Arrow GLib is a wrapper library for Arrow C++. Arrow GLib provides C API.

Arrow GLib supports GObject Introspection. It means that you can create language bindings at runtime or compile time.

For example, you can use Apache Arrow from Ruby by Arrow GLib and gobject-introspection gem with the following code:

# Generate bindings at runtime
require "gi"
Arrow = GI.load("Arrow")

# Now, you can access arrow::BooleanArray in Arrow C++ by
# Arrow::BooleanArray
p Arrow::BooleanArray

In Ruby case, you should use red-arrow gem. It's based on gobject-introspection gem. It adds many convenient features to raw gobject-introspection gem based bindings.

You can use packages or build by yourself to install Arrow GLib. It's recommended that you use packages.

Note that the packages are "unofficial". "Official" packages will be released in the future.

See install document for details.

Arrow GLib users should use released source archive to build Arrow GLib (replace the version number in the following commands with the one you use):

% wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/arrow/arrow-0.3.0/apache-arrow-0.3.0.tar.gz
% tar xf apache-arrow-0.3.0.tar.gz
% cd apache-arrow-0.3.0

You need to build and install Arrow C++ before you build and install Arrow GLib. See Arrow C++ document about how to install Arrow C++.

You can build and install Arrow GLib after you install Arrow C++.

If you use macOS with Homebrew, you must install gobject-introspection and set PKG_CONFIG_PATH before build Arrow GLib:

% cd c_glib
% brew install -y gobject-introspection
% ./configure PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(brew --prefix libffi)/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH
% make
% sudo make install

Others:

% cd c_glib
% ./configure
% make
% sudo make install

You need to install Arrow C++ before you install Arrow GLib. See Arrow C++ document about how to install Arrow C++.

You need GTK-Doc and GObject Introspection to build Arrow GLib. You can install them by the followings:

On Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu:

% sudo apt install -y -V gtk-doc-tools autoconf-archive libgirepository1.0-dev

On CentOS 7 or later:

% sudo yum install -y gtk-doc gobject-introspection-devel

On macOS with Homebrew:

% brew install -y gtk-doc gobject-introspection

Now, you can build Arrow GLib:

% cd c_glib
% ./autogen.sh
% ./configure --enable-gtk-doc
% make
% sudo make install

You can use Arrow GLib with C or other languages. If you use Arrow GLib with C, you use C API. If you use Arrow GLib with other languages, you use GObject Introspection based bindings.

You can find API reference in the /usr/local/share/gtk-doc/html/arrow-glib/ directory. If you specify --prefix to configure, the directory will be different.

You can find example codes in the example/ directory.

You can use Arrow GLib with non C languages with GObject Introspection based bindings. Here are languages that support GObject Introspection:

• Ruby: red-arrow gem should be used.

  • Examples: https://github.com/red-data-tools/red-arrow/tree/master/example

• Python: PyGObject should be used. (Note that you should use PyArrow than Arrow GLib.)

• Lua: LGI should be used.

  • Examples: example/lua/ directory.

• Go: Go-gir-generator should be used.

See also Projects/GObjectIntrospection/Users - GNOME Wiki! for other languages.

Arrow GLib has unit tests. You can confirm that you install Apache GLib correctly by running unit tests.

You need to install the followings to run unit tests:

• Ruby
• gobject-introspection gem
• test-unit gem

You can install them by the followings:

On Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu:

% sudo apt install -y -V ruby-dev
% sudo gem install gobject-introspection test-unit

On CentOS 7 or later:

% sudo yum install -y git
% git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
% git clone https://github.com/sstephenson/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
% echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
% echo 'eval "$(rbenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile
% exec ${SHELL} --login
% sudo yum install -y gcc make patch openssl-devel readline-devel zlib-devel
% rbenv install 2.4.1
% rbenv global 2.4.1
% gem install gobject-introspection test-unit

On macOS with Homebrew:

% gem install gobject-introspection test-unit

Now, you can run unit tests by the followings:

% cd c_glib
% test/run-test.sh

• Check whether autoconf-archive is installed.
• [macOS] autoconf-archive must be linked, but may not be linked. You can check it by running brew install autoconf-archive again. If it's not linked, it will show a warning message like:

% brew install autoconf-archive
Warning: autoconf-archive 2017.03.21 is already installed, it's just not linked.
You can use `brew link autoconf-archive` to link this version.

In this case, you need to run brew link autoconf-archive. It may fail with the following message if you have install conflicted packages (e.g. gnome-common).

% brew link autoconf-archive
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/autoconf-archive/2017.03.21... 
Error: Could not symlink share/aclocal/ax_check_enable_debug.m4
Target /usr/local/share/aclocal/ax_check_enable_debug.m4
is a symlink belonging to gnome-common. You can unlink it:
  brew unlink gnome-common

You need to run brew unlink <pkgname>, then run brew link autoconf-archive again.

After installing/linking autoconf-archive, run ./autogen.sh again.

gobject-introspection requires libffi, and it's automatically installed with gobject-introspection. However it can't be found because it's keg-only. You need to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH when executing configure.

% ./configure PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$(brew --prefix libffi)/lib/pkgconfig

Arrow C++ must be installed to build Arrow GLib. Run make install on Arrow C++ build directory. In addtion, on linux, you may need to run sudo ldconfig.