alamb opened a new issue, #46908: URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/46908
### Describe the enhancement requested Parquet has added a new type for semi-structured data called `Variant` which is defined here: * Variant encoding spec: https://github.com/apache/parquet-format/blob/main/VariantEncoding.md * Variant shredding spec: https://github.com/apache/parquet-format/blob/main/VariantShredding.md As it is common for engines to read data from Parquet into Arrow for in memory processing it is useful to have support for Variant in Arrow. @CurtHagenlocher proposes adding native Variant support in the Arrow format itself here: - https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/42069 An alternate approach is to add a [Canonical Extension Type](https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/CanonicalExtensions.html#canonical-extension-types) @zeroshade wrote up a proposal - Mailing List Discussion: https://lists.apache.org/thread/w06cxdojjcmry4m9vb0bo7owd1jsbtz5 - Google Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pw0AWoMQY3SjD7R4LgbPvMjG_xSCtXp3rZHkVp9jpZ4/edit?usp=sharing And implemented an implementation in Go - https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/commit/5240503993cc0aa47554b932c341e4940ce42348 This ticket tracks the idea of adding Variant as an official extension type See also @neilechao 's PR to add variant read support to parquet - https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/45937 ### Component(s) Format -- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. To unsubscribe, e-mail: issues-unsubscr...@arrow.apache.org.apache.org For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: us...@infra.apache.org
