All Known Subinterfaces:

ColumnCapabilities

All Known Implementing Classes:

BaseTypeSignature, ColumnCapabilitiesImpl, ColumnType, ExpressionType
```
@Immutable
public interface TypeSignature<Type extends TypeDescriptor>
```
This interface serves as a common foundation for Druids native type system, and provides common methods for reasoning about and handling type matters. Additional type common type handling methods are provided by Types utility. This information is used by Druid to make decisions about how to correctly process inputs and determine output types at all layers of the engine, from how to group, filter, aggregate, and transform columns up to how to best plan SQL into native Druid queries. The native Druid type system can currently be broken down at a high level into 'primitive' types, 'array' types, and 'complex' types, and this classification is defined by an enumeration which implements TypeDescriptor such as ValueType for the general query engines and ExprType for low level expression processing. This is exposed via getType(), and will be most callers first point of contact with the TypeSignature when trying to decide how to handle a given input. Druid 'primitive' types includes strings and numeric types. Note: multi-value string columns are still considered 'primitive' string types, because they do not behave as traditional arrays (unless explicitly converted to an array), and are always serialized as opportunistically single valued, so whether or not any particular string column is multi-valued might vary from segment to segment. The concept of multi-valued strings only exists at a very low engine level and are only modeled by the ColumnCapabilities implementation of TypeSignature. 'array' types contain additional nested type information about the elements of an array, a reference to another TypeSignature through the getElementType() method. If TypeDescriptor.isArray() is true, then getElementType() should never return null. 'complex' types are Druids extensible types, which have a registry that allows these types to be defined and associated with a name which is available as getComplexTypeName(). These type names are unique, so this information is used to allow handling of these 'complex' types to confirm. TypeSignature is currently manifested in 3 forms: ColumnType which is the high level 'native' Druid type definitions using ValueType, and is used by row signatures and SQL schemas, used by callers as input to various API methods, and most general purpose type handling. In 'druid-processing' there is an additional type ... type, ColumnCapabilities, which is effectively a ColumnType but includes some additional information for low level query processing, such as details about whether a column has indexes, dictionaries, null values, is a multi-value string column, and more. The third is ExpressionType, which instead of ValueType uses ExprType, and is used exclusively for handling Druid native expression evaluation. ExpressionType exists because the Druid expression system does not natively handle float types, so it is essentially a mapping of ColumnType where floats are coerced to double typed values. Ideally at some point Druid expressions can just handle floats directly, and these two TypeSignature can be merged, which will simplify this interface to no longer need be generic, allow ColumnType to be collapsed into BaseTypeSignature, and finally unify the type system.

Method Summary

All Methods Instance Methods Abstract Methods Default Methods
Modifier and Type	Method	Description
`default boolean`	`anyOf(Type... types)`	Check if the value of `getType()` matches any of the `TypeDescriptor` specified.
`default String`	`asTypeString()`	Convert a `TypeSignature` into a simple string.
`String`	`getComplexTypeName()`	Type name of 'complex' types (`ValueType.COMPLEX`, `ExprType.COMPLEX`), which are 'registered' by their name, acting as a key to get the correct set of serialization, deserialization, and other type specific handling facilties.
`TypeSignature<Type>`	`getElementType()`	`TypeSignature` for the elements contained in an array type (`ValueType.ARRAY`, `ExprType.ARRAY`).
`default <T> NullableTypeStrategy<T>`	`getNullableStrategy()`	A `NullableTypeStrategy` is a `TypeStrategy` which can handle reading and writing null values, at the very high cost of an additional byte per value, of which a single bit is used to store `NullHandling.IS_NULL_BYTE` or `NullHandling.IS_NOT_NULL_BYTE` as appropriate.
`<T> TypeStrategy<T>`	`getStrategy()`	A `TypeStrategy` provides facilities to reading and writing values to buffers, as well as basic value comparators and byte size estimation.
`Type`	`getType()`	`TypeDescriptor` enumeration used to handle different classes of types
`default boolean`	`is(Type candidate)`	Check if the value of `getType()` is equal to the candidate `TypeDescriptor`.
`default boolean`	`isArray()`	Check if the type is an array (`TypeDescriptor.isArray()`)
`default boolean`	`isNumeric()`	Check if the type is numeric (`TypeDescriptor.isNumeric()`)
`default boolean`	`isPrimitive()`	Check if the type is a primitive (`TypeDescriptor.isPrimitive()`, e.g.
`default boolean`	`isPrimitiveArray()`

- Method Detail
  - getType
```
Type getType()
```
    TypeDescriptor enumeration used to handle different classes of types
    
    See Also:
    
    ValueType, ExprType
  - getComplexTypeName
```
@Nullable
String getComplexTypeName()
```
    Type name of 'complex' types (ValueType.COMPLEX, ExprType.COMPLEX), which are 'registered' by their name, acting as a key to get the correct set of serialization, deserialization, and other type specific handling facilties. For other types, this value will be null.
  - getElementType
```
@Nullable
TypeSignature<Type> getElementType()
```
    TypeSignature for the elements contained in an array type (ValueType.ARRAY, ExprType.ARRAY). For non-array types, this value will be null.
  - getStrategy
```
<T> TypeStrategy<T> getStrategy()
```
    A TypeStrategy provides facilities to reading and writing values to buffers, as well as basic value comparators and byte size estimation. Use getNullableStrategy() if you need to read and write values which might possibly be null and aren't handling this in a different (probably better) way.
  - getNullableStrategy
```
default <T> NullableTypeStrategy<T> getNullableStrategy()
```
    A NullableTypeStrategy is a TypeStrategy which can handle reading and writing null values, at the very high cost of an additional byte per value, of which a single bit is used to store NullHandling.IS_NULL_BYTE or NullHandling.IS_NOT_NULL_BYTE as appropriate. This pattern is common among buffer aggregators, which don't have access to an external memory location for more efficient tracking of null values and must store this information inline with the accumulated value.
  - is
```
default boolean is(Type candidate)
```
    Check if the value of getType() is equal to the candidate TypeDescriptor.
  - anyOf
```
default boolean anyOf(Type... types)
```
    Check if the value of getType() matches any of the TypeDescriptor specified.
  - isNumeric
```
default boolean isNumeric()
```
    Check if the type is numeric (TypeDescriptor.isNumeric())
  - isPrimitive
```
default boolean isPrimitive()
```
    Check if the type is a primitive (TypeDescriptor.isPrimitive(), e.g. not an array, not a complex type)
  - isArray
```
default boolean isArray()
```
    Check if the type is an array (TypeDescriptor.isArray())
  - isPrimitiveArray
```
default boolean isPrimitiveArray()
```
  - asTypeString
```
default String asTypeString()
```
    Convert a TypeSignature into a simple string. This value can be converted back into a TypeSignature with Types.fromString(TypeFactory, String).

Interface TypeSignature<Type extends TypeDescriptor>

Method Summary

Method Detail

getType

getComplexTypeName

getElementType

getStrategy

getNullableStrategy

is

anyOf

isNumeric

isPrimitive

isArray

isPrimitiveArray

asTypeString