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[R] data.table syntax/API for arrow (R package) #39822
Description
Describe the enhancement requested
Could arrow could support R data.table syntax (someting like DT[filter,action,grouping] on an arrow table) ?
Maybe this is too niche, but I find myself paying a high cost for collecting large amounts of data via arrow, for the benefit of the expressiveness of the data.table. Any chance someone could develop this API/syntax. Perhaps this would be a separate package, arrowDT. Has anyone worked on this?
Component(s)
R
Activity
[-]data.table syntax/API for arrow (R package)[/-][+][R] data.table syntax/API for arrow (R package)[/+]thisisnic commentedon Feb 15, 2024
It should be possible to do this - the dplyr functionality in the package works by transforming dplyr syntax into Arrow Expressions, so it'd need the same to be done with data.table syntax. I don't think this is something which would make sense to have in the arrow R package, but a separate package would be cool. I'm not aware of any existing attempts to make this happen, though it'd be nice to see it happen from an interoperability point-of-view!
Happy to advise as needed if someone does it take it on.
github-actions commentedon Nov 18, 2025
This issue has been marked as stale because it has had no activity in the past 365 days. Please remove the stale label or comment below, or this issue will be closed in 14 days. If this improvement is still desired but has no current owner, please add the 'Status: needs champion' label.
thisisnic commentedon Nov 18, 2025
Closing this as nobody is working on it, but we are receptive to PRs and collabortion if anyone wants to take this on in future.