Extension types — new_extension_type • Arrow R Package

Extension arrays are wrappers around regular Arrow Array objects that provide some customized behaviour and/or storage. A common use-case for extension types is to define a customized conversion between an an Arrow Array and an R object when the default conversion is slow or looses metadata important to the interpretation of values in the array. For most types, the built-in vctrs extension type is probably sufficient.

new_extension_type(
  storage_type,
  extension_name,
  extension_metadata = raw(),
  type_class = ExtensionType
)

new_extension_array(storage_array, extension_type)

register_extension_type(extension_type)

reregister_extension_type(extension_type)

unregister_extension_type(extension_name)

Arguments

storage_type: The data type of the underlying storage array.
extension_name: The extension name. This should be namespaced using "dot" syntax (i.e., "some_package.some_type"). The namespace "arrow" is reserved for extension types defined by the Apache Arrow libraries.
extension_metadata: A raw() or character() vector containing the serialized version of the type. Chatacter vectors must be length 1 and are converted to UTF-8 before converting to raw().
type_class: An R6::R6Class whose $new() class method will be used to construct a new instance of the type.
storage_array: An Array object of the underlying storage.
extension_type: An ExtensionType instance.

Value

new_extension_type() returns an ExtensionType instance according to the type_class specified.
new_extension_array() returns an ExtensionArray whose $type corresponds to extension_type.
register_extension_type(), unregister_extension_type() and reregister_extension_type() return NULL, invisibly.

Details

These functions create, register, and unregister ExtensionType and ExtensionArray objects. To use an extension type you will have to:

Define an R6::R6Class that inherits from ExtensionType and reimplement one or more methods (e.g., deserialize_instance()).
Make a type constructor function (e.g., my_extension_type()) that calls new_extension_type() to create an R6 instance that can be used as a data type elsewhere in the package.
Make an array constructor function (e.g., my_extension_array()) that calls new_extension_array() to create an Array instance of your extension type.
Register a dummy instance of your extension type created using you constructor function using register_extension_type().

If defining an extension type in an R package, you will probably want to use reregister_extension_type() in that package's .onLoad() hook since your package will probably get reloaded in the same R session during its development and register_extension_type() will error if called twice for the same extension_name. For an example of an extension type that uses most of these features, see vctrs_extension_type().

Examples

# Create the R6 type whose methods control how Array objects are
# converted to R objects, how equality between types is computed,
# and how types are printed.
QuantizedType <- R6::R6Class(
  "QuantizedType",
  inherit = ExtensionType,
  public = list(
    # methods to access the custom metadata fields
    center = function() private$.center,
    scale = function() private$.scale,

    # called when an Array of this type is converted to an R vector
    as_vector = function(extension_array) {
      if (inherits(extension_array, "ExtensionArray")) {
        unquantized_arrow <-
          (extension_array$storage()$cast(float64()) / private$.scale) +
          private$.center

        as.vector(unquantized_arrow)
      } else {
        super$as_vector(extension_array)
      }
    },

    # populate the custom metadata fields from the serialized metadata
    deserialize_instance = function() {
      vals <- as.numeric(strsplit(self$extension_metadata_utf8(), ";")[[1]])
      private$.center <- vals[1]
      private$.scale <- vals[2]
    }
  ),

  private = list(
    .center = NULL,
    .scale = NULL
  )
)

# Create a helper type constructor that calls new_extension_type()
quantized <- function(center = 0, scale = 1, storage_type = int32()) {
  new_extension_type(
    storage_type = storage_type,
    extension_name = "arrow.example.quantized",
    extension_metadata = paste(center, scale, sep = ";"),
    type_class = QuantizedType
  )
}

# Create a helper array constructor that calls new_extension_array()
quantized_array <- function(x, center = 0, scale = 1,
                            storage_type = int32()) {
  type <- quantized(center, scale, storage_type)
  new_extension_array(
    Array$create((x - center) * scale, type = storage_type),
    type
  )
}

# Register the extension type so that Arrow knows what to do when
# it encounters this extension type
reregister_extension_type(quantized())

# Create Array objects and use them!
(vals <- runif(5, min = 19, max = 21))
#> [1] 20.01988 20.64402 20.15925 20.91820 19.35148

(array <- quantized_array(
  vals,
  center = 20,
  scale = 2 ^ 15 - 1,
  storage_type = int16())
)
#> ExtensionArray
#> <QuantizedType <20;32767>>
#> [
#>   651,
#>   21102,
#>   5218,
#>   30086,
#>   -21250
#> ]

array$type$center()
#> [1] 20
array$type$scale()
#> [1] 32767

as.vector(array)
#> [1] 20.01987 20.64400 20.15925 20.91818 19.35148