[jira] [Created] (ARROW-14804) [R] import_from_c() / export_to_c() methods should accept external pointers

["Dewey Dunnington (Jira)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Dewey Dunnington created ARROW-14804:
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             Summary: [R] import_from_c() / export_to_c() methods should accept external pointers
                 Key: ARROW-14804
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-14804
             Project: Apache Arrow
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: R
            Reporter: Dewey Dunnington


The import and export to C methods for Field, Shema, DataType, Array, RecordBatch, and RecordBatchReader all require the pointer to be passed as a {{double}} (casted from {{uintptr_t}} casted from {{*}}. I imagine there's good reason for this path to exist; however, the R externalptr type and 64-bit integer are more natural types and I think it would not be hard to allow pointers to be passed in this way. A [short discussion|https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/11679#discussion_r755178800] of this occurred when updating the Python docs on how to pass Array pointers to R.

The implementation lives in [arrow_cpp11.h|https://github.com/apache/arrow/blob/eb2fa2df6dedf2743047df9dd19d7ed4f4482c22/r/src/arrow_cpp11.h#L49-L54] and it seems like it would be easy to allow a user to pass something more R-like while still keeping the double route open for the packages that need it.



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