DataFrame explode list of JSON objects

Question

I have JSON data in the following format:

{
     "date": 100
     "userId": 1
     "data": [
         {
             "timeStamp": 101,
             "reading": 1
         },
         {
             "timeStamp": 102,
             "reading": 2
         }
     ]
 }
 {
     "date": 200
     "userId": 1
     "data": [
         {
             "timeStamp": 201,
             "reading": 3
         },
         {
             "timeStamp": 202,
             "reading": 4
         }
     ]
 }

I read it into Spark SQL:

val df = SQLContext.read.json(...)
df.printSchema
// root
//  |-- date: double (nullable = true)
//  |-- userId: long (nullable = true)
//  |-- data: array (nullable = true)
//  |     |-- element: struct (containsNull = true)
//  |     |    |-- timeStamp: double (nullable = true)
//  |     |    |-- reading: double (nullable = true)

I would like to transform it in order to have one row per reading. To my understanding, every transformation should produce a new DataFrame, so the following should work:

import org.apache.spark.sql.functions.explode
val exploded = df
    .withColumn("reading", explode(df("data.reading")))
    .withColumn("timeStamp", explode(df("data.timeStamp")))
    .drop("data")
exploded.printSchema
// root
//  |-- date: double (nullable = true)
//  |-- userId: long (nullable = true)
//  |-- timeStamp: double (nullable = true)
//  |-- reading: double (nullable = true)

The resulting schema is correct, but I get every value twice:

exploded.show
// +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
// |       date|     userId|  timeStamp|    reading|
// +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
// |        100|          1|        101|          1|
// |        100|          1|        101|          1|
// |        100|          1|        102|          2|
// |        100|          1|        102|          2|
// |        200|          1|        201|          3|
// |        200|          1|        201|          3|
// |        200|          1|        202|          4|
// |        200|          1|        202|          4|
// +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

My feeling is that there is something about the lazy evaluation of the two explodes that I don't understand.

Is there a way to get the above code to work? Or should I use a different approach all together?

Answer 1

The resulting schema is correct, but I get every value twice

While schema is correct the output you've provided doesn't reflect actual result. In practice you'll get Cartesian product of timeStamp and reading for each input row.

My feeling is that there is something about the lazy evaluation

No, it has nothing to do with lazy evaluation. The way you use explode is just wrong. To understand what is going on lets trace execution for date equal 100:

val df100 = df.where($"date" === 100)

step by step. First explode will generate two rows, one for 1 and one for 2:

val df100WithReading = df100.withColumn("reading", explode(df("data.reading")))

df100WithReading.show
// +------------------+----+------+-------+
// |              data|date|userId|reading|
// +------------------+----+------+-------+
// |[[1,101], [2,102]]| 100|     1|      1|
// |[[1,101], [2,102]]| 100|     1|      2|
// +------------------+----+------+-------+

The second explode generate two rows (timeStamp equal 101 and 102) for each row from the previous step:

val df100WithReadingAndTs = df100WithReading
  .withColumn("timeStamp", explode(df("data.timeStamp")))

df100WithReadingAndTs.show
// +------------------+----+------+-------+---------+
// |              data|date|userId|reading|timeStamp|
// +------------------+----+------+-------+---------+
// |[[1,101], [2,102]]| 100|     1|      1|      101|
// |[[1,101], [2,102]]| 100|     1|      1|      102|
// |[[1,101], [2,102]]| 100|     1|      2|      101|
// |[[1,101], [2,102]]| 100|     1|      2|      102|
// +------------------+----+------+-------+---------+

If you want correct results explode data and select afterwards:

val exploded = df.withColumn("data", explode($"data"))
  .select($"userId", $"date",
    $"data".getItem("reading"),  $"data".getItem("timestamp"))

exploded.show
// +------+----+-------------+---------------+
// |userId|date|data[reading]|data[timestamp]|
// +------+----+-------------+---------------+
// |     1| 100|            1|            101|
// |     1| 100|            2|            102|
// |     1| 200|            3|            201|
// |     1| 200|            4|            202|
// +------+----+-------------+---------------+