[ARROW-12063] [C++] Add nulls position option to sort functions

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 3.0.0
• Fix Version/s: 6.0.0
• Component/s: C++
• Labels: pull-request-available
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/27889
• Assignee: Antoine Pitrou
• Reporter: Ian Cook
• Created: 23/Mar/21 14:26
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 08:24
• Resolved: 23/Sep/21 16:30

Description

Currently in the sort functions, nulls are considered greater than any other value and are sorted at the the end of the array. Add an option to enable users to sort nulls at the beginning if they wish. This option is common in analytic data systems, e.g. SQL NULLS FIRST and NULLS LAST, pandas na_position, R na.last.

Issue Links

• is depended upon by: ARROW-14085 [R] Expose null placement option through sort bindings
• supercedes: ARROW-13545 [C++] Add ChunkedArray::GetScalar
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #11212