Using Arrow C++ in your own project¶

This section assumes you already have the Arrow C++ libraries on your system, either after installing them using a package manager or after building them yourself.

The recommended way to integrate the Arrow C++ libraries in your own C++ project is to use CMake’s find_package function for locating and integrating dependencies. If you don’t use CMake as a build system, you can use pkg-config to find installed the Arrow C++ libraries.

CMake¶

Basic usage¶

This minimal CMakeLists.txt file compiles a my_example.cc source file into an executable linked with the Arrow C++ shared library:

project(MyExample)

find_package(Arrow REQUIRED)

add_executable(my_example my_example.cc)
target_link_libraries(my_example PRIVATE arrow_shared)

Available variables and targets¶

The directive find_package(Arrow REQUIRED) asks CMake to find an Arrow C++ installation on your system. When it returns, it will have set a few CMake variables:

${Arrow_FOUND} is true if the Arrow C++ libraries have been found
${ARROW_VERSION} contains the Arrow version string
${ARROW_FULL_SO_VERSION} contains the Arrow DLL version string

In addition, it will have created some targets that you can link against (note these are plain strings, not variables):

arrow_shared links to the Arrow shared libraries
arrow_static links to the Arrow static libraries

In most cases, it is recommended to use the Arrow shared libraries.

Note

CMake is case-sensitive. The names and variables listed above have to be spelt exactly that way!

pkg-config¶

Basic usage¶

You can get suitable build flags by the following command line:

pkg-config --cflags --libs arrow

If you want to link the Arrow C++ static library, you need to add --static option:

pkg-config --cflags --libs --static arrow

This minimal Makefile file compiles a my_example.cc source file into an executable linked with the Arrow C++ shared library:

my_example: my_example.cc
     $(CXX) -o $@ $(CXXFLAGS) $< $$(pkg-config --cflags --libs arrow)

Many build systems support pkg-config. For example:

GNU Autotools

CMake (But you should use find_package(Arrow) instead.)

Meson

Available packages¶

The Arrow C++ provides a pkg-config package for each module. Here are all available packages:

arrow-csv

arrow-cuda

arrow-dataset

arrow-filesystem

arrow-flight-testing

arrow-flight

arrow-json

arrow-orc

arrow-python-flight

arrow-python

arrow-tensorflow

arrow-testing

arrow

gandiva

parquet

plasma

Conventions

Memory Management