I would encode to string. Should be simple enough, just means you need a pass on the data after reading it.
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Scott Carey <[email protected]> wrote: > On 3/28/12 11:01 AM, "Meyer, Dennis" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > > What type refers to an Java Bigint or C long long? Or is there any other > type in Avro that maps a 64 bit unsigned int? > > I unfortunately could only find smaller types in the docs: > > Primitive Types > > The set of primitive type names is: > > string: unicode character sequence > bytes: sequence of 8-bit bytes > int: 32-bit signed integer > long: 64-bit signed integer > float: single precision (32-bit) IEEE 754 floating-point number > double: double precision (64-bit) IEEE 754 floating-point number > boolean: a binary value > null: no value > > > Anyway in the encoding section theres some 64bit unsigned. Can I use them > somehow by a type? > > > An unsigned value fits in a signed one. They are both 64 bits. Each > language that supports a long unsigned type has its own way to convert from > one to the other without loss of data. > > Work around might be to use the 52 significant bits of a double, but seems > like a hack and of course loosing some more number space compared to uint64. > I'd like to get around any other self-encoding hacks as I'd like to also use > Hadoop/PIG/HIVE on top on AVRO, so would like to keep functionality on > numbers if possible. > > > Java does not have an unsigned 64 bit type. Hadoop/Pig/Hive all only have > signed 64 bit integer quantities. > > Luckily, multiplication and addition on two's compliment signed values is > identical to the operations on unsigned ints, so for many operations there > is no loss in fidelity as long as you pass the raw bits on to something that > interprets the number as an unsigned quantity. > > That is, if you take the raw bits of a set of unsigned 64 bit numbers, and > treat those bits as if they are a signed 64 bit quantities, then do > addition, subtraction, and multiplication on them, then treat the raw bit > result as an unsigned 64 bit value, it is as if you did the whole thing > unsigned. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two%27s_complement > > Avro only has signed 32 and 64 bit integer quantities because they can be > mapped to unsigned ones in most cases without a problem and many (actually, > most) languages do not support unsigned integers. > > If you want various precision quantities you can use an Avro Fixed type to > map to any type you choose. For example you can use a 16 byte fixed to map > to 128 bit unsigned ints. > > > Thanks, > Dennis
