Compute Functions

The generic Compute API

Functions and function registry

Functions represent logical 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 either. For example, the fill_null function requires its second input to be a scalar, while sort_indices requires its first and only input to be an array.

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).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).array();

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

MinMaxOptions options;
options.null_handling = MinMaxOptions::OUTPUT_NULL;

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

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

// Unpack struct scalar result (a two-field {"min", "max"} scalar)
const auto& min_max_scalar = \
      static_cast<const arrow::StructScalar&>(*min_max_datum.scalar());
const auto min_value = min_max_scalar.value[0];
const auto max_value = min_max_scalar.value[1];

See also

Compute API reference

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 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.

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

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type	Options class
count	Unary	Any	Scalar Int64	CountOptions
mean	Unary	Numeric	Scalar Float64
min_max	Unary	Numeric	Scalar Struct (1)	MinMaxOptions
mode	Unary	Numeric	Scalar Struct (2)
sum	Unary	Numeric	Scalar Numeric (3)

Notes:

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

• (2) Output is a {"mode": input type, "count": Int64} Struct

• (3) Output is Int64, UInt64 or Float64, depending on the input type

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 two inputs of the same type and apply a given binary operation to each pair of elements gathered from the inputs. If any of the input elements in a pair is null, the corresponding output element is null.

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

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type
add	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
add_checked	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
divide	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
divide_checked	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
multiply	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
multiply_checked	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
subtract	Binary	Numeric	Numeric
subtract_checked	Binary	Numeric	Numeric

Comparisons

Those functions expect two inputs of the same type and apply a given comparison operator. If any of the input elements in a pair is null, the corresponding output element is null.

Function names	Arity	Input types	Output type
equal, not_equal	Binary	Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like	Boolean
greater, greater_equal, less, less_equal	Binary	Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like	Boolean

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
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
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	Notes
ascii_lower	Unary	String-like	String-like	(1)
ascii_upper	Unary	String-like	String-like	(1)
binary_length	Unary	Binary- or String-like	Int32 or Int64	(2)
utf8_lower	Unary	String-like	String-like	(3)
utf8_upper	Unary	String-like	String-like	(3)

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

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

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

Containment tests

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type	Options class
match_substring	Unary	String-like	Boolean (1)	MatchSubstringOptions
index_in	Unary	Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like	Int32 (2)	SetLookupOptions
is_in	Unary	Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal, Binary- and String-like	Boolean (3)	SetLookupOptions

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

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

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

Structural transforms

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type	Notes
fill_null	Binary	Boolean, Null, Numeric, Temporal	Boolean	(1)
is_null	Unary	Any	Boolean	(2)
is_valid	Unary	Any	Boolean	(2)
list_value_length	Unary	List-like	Int32 or Int64	(4)

• (1) First input must be an array, second input a scalar of the same type. Output is an array of the same type as the inputs, and with the same values as the first input, except for nulls replaced with the second input value.

• (2) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is non-null.

• (3) Output is true iff the corresponding input element is null.

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

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
cast	Unary	Many	Variable	CastOptions
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.

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
List-like	List-like	(2)
Null	Any

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

Array-wise (“vector”) functions

Associative transforms

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type
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 a subset of the first input defined by the second input.

Function name	Arity	Input type 1	Input type 2	Output type	Options class	Notes
filter	Binary	Any (1)	Boolean	Input type 1	FilterOptions	(2)
take	Binary	Any (1)	Integer	Input type 1	TakeOptions	(3)

• (1) Unions are unsupported.

• (2) Each element in input 1 is appended to the output iff the corresponding element in input 2 is true.

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

Sorts and partitions

In these functions, nulls are considered greater than any other value (they will be sorted or partitioned at the end of the array).

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type	Options class	Notes
partition_nth_indices	Unary	Binary- and String-like	UInt64	PartitionNthOptions	(1) (3)
partition_nth_indices	Unary	Numeric	UInt64	PartitionNthOptions	(1)
sort_indices	Unary	Binary- and String-like	UInt64		(2) (3)
sort_indices	Unary	Numeric	UInt64		(2)

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

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

• (3) Input values are ordered lexicographically as bytestrings (even for String arrays).

Structural transforms

Function name	Arity	Input types	Output type	Notes
list_flatten	Unary	List-like	List value type	(1)
list_parent_indices	Unary	List-like	Int32 or Int64	(2)

• (1) 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.

• (2) 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.