java/vector/src/main/java/org/apache/arrow/vector/complex/RepeatedValueVector.java

/*
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.apache.arrow.vector.complex;

import org.apache.arrow.vector.DensityAwareVector;
import org.apache.arrow.vector.UInt4Vector;
import org.apache.arrow.vector.ValueVector;

/**
 * An abstraction representing repeated value vectors.
 *
 * <p>A repeated vector contains values that may either be flat or nested. A value consists of zero or more
 * cells(inner values). Current design maintains data and offsets vectors. Each cell is stored in the data vector.
 * Repeated vector uses the offset vector to determine the sequence of cells pertaining to an individual value.
 */
public interface RepeatedValueVector extends ValueVector, DensityAwareVector {

  int DEFAULT_REPEAT_PER_RECORD = 5;

  /**
   * Get the offset vector.
   * @return the underlying offset vector or null if none exists.
   */
  UInt4Vector getOffsetVector();

  /**
   * Get the data vector.
   * @return the underlying data vector or null if none exists.
   */
  ValueVector getDataVector();
}