Gabriel Becker created ARROW-3263: ------------------------------------- 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. -- This message was sent by Atlassian JIRA (v7.6.3#76005)