From 291957f9b6fd7f4793b132bd59a9968eb0b82f16 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kevin Wilfong <kevinwilfong@meta.com>
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2024 14:56:13 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Add comment explaining TypeToFlatVector<Generic> (#11187)

Summary:
Pull Request resolved: https://github.com/facebookincubator/velox/pull/11187

This was a request in a comment made on
https://github.com/facebookincubator/velox/pull/11170 I missed it before I landed the
change, so this is to address it.

Reviewed By: amitkdutta, bikramSingh91

Differential Revision: D63987591

fbshipit-source-id: 08c403a394d67402c393d40cea58bce5afafaf2f
---
 velox/vector/VectorTypeUtils.h | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/velox/vector/VectorTypeUtils.h b/velox/vector/VectorTypeUtils.h
index ca6a6b3cef13..b23316db5085 100644
--- a/velox/vector/VectorTypeUtils.h
+++ b/velox/vector/VectorTypeUtils.h
@@ -85,6 +85,11 @@ struct TypeToFlatVector {
   using type = typename KindToFlatVector<SimpleTypeTrait<T>::typeKind>::type;
 };
 
+// Generic's, by design, do not have any compile time type information, so it is
+// impossible to determine what sort of Vector would hold values for this type.
+// To work around this, we just return BaseVector, since any Vector class can be
+// safely casted to BaseVector, and it is consistent with classes specialized
+// for the Generic type, like the VectorWriter.
 template <typename T, bool comparable, bool orderable>
 struct TypeToFlatVector<Generic<T, comparable, orderable>> {
   using type = BaseVector;