GH-32123: [R] Expose azure blob filesystem by marberts · Pull Request #49553 · apache/arrow

marberts · 2026-03-19T03:08:36Z

Rationale for this change

This PR adds support for Azure. The Arrow R package already has support for AWS and GCS, and the Arrow C++ library has had support for Azure for a couple years now. Support for Azure is already available in pyarrow.

This would close #32123.

What changes are included in this PR?

A new class AzureFileSystem that's analogous to S3FileSystem/GcsFileSystem, along with a helper function az_container() that's analogous to s3_bucket()/gcs_bucket().
Updates to src/filesystem.cpp to interact with the machinery in arrow/filesystem/azurefs.h.
Updates to the configuration and build scripts to support building with support for Azure.
Updates to the vignettes on cloud storage, installation, and developer setup.

Are these changes tested?

Yes. See tests/testthat/test-azure.R.

Are there any user-facing changes?

Yes. There is a new function az_container(), serving the analogous role to s3_bucket()/gcs_bucket(), along with an R6 class AzureFileSystem, again serving the same role as S3FileSystem and GcsFileSystem. There is also a function arrow_with_azure() to indicate if Arrow was built with support for Azure.

GitHub Issue: [R] Expose Azure Blob Storage filesystem #32123

github-actions · 2026-03-19T03:08:59Z

Thanks for opening a pull request!

If this is not a minor PR. Could you open an issue for this pull request on GitHub? https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/new/choose

Opening GitHub issues ahead of time contributes to the Openness of the Apache Arrow project.

Then could you also rename the pull request title in the following format?

GH-${GITHUB_ISSUE_ID}: [${COMPONENT}] ${SUMMARY}

or

MINOR: [${COMPONENT}] ${SUMMARY}

See also:

github-actions · 2026-03-19T03:09:44Z

⚠️ GitHub issue #32123 has been automatically assigned in GitHub to PR creator.

marberts · 2026-03-20T17:27:57Z

The CI is failing because the Azure C++ SDK depends on libxml2.

Update tools/nixlibs.R to check for libxml2 in with_cloud_support(), turning off the Azure feature flag if libxml2 isn't found.
- What about configure and configure.win?
- Is with_cloud_support() the only function that needs changing in tools/nixlibs.R?
Update the install.Rmd and developers/setup.Rmd vignettes to note that libxml2 is a dependency of Azure (same as with curl and openssl).
Update DESCRIPTION to include libxml2 in SystemRequirements.

marberts · 2026-03-24T02:16:12Z

It looks like the failing CI job is from a warning in R CMD check about a non-API call to a C function, due to all the changes in R-devel. I don't think this is due to our PR.

At this point, I'm fairly confident that we've implemented the Azure features correctly. The only thing I'm not sure about is the setup in configure, configure.win, and tools/nixlibs.R. The Azure C++ SDK used by Arrow requires libxml2, which is a new system dependency for this package. I don't fully understand how these configuration scripts work, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're not updated correctly to reflect the new system dependency.

@jonkeane, @thisisnic, @assignUser Please let me or @Collinbrown95 know if there are any changes needed to this PR.

thisisnic · 2026-03-24T15:43:49Z

Thanks for the PR @marberts - if you rebase from the main branch now, the non-API call stuff should be resolved.

Your best bet for the configure etc stuff is looking at the history of that file or older PRs to see how this kind of thing was handled there.

This PR where the GCS bindings were added might help: #13404, but let us know if you have any questions!

thisisnic · 2026-03-24T15:45:28Z

We'll also need additional CI jobs to test this - the PR I linked to above contains examples of what we added there.

marberts · 2026-03-24T19:52:50Z

Great, thanks @thisisnic!

marberts · 2026-03-24T19:53:37Z

To do list.

Rebase against main to fix failing CI job.
Review configure, configure.win and tools/nixlibs.R against changes in ARROW-16510: [R] Add bindings for GCS filesystem #13404. It's possible this will reveal some other changes that are needed.
Add CI job to test changes. See again ARROW-16510: [R] Add bindings for GCS filesystem #13404.

Collinbrown95 · 2026-03-26T03:55:46Z

@github-actions crossbow submit -g r

github-actions · 2026-03-26T03:56:18Z

Only contributors can submit requests to this bot. Please ask someone from the community for help with getting the first commit in.
The Archery job run can be found at: https://github.com/apache/arrow/actions/runs/23576717645

thisisnic · 2026-03-26T11:13:38Z

@github-actions crossbow submit -g r

github-actions · 2026-03-26T11:16:24Z

Revision: 4da7280

Submitted crossbow builds: ursacomputing/crossbow @ actions-92325d6543

Task	Status
r-binary-packages
r-recheck-most
test-r-alpine-linux-cran
test-r-arrow-backwards-compatibility
test-r-depsource-system
test-r-dev-duckdb
test-r-devdocs
test-r-extra-packages
test-r-fedora-clang
test-r-gcc-11
test-r-gcc-12
test-r-install-local
test-r-install-local-minsizerel
test-r-linux-as-cran
test-r-linux-rchk
test-r-linux-sanitizers
test-r-linux-valgrind
test-r-m1-san
test-r-macos-as-cran
test-r-offline-maximal
test-r-ubuntu-22.04
test-r-versions

marberts · 2026-03-29T01:07:11Z

@github-actions crossbow submit -g r

github-actions · 2026-03-29T01:07:47Z

Only contributors can submit requests to this bot. Please ask someone from the community for help with getting the first commit in.
The Archery job run can be found at: https://github.com/apache/arrow/actions/runs/23698292050

thisisnic · 2026-03-30T12:00:56Z

Some of those CI failures are from things which have been fixed on main - you'll need to rebase your branch.

The hypothesis is that the errors in the build logs are caused by incompatibilities between WIL (Windows Implementation Library) and MinGW GCC, so install them directly instead of trying to build from source.

…re C++ SDK

…eing requested

jonkeane · 2026-07-10T12:13:57Z

@github-actions crossbow submit -g r

jonkeane · 2026-07-10T12:14:41Z

Thank you for your continued patience on this! I've rebased this against main and am running our extended CI to confirm if those failures we saw before were related to things on main from the last branching point.

github-actions · 2026-07-10T12:17:55Z

Revision: 84f3b74

Submitted crossbow builds: ursacomputing/crossbow @ actions-3cda80c98b

Task	Status
r-binary-packages
r-recheck-most
test-r-alpine-linux-cran
test-r-arrow-backwards-compatibility
test-r-depsource-system
test-r-dev-duckdb
test-r-devdocs
test-r-extra-packages
test-r-fedora-clang
test-r-gcc-11
test-r-gcc-12
test-r-install-local
test-r-install-local-minsizerel
test-r-linux-as-cran
test-r-linux-rchk
test-r-linux-sanitizers
test-r-linux-valgrind
test-r-m1-san
test-r-macos-as-cran
test-r-offline-maximal
test-r-ubuntu-22.04
test-r-versions
test-r-wasm

jonkeane · 2026-07-10T19:37:52Z

@github-actions crossbow submit r-binary-packages

github-actions · 2026-07-10T19:40:06Z

Revision: 9dd6793

Submitted crossbow builds: ursacomputing/crossbow @ actions-a47c3da823

Task	Status
r-binary-packages

jonkeane · 2026-07-10T20:08:18Z

I pushed a change to make sure that the binary runners have libxml, etc. The other failures are unrelated to this branch I believe (though some aren't on https://crossbow.arrow-dev.org/ yet, so they might even be r-devel transitory actually!)

jonkeane

Thanks for continuing to push on this, I've rebased and made sure that CI is passing. I'm inclined to merge, but will give others (and especially @thisisnic) a day or two to speak up if they don't want me to.

marberts · 2026-07-11T01:01:46Z

Awesome! Thank you.

conbench-apache-arrow · 2026-07-15T05:54:44Z

After merging your PR, Conbench analyzed the 4 benchmarking runs that have been run so far on merge-commit b03b4c5.

There were no benchmark performance regressions. 🎉

The full Conbench report has more details. It also includes information about 3 possible false positives for unstable benchmarks that are known to sometimes produce them.

marberts requested review from assignUser, jonkeane and thisisnic as code owners March 19, 2026 03:08

github-actions Bot added Component: R Component: Documentation awaiting review Awaiting review labels Mar 19, 2026

marberts changed the title ~~32123 expose azure blob filesystem~~ GH-32123 [R]: Expose azure blob filesystem Mar 19, 2026

marberts changed the title ~~GH-32123 [R]: Expose azure blob filesystem~~ GH-32123: [R] Expose azure blob filesystem Mar 19, 2026

github-actions Bot removed the Component: Documentation label Mar 19, 2026

marberts marked this pull request as draft March 25, 2026 23:32

github-actions Bot added Component: Parquet Component: C++ Component: Python Component: FlightRPC Component: Documentation labels Apr 1, 2026

Collinbrown95 and others added 17 commits July 10, 2026 07:12

cleanup azurefs test function code

2bc10ba

Trying PKGBUILD and windows build script again

169ca19

Updated PKGBUILD

d39eef4

debug ci: add azure dependencies that CI tries to build from source.

fb850f1

The hypothesis is that the errors in the build logs are caused by incompatibilities between WIL (Windows Implementation Library) and MinGW GCC, so install them directly instead of trying to build from source.

Removed tmp.md

7619f01

Removed windows build and added macos

ff68542

azure off for windows ci

9ea60df

Disable azure in configure.win

5a3eed4

Add placeholder comment to flag present issues with MinGW and the Azu…

8f5d9ba

…re C++ SDK

remove debugging script to install azure sdk from source

addcfa5

Updated vignettes to reflect Azure off on Windows

b58fcc5

Update github.packages.yml

d5cd943

Fixing lint in filesystem.cpp

211c1fc

Fixed warning in cpp code

c7dd3e5

Added build info for azure to tasks for mac + a couple code comments

24c918b

Fixed line endings on github.packages yaml

a8ad6a9

libxml2 warning in with_cloud_support() is now conditional on azure b…

84f3b74

…eing requested

jonkeane force-pushed the 32123-expose-azure-blob-filesystem branch from 1ea9150 to 84f3b74 Compare July 10, 2026 12:13

Add libxml2

9dd6793

jonkeane approved these changes Jul 10, 2026

View reviewed changes

github-actions Bot removed the awaiting change review Awaiting change review label Jul 10, 2026

jonkeane mentioned this pull request Jul 13, 2026

[R] Expose Azure Blob Storage filesystem #32123

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