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new e462ab10c93 [Release] Add release notes for Arrow Go 18.8.0 (#816)
e462ab10c93 is described below
commit e462ab10c9389d0d45641ff27c9deae67603b15e
Author: Matt Topol <[email protected]>
AuthorDate: Tue Sep 8 17:47:56 2026 -0400
[Release] Add release notes for Arrow Go 18.8.0 (#816)
---
_posts/2026-09-08-arrow-go-18.8.0.md | 232 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 232 insertions(+)
diff --git a/_posts/2026-09-08-arrow-go-18.8.0.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,232 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Apache Arrow Go 18.8.0 Release"
+date: "2026-09-08 00:00:00"
+author: pmc
+categories: [release]
+---
+<!--
+{% comment %}
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
+this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+limitations under the License.
+{% endcomment %}
+-->
+
+The Apache Arrow team is pleased to announce the v18.8.0 release of Apache
Arrow Go.
+This minor release covers 283 commits from 16 distinct contributors.
+
+## Contributors
+```console
+$ git shortlog -sn v18.7.0..v18.8.0
+ 251 Minh Vu
+ 10 Matt Topol
+ 4 Colton Loftus
+ 4 Digvijay
+ 4 Tom Frank
+ 1 Derek Perkins
+ 1 Lucas Valente
+ 1 Madan kumar
+ 1 Neelesh Salian
+ 1 Nick Ripley
+ 1 Pedro Matias
+ 1 Raúl Cumplido
+ 1 Ruihao Chen
+ 1 Tobias Pütz
+ 1 Tomáš Karela Procházka
+ 1 Willem Jan
+```
+
+## Highlights
+
+### Arrow
+
+#### Features
+
+- Added `VariantGet` for efficient path extraction from variant arrays
[#1206](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1206)
+- Added `list_element`, `cumulative_sum`, `cumulative_sum_checked`, and
`dictionary_encode` compute functions
[#1138](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1138),
+[#1139](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1139),
[#1140](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1140)
+- Added `ValueAsAny` for accessing Arrow array values as native Go values
[#1170](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1170)
+- Strengthened IPC file validation for malformed block framing and lengths
[#1097](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1097)
+
+#### Bug Fixes
+- Fixed a memory leak when calling `Resize(0)` on non-empty builders
[#995](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/995)
+- Preserved exact precision when casting strings to Decimal128 and Decimal256
scalars [#1107](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1107)
+
+#### Performance Improvements
+
+This is a performance-heavy release: 32 of the merged pull requests are
dedicated
+optimizations. Unless noted otherwise, the figures below are the PR-reported
+benchmarks on an Apple M1 Pro, comparing the new path against the scalar
+baseline it replaces.
+
+- Expanded SIMD acceleration for compute arithmetic, comparisons, and
filtering on ARM64 and AMD64. Arithmetic kernels run 4.1-4.4x faster on int64
and float64
+adds, int64 array/array comparisons drop from 313.6us to 29.3us per op
(10.7x), narrow 8- and 16-bit integer comparisons reach 12.8-15.1x, and
null-free
+32-bit fixed-width filters compress up to 11.8x faster on 1M-element inputs
[#1265](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1265),
[#1266](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1266),
+[#1284](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1284),
[#1286](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1286),
[#1287](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1287),
[#1288](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1288)
+- Building take indices from fragmented selection vectors is no longer
quadratic. For a 1M-element alternating filter it drops from 4.31s to 515us,
and a
+serial `FilterRecordBatch` over the same filter falls from 2.06s to 831us
[#1287](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1287)
+- Added SIMD-accelerated packing of boolean slices and validity data into
Arrow bitmaps: `BooleanBuilder` packing of 65,536 values improves roughly 4-5x
+(23.4us to 3.9us), batched validity packing is up to 4.4x faster, and ARM64
NEON bitmap operations gain 2.2-2.9x
[#1283](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1283),
+[#1185](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1185),
[#1264](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1264),
[#1090](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1090)
+- Batched run-end encoded appends turn a millisecond-scale operation into a
microsecond-scale one for null and empty-value runs, cutting 1.16MB across 55
+allocations per op down to 1.7KB across 19
[#1214](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1214)
+- Concatenation avoids temporary buffers and copies bitmaps directly: 65,536
int64 values spread over 8,192 chunks go from 571.7us to 214.5us (-62%) with
+allocations falling from 8,199 to 6 per op
[#1194](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1194),
[#1224](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1224)
+- Serial and small-batch execution skips goroutine and span overhead:
single-span kernel dispatch nearly halves latency at length 1 (342.0ns to
189.0ns),
+serial record filtering over 128 columns goes from 709.8us to 420.9us, and
serial `Take` plus IPC encoder scratch reuse cut per-op allocations across the
+board [#1233](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1233),
[#1245](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1245),
[#1226](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1226),
[#1221](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1221)
+- CSV writing no longer materializes rows first, cutting a 1,000-row by
16-column write from 4.78ms to 0.84ms (-82%) and allocated bytes by 81%
[#1190](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1190)
+
+### Parquet
+
+#### Features
+
+- Added read and write support for GeoArrow extension types using Parquet
geometry and geography logical types
[#960](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/960),
+[#969](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/969)
+- Added codec-aware dictionary cost fallback and per-column writer controls
[#1036](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1036)
+
+#### Bug Fixes
+
+- Correctly populated Bloom filters from dictionary-encoded values
[#1164](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1164)
+- Rejected decimal values that overflow Parquet INT32 or INT64 columns instead
of silently narrowing them
[#1122](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1122),
+[#1161](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1161)
+- Fixed reading fixed-size lists whose parent values are null
[#1099](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1099)
+
+#### Performance Improvements
+
+- Added SIMD `BYTE_STREAM_SPLIT` encoding on ARM64 and AMD64: 16.9x faster for
4-byte values (113,877ns to 6,745ns per op) and 7.6x for 8-byte values
[#1260](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1260)
+- Boolean decoding now targets Arrow bitmaps directly. All-true RLE boolean
pages of 1M values decode in 2.45us instead of 2.65ms, and dense boolean column
+reads through pqarrow drop 90% in time and 65% in heap use
[#1246](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1246),
[#1182](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1182)
+- Batched encoding and decoding across the core codecs: plain `BYTE_ARRAY`
encoding is 45-62% faster, RLE level encoding is 79% faster for all-defined
+levels, and `DELTA_BINARY_PACKED` decoding is 34-66% faster
[#1193](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1193),
[#1177](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1177),
[#1169](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1169)
+- Dictionary encoding allocates far less: numeric insertion of 65,535 float32
values goes from 64,905 allocations per op to 13, and typed byte-array memo
+insertion cuts time 24% and allocations 50% (Apple M3 Max). Fixed-width
dictionary materialization is also vectorized on AVX2 systems
[#1178](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1178),
+[#1272](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1272),
[#1269](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1269)
+- Reduced copying when writing binary and fixed-size binary Arrow values to
Parquet: 16-byte `FixedSizeBinary` writes are 72% faster for required columns
+with statistics disabled, and 64K String writes go from 1.798ms to 1.260ms
[#1262](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1262),
[#1263](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1263)
+- Compressors are reused across pages: random 64KiB gzip page encoding is 6.1x
faster (94.7us to 15.6us) with allocations down from 15 to 1 per op, and
+Brotli encoding drops from about 22 allocations per op to 1
[#1238](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1238),
[#1254](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1254)
+- Serial reads skip goroutine orchestration, trimming 18% from single-column
row-group reads [#1235](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1235)
+
+## Changelog
+
+### Selected Changes
+
+A selection of the user-facing changes in this release. See the full changelog
link
+below for all 285 merged pull requests.
+
+#### Arrow
+
+* fix: remove superfluous struct field index compare by @Willem-J-an in
[#970](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/970)
+* fix(ipc): reject truncated message frames by @fallintoplace in
[#991](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/991)
+* fix: Fix arm64 assembly stack frame manipulation by @nsrip-dd in
[#984](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/984)
+* fix(arrow/array): `Resize(0)` on non-empty builder causes memory leak by
@serramatutu in [#995](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/995)
+* fix(arrow/csv): preserve decimal precision by @fallintoplace in
[#1022](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1022)
+* refactor(arrow/avro): migrate from hamba/avro to twmb/avro by @prochac in
[#830](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/830)
+* feat(flightsql): allow configuring the driver memory allocator by
@fallintoplace in [#1076](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1076)
+* feat(arrow/flight/sql): Add is_update field to
ActionCreatePreparedStatementResult by @ennuite in
[#732](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/732)
+* feat(arrow/array): roll back JSON builder state after failed rows by
@fallintoplace in [#1113](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1113)
+* feat(arrow/array): add ValueAsAny for native Go values by @dgvj-work in
[#1170](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1170)
+* feat(extensions): add VariantGet for path extraction from variant arrays by
@nssalian in [#1206](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1206)
+* fix(arrow/extensions): use canonical Variant extension name by @dgvj-work in
[#1241](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1241)
+* fix(arrow/extensions): reject Null Variant typed_value by @dgvj-work in
[#1243](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1243)
+* fix(arrow/ipc): validate file block framing and lengths by @fallintoplace in
[#1097](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1097)
+* fix(arrow/ipc): avoid deadlock on compression errors by @fallintoplace in
[#1142](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1142)
+* fix(arrow/scalar): preserve exact decimal string casts by @fallintoplace in
[#1107](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1107)
+* fix(arrow/scalar): align timestamp timezone parsing by @fallintoplace in
[#1109](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1109)
+* fix(arrow): validate precision in NewDecimalType by @fallintoplace in
[#1162](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1162)
+* fix(arrow): reject duplicate union type codes by @fallintoplace in
[#1131](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1131)
+* fix(arrow/csv): preserve first row during headerless inference by
@fallintoplace in [#1145](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1145)
+* fix(arrow/csv): append null for later parse failures by @fallintoplace in
[#1149](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1149)
+* fix(arrow/array): clamp run ends when concatenating a sliced RunEndEncoded
array by @winklemad in [#1219](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1219)
+* fix(arrow/cdata): validate imported schema topology by @fallintoplace in
[#1046](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1046)
+
+#### Compute
+
+* feat(compute): add list_element by @fallintoplace in
[#1138](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1138)
+* feat(compute): add cumulative_sum and cumulative_sum_checked by
@fallintoplace in [#1139](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1139)
+* feat(compute): add dictionary_encode by @fallintoplace in
[#1140](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1140)
+* fix(compute): round negative HalfToOdd ties correctly by @fallintoplace in
[#1094](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1094)
+* fix(compute): handle odd temporal multiples by @fallintoplace in
[#1119](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1119)
+* fix(compute): preserve caller context during execution by @fallintoplace in
[#1154](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1154)
+* fix(compute): discard results after cancellation by @zeroshade in
[#1278](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1278)
+* fix(compute/exprs): avoid empty field reference panic by @fallintoplace in
[#1130](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1130)
+
+#### Parquet
+
+* feat(parquet/schema): Wire up logical type functionality for writing geo
types by @C-Loftus in [#960](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/960)
+* feat(parquet/pqarrow): Read support for extension types / geo by @C-Loftus
in [#969](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/969)
+* feat(parquet): add WithDictionaryCostFallback writer property by @tom-eon in
[#1036](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1036)
+* fix(parquet): wrap DELTA_BINARY_PACKED deltas at the physical type width by
@tom-eon in [#1027](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1027)
+* fix(parquet/encoding): read ahead in the streaming value buffer by
@joechenrh in [#937](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/937)
+* fix(parquet/pqarrow): prefer stored schema extension type on read by @twuebi
in [#1051](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1051)
+* fix(parquet/pqarrow): require Variant value field when writing by @dgvj-work
in [#1242](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1242)
+* fix(parquet): guard byte-stream-split encoder release against never-flushed
buffer by @tom-eon in [#1273](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1273)
+* fix(parquet): stop BYTE_STREAM_SPLIT FLBA spaced decode aliasing output by
@zeroshade in [#1256](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1256)
+* fix(parquet): read null fixed-size-list parents by @fallintoplace in
[#1099](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1099)
+* fix(parquet/pqarrow): reject decimal overflow in integer columns by
@fallintoplace in [#1122](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1122)
+* fix(parquet/pqarrow): reject decimal overflow when writing integers by
@fallintoplace in [#1161](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1161)
+* fix(parquet): build bloom filters from dictionary entries by @fallintoplace
in [#1164](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1164)
+* fix(parquet): preserve dictionary index types by @fallintoplace in
[#1098](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1098)
+* fix(parquet): restore Arrow duration units from schema metadata by
@fallintoplace in [#1095](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1095)
+* fix(parquet/compress): honor LZ4 raw destination contract by @fallintoplace
in [#1147](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1147)
+* fix(parquet): row-align V1 pages with offset indexes by @fallintoplace in
[#1075](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1075)
+* fix(parquet/variant): validate metadata offset tables by @fallintoplace in
[#1063](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1063)
+
+#### Performance
+
+* perf(arrow/bitutil): add SetBitSwap/ClearBitSwap, use in builder.SetNull by
@tom-eon in [#1090](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1090)
+* perf(bitutil): add ARM64 NEON bitmap operations by @fallintoplace in
[#1264](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1264)
+* perf(arrow/array): pack validity values in batches by @fallintoplace in
[#1185](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1185)
+* perf(arrow/array): SIMD-pack boolean slices into bitmaps by @fallintoplace
in [#1283](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1283)
+* perf(arrow/array): batch run-end encoded appends by @fallintoplace in
[#1214](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1214)
+* perf(arrow/array): avoid temporary buffers when concatenating by
@fallintoplace in [#1194](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1194)
+* perf(arrow/array): concatenate bitmaps directly by @fallintoplace in
[#1224](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1224)
+* perf(compute): add ARM64 NEON arithmetic kernels by @fallintoplace in
[#1265](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1265)
+* perf(compute): add ARM64 NEON comparison kernels by @fallintoplace in
[#1266](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1266)
+* perf(compute): add ARM64 NEON comparisons for 8- and 16-bit integers by
@fallintoplace in [#1288](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1288)
+* perf(compute): add ARM64 NEON compression for null-free 32-bit fixed-width
filters by @fallintoplace in
[#1286](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1286)
+* perf(compute): vectorize mixed int32 filters with AVX2 by @fallintoplace in
[#1284](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1284)
+* perf(compute): SIMD-compact fragmented filters into take indices by
@fallintoplace in [#1287](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1287)
+* perf(compute): fast-path single-span execution by @fallintoplace in
[#1233](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1233)
+* perf(arrow/compute): avoid goroutines for serial record filtering by
@fallintoplace in [#1245](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1245)
+* perf(arrow/compute): avoid goroutines for serial take by @fallintoplace in
[#1226](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1226)
+* perf(parquet): SIMD BYTE_STREAM_SPLIT encoding by @fallintoplace in
[#1260](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1260)
+* perf(parquet): vectorize fixed-width dictionary materialization by
@fallintoplace in [#1269](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1269)
+* perf(parquet): optimize numeric dictionary insertion by @fallintoplace in
[#1178](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1178)
+* perf(parquet): use typed memo insertion for byte-array dictionaries by
@derekperkins in [#1272](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1272)
+* perf(parquet): batch plain BYTE_ARRAY encoding by @fallintoplace in
[#1193](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1193)
+* perf(parquet): encode RLE levels in batches by @fallintoplace in
[#1177](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1177)
+* perf(parquet): batch delta binary packed decoding by @fallintoplace in
[#1169](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1169)
+* perf(parquet): decode RLE booleans into bitmaps by @fallintoplace in
[#1246](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1246)
+* perf(parquet/pqarrow): decode booleans directly to bitmaps by @fallintoplace
in [#1182](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1182)
+* perf(parquet/pqarrow): write binary values from Arrow offsets by
@fallintoplace in [#1262](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1262)
+* perf(parquet/pqarrow): write FixedSizeBinary values directly by
@fallintoplace in [#1263](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1263)
+* perf(parquet/pqarrow): use synchronous path for serial reads by
@fallintoplace in [#1235](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1235)
+* perf(parquet/compress): reuse gzip writers by @fallintoplace in
[#1238](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1238)
+* perf(parquet/compress): reuse Brotli writers across encodes by
@fallintoplace in [#1254](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1254)
+* perf(arrow/csv): avoid materializing rows before writing by @fallintoplace
in [#1190](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1190)
+* perf(arrow/ipc): reuse record encoder scratch by @fallintoplace in
[#1221](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1221)
+
+### New Contributors
+* @C-Loftus made their first contribution in
[#960](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/960)
+* @tom-eon made their first contribution in
[#1027](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1027)
+* @prochac made their first contribution in
[#830](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/830)
+* @dgvj-work made their first contribution in
[#1170](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1170)
+* @ennuite made their first contribution in
[#732](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/732)
+* @derekperkins made their first contribution in
[#1272](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1272)
+* @winklemad made their first contribution in
[#1219](https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/pull/1219)
+
+**Full Changelog**:
https://github.com/apache/arrow-go/compare/v18.7.0...v18.8.0
