lance-format / lance-format/lance

Consider including names with feature flags

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enhancement
Dominant language
Rust
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

The errors produced by unsupported feature flags can be a little opaque:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/willjones/Documents/lance/python/test_env/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lance/__init__.py", line 92, in dataset
    ds = LanceDataset(
  File "/Users/willjones/Documents/lance/python/test_env/lib/python3.10/site-packages/lance/dataset.py", line 95, in __init__
    self._ds = _Dataset(
ValueError: Not supported: This dataset cannot be read by this version of Lance. Please upgrade Lance to read this dataset.
 Flags: 2, /Users/runner/work/lance/lance/rust/lance/src/dataset.rs:323:27

Flags: 2 doesn't have enough information to tell the user what is different about this table that caused it to not be compatible. Unfortunately, the older reader doesn't know what this flag corresponds to, since the manifest only stores the flag.

We could make it less opaque by also providing a dictionary of used flags to names. That way it could say something like Flags: {"deletion_vector"}. Though that's not much less opaque.

Alternatively, we could link to our documentation where we have a table of features. For this option, we should at least separate out the flags, so instead of saying Flags: 3 it should say Flags: {1, 2}.

Contributor guide

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First steps

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  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at rust/lance/src/dataset.rs around line 323, where the unsupported-feature error is reported, and review the feature-flag documentation table mentioned in the issue. Decide how the error should identify or separate flags, then verify that unsupported-feature errors provide enough information to distinguish the flags involved.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
databases
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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