[GitHub] [arrow] edponce commented on pull request #11882: ARROW-9843: [C++] Implement Between ternary kernel

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edponce commented on pull request #11882:
URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/11882#issuecomment-1002956781


   I have the following observation to make wrt to the API for this `between` compute function. The purpose of `between` is to support range comparisons similar to [SQL `BETWEEN`](https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_between.asp) and [pandas `between`](https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/reference/api/pandas.Series.between.html#pandas-series-between). These APIs are different from this PR's implementation, but the behavior is equivalent. Nevertheless, I suggest either of the following:
   1. Implement `between` compute function not as a _logical compare_ function but as an independent function that takes 3 inputs and an option for declaring bounds-inclusiveness. Similar to the Pandas API.
   2. Implement `between` as an extension to the _logical compare_ functions. Now there are two ways to go about this:
     a. As this PR does, implement 4 new compare functions `less_less`, `less_equal_less`, `less_less_equal`, and `less_equal_less_equal`.
     b. Have a single variadic `compare` function that uses options to select the type of comparison (e.g., LESS, GREATER_EQUAL, LESS_LESS)
   
   I recommend to follow option (1), for the following reasons. It is a common API and the function name clearly states its operation. The issue with (2a) is that its function names are not common-case, and if we make a single `between` with options for LESS_LESS, etc. then I would argue that the other logical comparisons need to be merged into a single compute function for symmetry/consistency purposes. This last point touches on option (2b) which I do not think is a reasonable solution because of its complexity and one could argue that an analogous case would be to have a single `arithmetic` function where the operation performed is specified via options. Obviously, this is not desired.


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