:       if (ftype==null || !(ftype instanceof FloatField)) {
:         throw new SolrException(SolrException.ErrorCode.SERVER_ERROR,
: "Only float (FloatField) is currently supported as external field
: type.  got '" + ftypeS + "'");
        ...
: now that Trie fields support sortMissingFirst/Last, does it make sense
: to allow the "float" type too? I'm guessing here that
: sortMissingFirst/Last is why EFFs are restricted this way, but I
: haven't really dug into it.

I don't think i've ever looked closely at the internals of this field type 
before, but I'm not sure that it really matters what field types are 
allowed there -- it's not used for anything as far as i can tell.  I can't 
see any reason why the "valType" param exists at all (let alone the 
insistence that it refer to a FloatField) the ExternalFileField completely 
ignores the ftype once it has it.

(The fact that valType is totally optional suggests that the limitation 
isn't really that big of a deal anyway)

I suspect the intent was that ExternalFileField *should* ultimatley be 
able to return any "type" of ValueSource, and that the specified valType 
would then dictate the ValueSource impl returned (so that if you used an 
"IntField" you would get a ValueSource that "natively" dealt with int 
values from the file, but if you used "DoubleField" it would natively 
deal with double values.

changing that validation code to also accept TrieFloatField 
doesn't seem like it would practically make any different w/o also 
changing a lot about how the actaul value source is returned -- either 
by adding more File_____Source classes or my generalizing FileFloatSource.  
barring actual changes to those classes, a better way to deal with the "no 
one uses FloatField anymore so this limitation is confusing" problem is to 
just stop promoting/suggestion people use the valType at all (until the 
day comes when it's actually useful for something) and focus on 
documenting the fact that ExternalFileFields reads and returns 
values of type "float" from the specified file.



-Hoss

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