Rust: Unable to install adbc_core and adbc_datafusion (following docs): Compiler Error

[GeneralPancakeMSTR]

What happened?

cargo build on a trivial project (literally) does not compile/build.

Am I missing something super obvious?

Stack Trace

error.txt

How can we reproduce the bug?

• sudo apt install protobuf-compiler
• cargo init rust_adbc_test
• cargo add adbc_core adbc_datafusion
• cargo build

Environment/Setup

• OS:

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS
Release:        24.04
Codename:       noble

• protoc --version : libprotoc 3.21.12
• cargo 1.91.0 (ea2d97820 2025-10-10)

[amoeba]

Hi @GeneralPancakeMSTR, this is a case of Rust having a terrible error message for an error that's not uncommon.

The issue is that the crate versions you end up with here pull in different major versions of some of the arrow crates and, in Rust, types aren't compatible across package major versions. The ultimate fix is to get your dependency tree in a state where you only have one version of the arrow crates.

This should do it,

[dependencies]
adbc_core = "0.19.0"
adbc_datafusion = "0.19.0"

Can you try that as a test?

[amoeba]

To keep using the 0.20.0 versions of the crates, you can also do this instead of lowering the versions like above:

$ cargo update -p arrow-array@56.2.0 --precise 55.2.0

[lidavidm]

rustc does actually highlight the problem:

note: there are multiple different versions of crate `arrow_array` in the dependency graph
    --> /home/<<username>>/.cargo/registry/src/index.crates.io-1949cf8c6b5b557f/arrow-array-56.2.0/src/record_batch.rs:30:1
     |
  30 | pub trait RecordBatchReader: Iterator<Item = Result<RecordBatch, ArrowError>> {
     | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this is the required trait
     |
    ::: /home/<<username>>/.cargo/registry/src/index.crates.io-1949cf8c6b5b557f/adbc_datafusion-0.20.0/src/lib.rs:20:5
     |
  20 | use adbc_core::constants;
     |     --------- one version of crate `arrow_array` used here, as a dependency of crate `adbc_core`
...
  32 | use arrow_array::builder::{
     |     ----------- one version of crate `arrow_array` used here, as a direct dependency of the current crate

[lidavidm]

That said, @eitsupi @mbrobbel how bad would it be if we removed the upper bound on arrow-rs? Or else, maybe we should consider (1) pinning each adbc rust release to an exact version of arrow-rs, (2) following each arrow-rs release with our own release

[lidavidm]

Albeit DataFusion doesn't follow arrow-rs, which complicates things again. (Maybe we really need it to be a separate crate or to be moved into the DataFusion repo.)

[mbrobbel]

Albeit DataFusion doesn't follow arrow-rs, which complicates things again. (Maybe we really need it to be a separate crate or to be moved into the DataFusion repo.)

+1 for moving this driver out. I can create a PR to start a discussion in the datafusion repo?

[lidavidm]

That would be much appreciated. Maybe an issue to see how they feel first?

[eitsupi]

Separating adbc_datafusion from this repository (so that it can be synchronized with DataFusion releases) certainly seems like the clearest solution.

Until then, unfortunately, it may be necessary to explicitly state in the documentation that we need to remove the newer arrow-array and arrow-schema from the lock file using a command like the following.

$ cargo add adbc_core adbc_datafusion
$ cargo update -p arrow-array@56.2.0 -p arrow-schema@56.2.0 --precise 55.2.0

Currently, the other drivers in this repository besides adbc_datafusion don't depend on a specific Arrow version, so we can edit the lock file to pin it to a particular arrow version.

[amoeba]

I think adding a note in the docs a good idea @eitsupi, I put a PR up at #3689, please have a look.

[GeneralPancakeMSTR]

This solved the problem:

$ cargo update -p arrow-array@56.2.0 -p arrow-schema@56.2.0 --precise 55.2.0

Thanks everyone for your help! Much appreciated.

[amoeba]

Thanks for filing an issue @GeneralPancakeMSTR.