data serialization ai_generated true

Arrow IPC read fails — endianness mismatch between writer and reader

ID: data/arrow-ipc-endianness-mismatch

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
75%Fix Rate
82%Confidence
4Evidence
2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
any active — — —

Root Cause

Arrow IPC files written on big-endian systems cannot be read on little-endian.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 85% success Standardize on little-endian and convert during write on BE systems 
    Most modern systems are little-endian; convert at write time on BE

    Sources: https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/Columnar.html

  2. 90% success Use Parquet format instead of IPC for cross-platform exchange 
    Parquet has defined endianness (little-endian); portable across all architectures

    Sources: https://parquet.apache.org/documentation/latest/

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Force little-endian byte order in application code 80% fail

    Arrow IPC uses native endianness; application-level byte swapping does not affect IPC format

  2. Use Arrow Flight instead of IPC files 60% fail

    Arrow Flight also uses native endianness