Feature: Allow uint32/uint40 key types in Python library

[frank-lsf]

Describe what you are looking for

Currently in the Python library, the key type is hard-coded as uint64:

https://github.com/unum-cloud/usearch/blob/main/python/usearch/index.py#L72

It seems difficult to use uint32 as keys for an index. I have billions of vectors, so a smaller key would help a lot with saving space and memory.

Can you contribute to the implementation?

• I can contribute

Is your feature request specific to a certain interface?

Python bindings

Contact Details

No response

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[ashvardanian]

Hi @frank-lsf! Even though the keys are 64 bits in size, the "neighbor ID slots" are only 32 bits by default. Therefore, noticeable memory gains are feasible. In the next major release, we plan to expand the key size further to 128 bits, but this change shouldn't be noticeable in a Python application either. The overhead of allocating a single object in Python is much higher.

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https://github.com/unum-cloud/usearch/blob/24a0f7c1686693c23f394790b9e55c817438e3e3/python/lib.cpp#L63-L72

https://github.com/unum-cloud/usearch/blob/24a0f7c1686693c23f394790b9e55c817438e3e3/include/usearch/index_dense.hpp#L2226-L2227

https://github.com/unum-cloud/usearch/blob/24a0f7c1686693c23f394790b9e55c817438e3e3/include/usearch/index_dense.hpp#L371-L388

https://github.com/unum-cloud/usearch/blob/24a0f7c1686693c23f394790b9e55c817438e3e3/include/usearch/index.hpp#L1867-L1869