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<section id="working-on-the-arrow-codebase">
<span id="arrow-codebase"></span><h1>Working on the Arrow codebase 🧐<a class="headerlink" href="#working-on-the-arrow-codebase" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h1>
<section id="finding-your-way-around-arrow">
<h2>Finding your way around Arrow<a class="headerlink" href="#finding-your-way-around-arrow" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>The <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow">Apache Arrow repository</a> includes
implementations for most of the libraries for which Arrow is available.</p>
<p>Languages like GLib (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">c_glib/</span></code>), C++ (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cpp/</span></code>), MATLAB
(<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">matlab/</span></code>), Python (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">python/</span></code>), R (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">r/</span></code>) and Ruby (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">ruby/</span></code>)
have their own subdirectories in the main folder as written here.</p>
<p>The following language implementations have their own repositories:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-dotnet">.NET</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-go">Go</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-java">Java</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-js">JavaScript</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-julia">Julia</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-rs">Rust</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/apache/arrow-swift">Swift</a></p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the <strong>language-specific subdirectories</strong> you can find the code
connected to that language. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">python/</span></code> folder includes <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pyarrow/</span></code> folder which contains
the code for the pyarrow package and requirements files that you
need when building pyarrow.</p>
<p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pyarrow/</span></code> includes Python and Cython code.</p>
<p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pyarrow/</span></code> also includes <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">test/</span></code> folder where all the tests
for the pyarrow modules are located.</p>
</li>
<li><p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">r/</span></code> directory contains the R package.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Other subdirectories included in the arrow repository are:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">ci/</span></code> contains scripts used by the various continuous
integration (CI) jobs.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">dev/</span></code> contains scripts useful to developers when packaging,
testing, or committing to Arrow, as well as definitions for
extended continuous integration (CI) tasks.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">.github/</span></code> contains workflows run on GitHub continuous
integration (CI), triggered by certain actions such as opening a PR.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">docs/</span></code> contains most of the documentation. Read more on
<a class="reference internal" href="../documentation.html#documentation"><span class="std std-ref">Helping with documentation</span></a>.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">format/</span></code> contains binary protocol definitions for the
Arrow columnar format and other parts of the project,
like the Flight RPC framework.</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="bindings-features-fixes-and-tests">
<h2>Bindings, features, fixes and tests<a class="headerlink" href="#bindings-features-fixes-and-tests" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>You can read through this section to get some ideas on how
to work around the library on the issue you have.</p>
<p>Depending on the problem you want to solve (adding a simple
binding, adding a feature, writing a test, …) there are
different ways to get the necessary information.</p>
<p><strong>For all the cases</strong> you can help yourself with
searching for functions via some kind of search tool.
In our experience there are two good ways:</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>Via <strong>GitHub Search</strong> in the Arrow repository (not a forked one)
This way is great as GitHub lets you search for function
definitions and references also.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>IDE</strong> of your choice.</p></li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Bindings</strong></p>
<p>The term “binding” is used to refer to a function in the C++ implementation which
can be called from a function in another language. After a function is defined in
C++ we must create the binding manually to use it in that implementation.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>There is much you can learn by checking <strong>Pull Requests</strong>
and <strong>unit tests</strong> for similar issues.</p>
</div>
<div class="sd-tab-set docutils">
<input checked="checked" id="sd-tab-item-0" name="sd-tab-set-0" type="radio">
<label class="sd-tab-label" for="sd-tab-item-0">
Python</label><div class="sd-tab-content docutils">
<p><strong>Adding a fix in Python</strong></p>
<p>If you are updating an existing function, the
easiest way is to run Python interactively or run Jupyter
Notebook and research
the issue until you understand what needs to be done.</p>
<p>After, you can search on GitHub for the function name, to
see where the function is defined.</p>
<p>Also, if there are errors produced, the errors will most
likely point you towards the file you need to take a look at.</p>
<p><strong>Python - Cython - C++</strong></p>
<p>It is quite likely that you will bump into Cython code when
working on Python issues. It’s less likely is that the C++ code
needs updating, though it can happen.</p>
<p>As mentioned before, the underlying code is written in C++.
Python then connects to it via Cython. If you
are not familiar with it you can ask for help and remember,
<strong>look for similar Pull Requests and GitHub issues!</strong></p>
<p><strong>Adding tests</strong></p>
<p>There are some issues where only tests are missing. Here you
can search for similar functions and see how the unit tests for
those functions are written and how they can apply in your case.</p>
<p>This also holds true for adding a test for the issue you have solved.</p>
<p><strong>New feature</strong></p>
<p>If you are adding a new future in Python you can look at
the <a class="reference internal" href="../tutorials/python_tutorial.html#python-tutorial"><span class="std std-ref">tutorial</span></a> for ideas.</p>
</div>
<input id="sd-tab-item-1" name="sd-tab-set-0" type="radio">
<label class="sd-tab-label" for="sd-tab-item-1">
R</label><div class="sd-tab-content docutils">
<p><strong>Philosophy behind R bindings</strong></p>
<p>When writing bindings between C++ compute functions and R functions,
the aim is to expose the C++ functionality via the same interface as
existing R functions.</p>
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