How to create Spark RDD from an iterator?

Question

To make it clear, I am not looking for RDD from an array/list like

List<Integer> list = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7); // sample
JavaRDD<Integer> rdd = new JavaSparkContext().parallelize(list);

How can I create a spark RDD from a java iterator without completely buffering it in memory?

Iterator<Integer> iterator = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4).iterator(); //sample iterator for illustration
JavaRDD<Integer> rdd = new JavaSparkContext().what("?", iterator); //the Question

Additional Question:

Is it a requirement for source to be re-readable(or capable to read many times) to offer resilience for RDD? In other words, since iterators are fundamentally read-once, is it even possible to create Resilient Distributed Datasets(RDD) from iterators?

Answer 1

As somebody else said, you could do something with spark streaming, but as for pure spark, you can't, and the reason is that what you're asking goes against spark's model. Let me explain. To distribute and parallelize work, spark has to divide it in chunks. When reading from HDFS, that 'chunking' is done for Spark by HDFS, since HDFS files are organized in blocks. Spark will generally generate one task per block. Now, iterators only provide sequential access to your data, so it's impossible for spark to organize it in chunks without reading it all in memory.

It may be possible to build a RDD that has a single iterable partition, but even then, it is impossible to say if the implementation of the Iterable could be sent to workers. When using sc.parallelize() spark creates partitions that implement serializable so each partition can be sent to a different worker. The iterable could be over a network connection, or file in the local FS, so they cannot be sent to the workers unless they are buffered in memory.