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Posted to dev@arrow.apache.org by "Gabriel Becker (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org> on 2018/09/18 17:30:00 UTC

[jira] [Created] (ARROW-3263) Use R sentinel values for missingness in addition to bitmask

Gabriel Becker created ARROW-3263:
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             Summary: Use R sentinel values for missingness in addition to bitmask
                 Key: ARROW-3263
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-3263
             Project: Apache Arrow
          Issue Type: Improvement
          Components: Format
            Reporter: Gabriel Becker


R uses sentinal values to indicate missingness within Atomic vectors (read arrays in Arrow parlance, AFAIK). 

Currently according to [~wesmckinn], the current value in the array in memory is undefined if the bitmap indicating missingness is set to 1. 

This will force R to copy and modify data whenever adopting Arrow data which has missingness present as a native vector.

If the value were written to the relevant sentinal values (INT_MIN for 32 bit integers, and NaN with payload 1954 for double precision floats) _in addition to_ the bit mask, then R would be able to use Arrow as intended while not breaking any other systems.



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