What are the differences between Sort Comparator and Group Comparator in Hadoop?

Question

What are the differences between Sort Comparator and Group Comparator in Hadoop?

Answer 1

To understand GroupComparator, see my answer to this question -

What is the use of grouping comparator in hadoop map reduce

SortComparator:Used to define how map output keys are sorted

Excerpts from the book Hadoop - Definitive Guide:

Sort order for keys is found as follows:

1. If the property mapred.output.key.comparator.class is set, either explicitly or by calling setSortComparatorClass() on Job, then an instance of that class is used. (In the old API the equivalent method is setOutputKeyComparatorClass() on JobConf.)

2. Otherwise, keys must be a subclass of WritableComparable, and the registered comparator for the key class is used.

3. If there is no registered comparator, then a RawComparator is used that deserializes the byte streams being compared into objects and delegates to the WritableComparable’s compareTo() method.

SortComparator Vs GroupComparator in a one liner: SortComparator decides how map output keys are sorted while GroupComparator decides which map output keys within the Reducer go to the same reduce method call.

Answer 2

Group Comparator decides which map output keys will be united(grouped) into one key, and of course all collections of values will be grouped too. Usually it takes a first key as the only one for summary collection.

SortComparator decides how keys will be sorted in input of reduce. By default it uses natural ordering.