384e394ff0
It should be possible to return the similarity of vectors in CQL statements following the [Cassandra compatible syntax](https://cassandra.apache.org/doc/latest/cassandra/getting-started/vector-search-quickstart.html#query-vector-data-with-cql):
```
SELECT comment, similarity_cosine(comment_vector, [0.1, 0.15, 0.3, 0.12, 0.05])
FROM cycling.comments_vs;
```
Although the calculations are slow, and we already have calculated results returned via Vector Store API,
we need the functionality as it allows us to calculate similarity of vectors not stored in vector indexes.
It will be needed for [quantization and rescoring](https://scylladb.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/RND/pages/195985800/Quantization+and+Rescoring).
The feature is also a nice-to-have in testing as requested many times by testing and CX teams.
The optimized version utilizing already calculated distances from Vector Store without a need of rescoring will be coming soon after via https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb/pull/27991.
---
The patch adds functions:
- `similarity_cosine(<vector>, <vector>)`,
- `similarity_euclidean(<vector>, <vector>)`,
- `similarity_dot_product(<vector>, <vector>)`
Where `<vector>` is either a column of type `VECTOR<FLOAT, N>` or a vector of floats literal.
These functions can be called with every `SELECT` query, not only ANN vector queries as opposed to https://github.com/scylladb/scylladb/pull/25993.
The similarity calculations are implemented inspired by [USearch's implementation](
a2f1759910/include/usearch/index_plugins.hpp (L1304-L1385)) and made compatible with [Cassandra's documentation](https://cassandra.apache.org/doc/5.0/cassandra/developing/cql/functions.html#vector-similarity-functions).
That would guarantee the results in ScyllaDB are calculated using the exact same algorithms as used in Vector Store indexes.
---
Fixes: SCYLLADB-88
Fixes: SCYLLADB-89
New feature, should land into 2026.1
Closes scylladb/scylladb#27524
* github.com:scylladb/scylladb:
docs: add vector similarity functions documentation
test/cqlpy: add similarity functions correctness tests
test/cqlpy: add similarity functions invalid call tests
cql3: introduce similarity functions syntax
vector_similarity_fcts: introduce similarity functions
vector_similarity_fcts: retrieve similarity function argument types
vector_similarity_fcts: add calculating similarity between vectors
ScyllaDB Documentation
This repository contains the source files for ScyllaDB documentation.
- The
devfolder contains developer-oriented documentation related to the ScyllaDB code base. It is not published and is only available via GitHub. - All other folders and files contain user-oriented documentation related to ScyllaDB and are sources for docs.scylladb.com/manual.
To report a documentation bug or suggest an improvement, open an issue in GitHub issues for this project.
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To prevent the build from failing:
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If you add a new file, ensure it's added to an appropriate toctree, for example:
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---------------------- Prerequisites ----------------------
Building User Documentation
Prerequisites
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See the ScyllaDB Sphinx Theme prerequisites to check which versions of the above are currently required.
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Cleanup
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