ReadonlychunkReadonlychunksReadonlykindReadonlylengthReadonlystorageOptional ReadonlyvalidityOptionaloptions: ScanOptionsGather → plain StringColumn. The result is built via
stringColumnFromArray so the dict-vs-fallback heuristic
runs once on the gathered values — matching what
materialize's compact step would produce.
String chunked column. Same shape contract as the other chunked variants; chunks are plain
StringColumnand can have per- chunk dictionaries that differ from one another.readandscanroute through each chunk's ownreadso the per-chunk encoding (dict vs fallback) is handled transparently — no cross-chunk dictionary unification at construction. See the class-level comment below for why that's deferred.