Sending Arrow Tables Across a Socket

Arrow IPC provides a language-independent binary representation for Arrow tables. This vignette uses two R sessions and sends an IPC stream directly through a socketR-provided R connection adapter.

Install the optional dependency first:

install.packages("arrow")

Session 1: receive a table

Run this in the first R session:

library(socketR)
library(arrow)

server <- socket_create("inet", "stream")
peer <- NULL
on.exit({
  if (!is.null(peer) && socket_is_open(peer)) socket_close(peer)
  if (socket_is_open(server)) socket_close(server)
}, add = TRUE)

socket_reuse_address(server, TRUE)
socket_bind(server, "127.0.0.1", 45679L)
socket_listen(server)
cat("Waiting for an Arrow table...\n")

peer <- socket_accept(server)
peer_connection <- socket_connection(peer)
received <- read_ipc_stream(peer_connection)
print(received)

Session 2: send a table

Run this in a second R session after Session 1 starts listening:

library(socketR)
library(arrow)

client <- socket_create("inet", "stream")
on.exit(if (socket_is_open(client)) socket_close(client), add = TRUE)

table <- arrow_table(
  id = 1:3,
  name = c("Ada", "Grace", "Linus"),
  score = c(9.5, 10.0, 8.75)
)

socket_connect(client, "127.0.0.1", 45679L)
client_connection <- socket_connection(client)
write_ipc_stream(table, client_connection)

The receiving session obtains an Arrow Table without converting through text or an R data frame. The same IPC bytes can be consumed by Arrow clients in other languages, subject to the usual Arrow IPC compatibility rules. Arrow may close the adapter after completing the stream; the underlying socketR handle remains separately owned and should still be closed explicitly.