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Arrow Utilities

From: v10Status: Work-In-Progress

This page documents the general-purpose Arrow inspection helpers exported by @luma.gl/arrow.

These helpers operate on Apache Arrow tables, record batches, vectors, and data chunks before or alongside GPU upload. For shader-facing upload and binding workflows, see Supported Arrow Types.

getArrowPaths​

getArrowPaths(arrowObject): string[]​

Returns all leaf column paths in an Arrow object. Nested Struct fields are reported with dot-separated paths.

Accepted inputs:

InputBehavior
arrow.TableReads paths from the table's top-level struct data
arrow.RecordBatchReads paths from the record batch data
arrow.VectorReads paths from the vector data
arrow.DataReads paths from the data node directly

Example:

import {getArrowPaths} from '@luma.gl/arrow';

const paths = getArrowPaths(table);
// ['positions', 'properties.color']

getArrowDataByPath​

getArrowDataByPath(arrowObject, columnPath): arrow.Data​

Returns the Arrow Data node at a dot-separated leaf column path.

Behavior:

  • accepts arrow.Table, arrow.RecordBatch, arrow.Vector, or arrow.Data;
  • traverses nested Struct fields by name;
  • throws if an intermediate path segment is not a struct;
  • throws if the path does not exist;
  • throws if the resolved path is still a struct instead of a leaf data node.

Example:

import {getArrowDataByPath} from '@luma.gl/arrow';

const colorData = getArrowDataByPath(table, 'properties.color');

getArrowVectorByPath​

getArrowVectorByPath(arrowTable, columnPath): arrow.Vector​

Returns the Arrow Vector at a dot-separated leaf column path in a table.

Behavior:

  • accepts an arrow.Table;
  • traverses nested Struct fields by name;
  • throws if an intermediate path segment is not a struct;
  • throws if the path does not exist;
  • throws if the resolved path is still a struct instead of a leaf vector.

Example:

import {getArrowVectorByPath} from '@luma.gl/arrow';

const colorVector = getArrowVectorByPath(table, 'properties.color');

getArrowListNestingLevel​

getArrowListNestingLevel(data): number​

Returns the number of top-level Arrow List wrappers around a data node.

In the current implementation, this helper distinguishes a top-level list from non-list data:

Data typeResult
List<T>1
Non-list data0

Example:

import {getArrowListNestingLevel} from '@luma.gl/arrow';

const nestingLevel = getArrowListNestingLevel(pathData);