feat: add asynchronous drop table API (#3936)

## Summary

- add `drop_table_async` and return a job handle while preserving
`drop_table`
- consume remote 202 responses with cleanup job IDs and retain
older-server compatibility
- expose the API through Python and TypeScript connection wrappers

nodejs/__test__/connection.test.ts

@@ -89,6 +89,16 @@ describe("given a connection", () => {
     await db.createTable("test4", [{ id: 1 }, { id: 2 }]);
   });
 
+  it("should return a completed job when dropping a local table", async () => {
+    await db.createTable("async-drop", [{ id: 1 }]);
+
+    const job = await db.dropTableAsync("async-drop");
+    expect(job.id).toBeNull();
+    await expect(job.status()).resolves.toBe("finished");
+    await job.wait();
+    await expect(db.tableNames()).resolves.toEqual([]);
+  });
+
   it("should fail if creating table twice, unless overwrite is true", async () => {
     let tbl = await db.createTable("test", [{ id: 1 }, { id: 2 }]);
     await expect(tbl.countRows()).resolves.toBe(2);

nodejs/lancedb/connection.ts

@@ -327,6 +327,14 @@ export abstract class Connection {
    */
   abstract dropTable(name: string, namespacePath?: string[]): Promise<void>;
 
+  /**
+   * Start dropping a table and return its cleanup job.
+   *
+   * The table may become unavailable before its data files are removed. Wait
+   * on the returned job to know when cleanup has finished.
+   */
+  abstract dropTableAsync(name: string, namespacePath?: string[]): Promise<Job>;
+
   /**
    * Drop all tables in the database.
    * @param {string[]} namespacePath The namespace path to drop tables from (defaults to root namespace).
@@ -705,6 +713,10 @@ export class LocalConnection extends Connection {
     return this.inner.dropTable(name, namespacePath ?? []);
   }
 
+  async dropTableAsync(name: string, namespacePath?: string[]): Promise<Job> {
+    return this.inner.dropTableAsync(name, namespacePath ?? []);
+  }
+
   async dropAllTables(namespacePath?: string[]): Promise<void> {
     return this.inner.dropAllTables(namespacePath ?? []);
   }

nodejs/src/connection.rs

@@ -334,6 +334,22 @@ impl Connection {
             .default_error()
     }
 
+    /// Start dropping a table and return its cleanup job.
+    #[napi(catch_unwind)]
+    pub async fn drop_table_async(
+        &self,
+        name: String,
+        namespace_path: Option<Vec<String>>,
+    ) -> napi::Result<crate::job::Job> {
+        let ns = namespace_path.unwrap_or_default();
+        let job = self
+            .get_inner()?
+            .drop_table_async(&name, &ns)
+            .await
+            .default_error()?;
+        Ok(crate::job::Job::new(job))
+    }
+
     #[napi(catch_unwind)]
     pub async fn drop_all_tables(&self, namespace_path: Option<Vec<String>>) -> napi::Result<()> {
         let ns = namespace_path.unwrap_or_default();