Summary

The compute APIs aren't just a convenient interface for performing functions on Arrow-formatted data but are also highly performant. The goal of the library is to expose highly optimized computational functions for as many use cases as possible in an easy-to-use way. The functions that it exposes are also highly composable as we saw with the examples for sorting a table.

Between this chapter and the previous one, Chapter 5, Crossing the Language Barrier with the Arrow C Data API, we've explored the building blocks of any analytical engine. Both the Arrow C data interface and the compute APIs are extremely useful in different use cases and even in conjunction with one another. For example, let's say you're using Arrow in a language that doesn't yet expose the compute APIs. By using the C Data API, you can efficiently share the data with another component that has access to the compute APIs.

Now, if you're dealing with multifile datasets of...