How to read feather/arrow file natively?

Question

I have feather format file sales.feather that I am using for exchanging data between python and R.

In R I use the following command:

df = arrow::read_feather("sales.feather", as_data_frame=TRUE)

In python I used that:

df = pandas.read_feather("sales.feather")

What is the best way to load data from that file to memory into Spark instance operated from pyspark? I would like to also control pyspark.StorageLevel for data read from feather.

I don't want to use pandas to load data because it segfaults for my 19GB feather file, created from 45GB csv.

Is it required to directly load it into memory or is it allowed to store it into hive before loading it to spark? — cronoik, Nov 23 '20 at 10:45
@cronoik Directly load into memory, or eventually mmap arrow file directly from spark with StorageLevel option. No hive in the middle. — jangorecki, Nov 23 '20 at 10:54
Could you please try the following: `import pyarrow.feather as feather` `df = spark.createDataframe(feather.read_feather('sales.feather'))`. In case this is not working, can you please tell us how many columns your file has and if you have an index column (something like a primary key)? — cronoik, Nov 26 '20 at 01:49
@cronoik if it's expected to work then you should post it as an answer. Will try. 9 columns, no index. — jangorecki, Nov 26 '20 at 07:45
I am actually not sure whether this will also lead to a segfault. I currently don't have an infrastructure that I can crash. The proper approach would be to write an custom [converter](http://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/rdd-programming-guide.html#external-datasets) (check the python tab) on the jvm site, but I am currently a bit stuck. — cronoik, Nov 26 '20 at 09:21
@cronoik it raises exception `module 'pandas' has no attribute '__version__'` in `read_feather: _check_pandas_version()` which seems like it tries to go via pandas — jangorecki, Nov 26 '20 at 10:22
Yes, it will use pandas. It is also currently more like a test because I don't expect it to work. But `read_feather` can also slice your file which will reduce the memory (currently working on an answer). Which version of pandas are you using? Can upgrade it? — cronoik, Nov 26 '20 at 10:26
@cronoik I do not use pandas in my pyspark environment. Neither pyspark and pyarrow installs pandas as dependency. Maybe they should? — jangorecki, Nov 26 '20 at 10:28
Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/225155/discussion-between-cronoik-and-jangorecki). — cronoik, Nov 26 '20 at 10:36

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 01 '18 at 16:52

0

You can convert pandas dataframe to Spark dataframe as follows.

from pyspark.sql import SQLContext, Row
sqlContext = SQLContext(sc)
spark_df = sqlContext.createDataFrame(pandas_df)

edited Dec 01 '18 at 16:52

mayank agrawal

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answered Dec 01 '18 at 10:24

Vikram Patil

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this solution fails with out of memory error for 19GB feather file even on 120GB memory machine due to memory inefficiency, that is why I asked for direct way of reading to spark. – jangorecki Dec 22 '18 at 05:39

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 19 '18 at 20:30

-1

Perhaps you can consider switching to parquet format? Looks more suitable for your usecase, see What are the differences between feather and parquet?

answered Dec 19 '18 at 20:30

dkapitan

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this should be a comment rather than an answer – jangorecki Nov 20 '20 at 17:36

Rubin bhandari · Answer 3 · 2018-12-21T08:59:52.980

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from pyspark import SparkContext

sc = SparkContext("local", "App Name")
sql = SQLContext(sc)

then use createDataFrame like below:

spark_df = sql.createDataFrame(pandas_df)

edited Dec 21 '18 at 08:59

answered Dec 21 '18 at 08:31

Rubin bhandari

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what is `data_org`? – jangorecki Dec 21 '18 at 08:50

How to read feather/arrow file natively?

3 Answers3