Scala Spark How can I convert a column array[string] to a string with JSON array in it?

Question

I have a column that contains an array of strings, I need to convert it into a JSON list of string? original value: [a,b,c] transformed value: "[\"a\",\"b\",\"c\"]"

Answer 1

You can combine struct, to_json and get_json_object:

import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._

val jsonArray = get_json_object(
  to_json(struct($"YOUR_COLUMN".as("data"))),
  "$.data"
)

df.select(jsonArray)

Answer 2

Something like below could also help variableDF = variableDF.withColumn(f.name, to_json(struct(col(f.name))))