Just chiming in that the libcudf documentation[1] states that this proposal
should work just fine. Bool8 type is described as "0 == false, else true".

--Matt

[1]:
https://docs.rapids.ai/api/libcudf/stable/group__utility__types#gadf077607da617d1dadcc5417e2783539

On Wed, Jul 17, 2024, 3:18 PM Joel Lubinitsky <joell...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you for your comments.
>
> I spent some time trying to confirm definitively that this proposal would
> enable zero copy sharing both ways between pyarrow and numpy. I put
> together the following gist [1] with my experiment.
>
> To summarize the results:
> - I was able to share the underlying value buffer both ways and have it be
> interpreted correctly in each case.
> - Numpy will write 0 or 1 to the value buffer to indicate False or True.
> Importantly, numpy will also understand values outside this range to mean
> True without requiring a copy. This tracks closely with the proposed
> semantics.
>
> [1]: https://gist.github.com/joellubi/2ddf626633b57839cfd5f32cd94a7f3b
>
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 10:16 AM Ian Cook <ianmc...@apache.org> wrote:
>
> > >> Before the vote, I would like to see verification that this truly
> > enables
> > >> zero-copy to/from NumPy bool arrays in Python.
> >
> > > I think this is an implementation issue more than a specification
> > issue...I am not personally worried about any provisions on the
> > specification that might make this impossible.
> >
> > To clarify, what I am looking for here is definite confirmation that
> > the proposed representation (in which a signed int8 zero value indicates
> > False and any non-zero signed int8 value indicates True) corresponds to
> the
> > representation used by NumPy such that bidirectional zero-copy is made
> > possible. This seems to me like a specification issue.
> >
> > Ian
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 9:39 AM Dewey Dunnington
> > <de...@voltrondata.com.invalid> wrote:
> >
> > > Thank you for this! I have definitely run across the one-byte-per-item
> > > bool in numpy, DuckDB, and cudf. I haven't heard any discussion about
> > > DuckDB here but I am fairly sure that they represent their boolean
> > > type as an int8 as well [1].
> > >
> > > > Before the vote, I would like to see verification that this truly
> > enables
> > > > zero-copy to/from NumPy bool arrays in Python.
> > >
> > > I think this is an implementation issue more than a specification
> > > issue...I am not personally worried about any provisions on the
> > > specification that might make this impossible.
> > >
> > > -dewey
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> >
> https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/blob/85a82d86aa11a2695fc045deaf4f88fc63dd4fec/src/common/arrow/appender/bool_data.cpp#L28-L37
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 11:25 AM Antoine Pitrou <anto...@python.org>
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Hi Joel,
> > > >
> > > > This looks good to me on the principle. Can you split the spec and
> the
> > > > implementation(s) into separate PRs?
> > > >
> > > > Regards
> > > >
> > > > Antoine.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Le 16/07/2024 à 13:18, Joel Lubinitsky a écrit :
> > > > > Hi Arrow devs,
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm working on adding an extension type for 8-bit booleans, and
> > wanted
> > > to
> > > > > start a discussion about it here because it could be valuable to
> > > others if
> > > > > adopted as a canonical extension type.
> > > > >
> > > > > The native implementation of the Boolean type uses 1 bit to encode
> > each
> > > > > value, enabling a very compact representation. This is favorable
> for
> > > many
> > > > > workloads, but lots of systems that want to produce/consume Boolean
> > > arrays
> > > > > use an 8-bit representation internally and are forced to
> copy/convert
> > > at
> > > > > their periphery. For these scenarios where zero-copy compatibility
> is
> > > > > important, the 8-bit representation of boolean values may be
> > preferred.
> > > > > This can benefit interactions with existing libraries that avoid
> > > packing
> > > > > column data like 1-bit booleans for parallelization purposes,
> > > including GPU
> > > > > libraries such as libcudf. The original issue [1] identifies numpy
> > > > > conversion as a specific use-case as well.
> > > > >
> > > > > The details of the extension type can be found in the draft PR [2]
> > > which
> > > > > contains a Go implementation (WIP) and an update to the
> documentation
> > > for
> > > > > canonical extension types. I plan to add a C++ implementation as
> well
> > > but
> > > > > wanted to open this discussion first.
> > > > >
> > > > > A quick overview of the layout / semantics proposed in the PR:
> > > > > Storage Type: Int8
> > > > > Value Semantics: 0 == false, any non-zero value is true
> > > > >
> > > > > I'd appreciate any feedback here or on the PR. If this all seems
> > > reasonable
> > > > > then I'll move forward with the next implementation and open up
> > another
> > > > > proposal for a formal vote. Thanks!
> > > > >
> > > > > [1]: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/17682
> > > > > [2]: https://github.com/apache/arrow/pull/43234
> > > > >
> > >
> >
>

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