apache / apache/arrow

Missing kernels for ordering with struct types

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#37,087 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Component: Python Status: needs champion Type: enhancement
Dominant language
C++
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Description

### Describe the enhancement requested

Currently, using order-related pyarrow compute functions like `min_max`, `array_sort_indices` on a StructArray raises due to missing kernel.
Since a struct type is an ordered sequence of values with a fixed number of fields, whenever all the field types are orderable there is a natural way to order struct values lexicographically. I think this would be useful functionality, and is not easy for users to do themselves.
EDIT: in fact, semantically this is similar to Table.sort_by - maybe some of the implementation could even be reused?

### Component(s)

Python

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