Files
lancedb/docs
lancedb-gatefixer[bot]andXuanwo f5f4463b15 fix(node): materialize nested struct blobs in bytes mode (#4611)
`blobMode: "bytes"` left blobs inside structs as descriptors because
projection matching ignored parent structs and byte replacement only
rebuilt top-level fields.

Expand direct struct projections and aliases to their blob leaves, then
recursively replace the corresponding Arrow fields and data with
`LargeBinary`. Track literal output names separately from descendant
paths so scalar aliases stay intact and every overlapping blob
projection is converted. Preserve null structs, null and empty blobs,
sibling fields, schema metadata, and the existing row ID and snapshot
behavior. Blobs inside lists retain their descriptors. Update the API
docs to describe struct support.

Regression coverage includes full and parent-struct projections, leaf
and struct aliases, dotted output names, overlapping projections in both
orders, nested structs, nulls, empty blobs and results, multiple
batches, list siblings, query reuse, row IDs, and concurrent writes.
Regression tests reproduce the nested-blob and projection-collision
failures before the corresponding changes.

Validation:

- `pnpm build`
- `pnpm lint`
- `pnpm run docs`
- `pnpm test __test__/nested_blob.test.ts __test__/blob.test.ts
__test__/query.test.ts --runInBand --verbose=false` — 142 passed
- `pnpm test __test__/table.test.ts --runInBand --verbose=false -t 'when
dealing with blob columns'` — 60 passed

Fixes #4609

<!-- lance-gatekeeper-fix:v1 agent=76edaac77d044c468d569b58efa2104a
generation=1 -->

---------

Co-authored-by: Gatefixer <313497061+lancedb-gatefixer[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Xuanwo <github@xuanwo.io>
2026-10-23 03:42:22 +08:00
..
2026-09-09 15:33:04 +08:00

LanceDB Documentation

LanceDB docs are available at docs.lancedb.com.

The SDK docs are built and deployed automatically by Github Actions whenever a commit is pushed to the main branch. So it is possible for the docs to show unreleased features.

Building the docs

Setup

  1. Install LanceDB Python. See setup in Python contributing guide. Run make develop to install the Python package.
  2. Install documentation dependencies. From LanceDB repo root: pip install -r docs/requirements.txt

Preview the docs

Run these commands from the LanceDB repository root. The subshell changes into docs to load mkdocs.yml, while leaving your shell in the repository root.

(cd docs && PYTHONPATH=. mkdocs serve)

If you want to just generate the HTML files:

(cd docs && PYTHONPATH=. mkdocs build)

If successful, you should see a docs/site directory in the repository root that you can verify locally.

Adding examples

To make sure examples are correct, we put examples in test files so they can be run as part of our test suites.

You can see the tests are at:

  • Python: python/python/tests/docs
  • Typescript: nodejs/examples/

Checking python examples

cd python
pytest -vv python/tests/docs

Checking typescript examples

The examples depend on @lancedb/lancedb at file:../dist, so the package must be built before running the tests. This uses pnpm; see the Typescript contributing guide for the toolchain setup.

pushd nodejs
pnpm install
pnpm build
popd

Then you can run the examples by going to the nodejs/examples directory, which is a separate pnpm package with its own lockfile:

pushd nodejs/examples
pnpm install
pnpm test
popd

API documentation

Python

The Python API documentation is organized based on the file docs/src/python/python.md. We manually add entries there so we can control the organization of the reference page. However, this means any new types must be manually added to the file. No additional steps are needed to generate the API documentation.

Typescript

The typescript API documentation is generated from the typescript source code using typedoc.

When new APIs are added, you must manually re-run the typedoc command to update the API documentation. The new files should be checked into the repository.

pushd nodejs
# `pnpm docs` would invoke pnpm's built-in `docs` command, not the script.
pnpm run docs
popd