How to convert rows into a list of dictionaries in pyspark?

Question

I have a DataFrame(df) in pyspark, by reading from a hive table:

df=spark.sql('select * from <table_name>')


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|  Name    |    URL visited               |
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|  person1 | [google,msn,yahoo]           |
|  person2 | [fb.com,airbnb,wired.com]    |
|  person3 | [fb.com,google.com]          |
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

When i tried the following, got an error

df_dict = dict(zip(df['name'],df['url']))
"TypeError: zip argument #1 must support iteration."

type(df.name) is of 'pyspark.sql.column.Column'

How do i create a dictionary like the following, which can be iterated later on

{'person1':'google','msn','yahoo'}
{'person2':'fb.com','airbnb','wired.com'}
{'person3':'fb.com','google.com'}

Appreciate your thoughts and help.

Answer 1

How about using the pyspark Row.as_Dict() method? This is part of the dataframe API (which I understand is the "recommended" API at time of writing) and would not require you to use the RDD API at all.

df_list_of_dict = [row.asDict() for row in df.collect()]

type(df_list_of_dict), type(df_list_of_dict[0])
#(<class 'list'>, <class 'dict'>)

df_list_of_dict
#[{'person1': ['google','msn','yahoo']},
# {'person2': ['fb.com','airbnb','wired.com']},
# {'person3': ['fb.com','google.com']}]

Answer 2

I think you can try row.asDict(), this code run directly on the executor, and you don't have to collect the data on driver.

Something like:

df.rdd.map(lambda row: row.asDict())