sfc-gh-sgrafberger commented on code in PR #585: URL: https://github.com/apache/parquet-format/pull/585#discussion_r3462769363
########## LogicalTypes.md: ########## @@ -635,7 +635,76 @@ The type has two type parameters: The sort order used for `GEOGRAPHY` is undefined. When writing data, no min/max statistics should be saved for this type and if such non-compliant statistics -are found during reading, they must be ignored. +are found during reading, they must be ignored. + +### FILE + +`FILE` annotates a group that represents a reference to an external file, along with +the minimum metadata required to read it. It is intended for use cases such as +storing file inventories, manifests, and unstructured data references (e.g., images +or audio files stored in object storage). + +The annotated group must contain the following fields, identified by name. Field IDs +may also be used for projection: + +| Field | Type | Required | +|----------|--------|----------| +| `path` | STRING | Yes | +| `size` | INT64 | No | +| `offset` | INT64 | No | +| `etag` | STRING | No | + Review Comment: A bit of background information for people not very familiar with unstructured data and semantic query processing yet: When thinking about real-world use of unstructured data, there are many domains where mixing different modalities within one table column is quite natural. E.g., once you look at the law domain, you might have court cases with different kinds of evidence: videos, images, pdf scans of police reports, etc. Other columns in the table might then be columns like "case_id", "case_name", "judge_id", "file_source", ... Other domain examples would be patient records in healthcare that mix medical imaging, pdf scans of written medical reports, prescriptions, etc. Or think about the kind of unstructured data a reporter might be working with. DB users couldn't really do large-scale automated analysis of unstructured data before the rise of LLMs, and are now discovering step-by-step what is possible. Being able to efficiently answer basic questions like what kind of unstructured data you are dealing with sounds like a natural requirement to me to support currently emerging workloads. -- 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: [email protected] For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
