the input.

  • (2) The input must be an array. The default order is ascending.

  • (3) The output is an array of indices into the input array, that define a partial non-stable sort such that the N’th index points to the N’th element in sorted order, and all indices before the N’th point to elements less or equal to elements at or after the N’th (similar to std::nth_element()). N is given in PartitionNthOptions::pivot.

  • (4) The output is a one-based numerical array of ranks

  • (5) The input can be an array, chunked array, record batch or table. If the input is a record batch or table, one or more sort keys must be specified.

  • (6) The output is an array of indices into the input, that define a non-stable sort of the input.

Structural transforms

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

list_element

Binary

List-like (Arg 0), Integral (Arg 1)

List value type

(1)

list_flatten

Unary

List-like

List value type

(2)

list_parent_indices

Unary

List-like

Int64

(3)

list_slice

Unary

List-like

List-like

ListSliceOptions

(4)

map_lookup

Unary

Map

Computed

MapLookupOptions

(5)

struct_field

Unary

Struct or Union

Computed

StructFieldOptions

(6)

  • (1) Output is an array of the same length as the input list array. The output values are the values at the specified index of each child list.

  • (2) The top level of nesting is removed: all values in the list child array, including nulls, are appended to the output. However, nulls in the parent list array are discarded.

  • (3) For each value in the list child array, the index at which it is found in the list array is appended to the output. Nulls in the parent list array are discarded.

  • (4) For each list element, compute the slice of that list element, then return another list-like array of those slices. Can return either a fixed or variable size list-like array, as determined by options provided.

  • (5) Extract either the FIRST, LAST or ALL items from a map whose key match the given query key passed via options. The output type is an Array of items for the FIRST/LAST options and an Array of List of items for the ALL option.

  • (6) Extract a child value based on a sequence of indices passed in the options. The validity bitmap of the result will be the intersection of all intermediate validity bitmaps. For example, for an array with type struct<a: int32, b: struct<c: int64, d: float64>>:

    • An empty sequence of indices yields the original value unchanged.

    • The index 0 yields an array of type int32 whose validity bitmap is the intersection of the bitmap for the outermost struct and the bitmap for the child a.

    • The index 1, 1 yields an array of type float64 whose validity bitmap is the intersection of the bitmaps for the outermost struct, for struct b, and for the child d.

    For unions, a validity bitmap is synthesized based on the type codes. Also, the index is always the child index and not a type code. Hence for array with type sparse_union<2: int32, 7: utf8>:

    • The index 0 yields an array of type int32, which is valid at an index n if and only if the child array a is valid at index n and the type code at index n is 2.

    • The indices 2 and 7 are invalid.

These functions create a copy of the first input with some elements replaced, based on the remaining inputs.

Function name

Arity

Input type 1

Input type 2

Input type 3

Output type

Notes

fill_null_backward

Unary

Fixed-width or binary

N/A

N/A

N/A

(1)

fill_null_forward

Unary

Fixed-width or binary

N/A

N/A

N/A

(1)

replace_with_mask

Ternary

Fixed-width or binary

Boolean

Input type 1

Input type 1

(2)

  • (1) Valid values are carried forward/backward to fill null values.

  • (2) Each element in input 1 for which the corresponding Boolean in input 2 is true is replaced with the next value from input 3. A null in input 2 results in a corresponding null in the output.

    Also see: if_else.

Pairwise functions

Pairwise functions are unary vector functions that perform a binary operation on a pair of elements in the input array, typically on adjacent elements. The n-th output is computed by applying the binary operation to the n-th and (n-p)-th inputs, where p is the period. The default period is 1, in which case the binary operation is applied to adjacent pairs of inputs. The period can also be negative, in which case the n-th output is computed by applying the binary operation to the n-th and (n+abs(p))-th inputs.

Function name

Arity

Input types

Output type

Options class

Notes

pairwise_diff

Unary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

PairwiseOptions

(1)(2)

pairwise_diff_checked

Unary

Numeric/Temporal

Numeric/Temporal

PairwiseOptions

(1)(3)

  • (1) Computes the first order difference of an array, It internally calls the scalar function Subtract (or the checked variant) to compute differences, so its behavior and supported types are the same as Subtract. The period can be specified in PairwiseOptions.

  • (2) Wraps around the result when overflow is detected.

  • (3) Returns an Invalid Status when overflow is detected.