overloaded method error using spark-csv

Question

I'm working with the Databricks spark-csv package (via Scala API), and having problems defining a custom schema.

After starting up the console with

spark-shell  --packages com.databricks:spark-csv_2.11:1.2.0

I import my necessary types

import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{StructType, StructField, StringType, IntegerType}

and then simply try to define this schema:

val customSchema = StructType(
    StructField("user_id", IntegerType, true),
    StructField("item_id", IntegerType, true),
    StructField("artist_id", IntegerType, true),
    StructField("scrobble_time", StringType, true))

but I receive the following error:

<console>:26: error: overloaded method value apply with alternatives:
  (fields: Array[org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField])org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructType <and>
  (fields: java.util.List[org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField])org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructType <and>
  (fields: Seq[org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField])org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructType
 cannot be applied to (org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField, org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField, org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField, org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField)
       val customSchema = StructType(

I'm very new to scala, so having trouble parsing this, but what am I doing wrong here? I'm following the very simple example here.

Answer 1

You need to pass your set of StructField's as a Seq.

Something like any of the following works:

val customSchema = StructType(Seq(StructField("user_id", IntegerType, true), StructField("item_id", IntegerType, true), StructField("artist_id", IntegerType, true), StructField("scrobble_time", StringType, true)))

val customSchema = (new StructType)
  .add("user_id", IntegerType, true)
  .add("item_id", IntegerType, true)
  .add("artist_id", IntegerType, true)
  .add("scrobble_time", StringType, true)

val customSchema = StructType(StructField("user_id", IntegerType, true) :: StructField("item_id", IntegerType, true) :: StructField("artist_id", IntegerType, true) :: StructField("scrobble_time", StringType, true) :: Nil)

I'm not sure why it's not presented as this on the README, but if you check the StructType documentation, it's clear about this.