[ARROW-7657] [R] Add option to preserve dictionary logical type rather than coerce to factor

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: R
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/23904
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Neal Richardson
• Created: 22/Jan/20 19:35
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 07:55

Description

See ARROW-7639. R factor "levels" must be strings, but dictionary "values" aren't restricted like that. Provide an option to govern how dictionary arrays with non-string "values" are converted to R: keep the dictionary encoding by making the R vector be type factor and coerce the dictionary values to strings, or keep the dictionary values the type they are and generate an R vector of that type, dropping the dictionary encoding.