How to join on multiple columns in Pyspark?

Question

I am using Spark 1.3 and would like to join on multiple columns using python interface (SparkSQL)

The following works:

I first register them as temp tables.

numeric.registerTempTable("numeric")
Ref.registerTempTable("Ref")

test  = numeric.join(Ref, numeric.ID == Ref.ID, joinType='inner')

I would now like to join them based on multiple columns.

I get SyntaxError: invalid syntax with this:

test  = numeric.join(Ref,
   numeric.ID == Ref.ID AND numeric.TYPE == Ref.TYPE AND
   numeric.STATUS == Ref.STATUS ,  joinType='inner')

Asked By: user3803714

||

Source

Answer 1

You should use & / | operators and be careful about operator precedence (== has lower precedence than bitwise AND and OR):

df1 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "a", 2.0), (2, "b", 3.0), (3, "c", 3.0)],
    ("x1", "x2", "x3"))

df2 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "f", -1.0), (2, "b", 0.0)], ("x1", "x2", "x3"))

df = df1.join(df2, (df1.x1 == df2.x1) & (df1.x2 == df2.x2))
df.show()

## +---+---+---+---+---+---+
## | x1| x2| x3| x1| x2| x3|
## +---+---+---+---+---+---+
## |  2|  b|3.0|  2|  b|0.0|
## +---+---+---+---+---+---+

Answered By: zero323

Answer 2

An alternative approach would be:

df1 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "a", 2.0), (2, "b", 3.0), (3, "c", 3.0)],
    ("x1", "x2", "x3"))

df2 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "f", -1.0), (2, "b", 0.0)], ("x1", "x2", "x4"))

df = df1.join(df2, ['x1','x2'])
df.show()

which outputs:

+---+---+---+---+
| x1| x2| x3| x4|
+---+---+---+---+
|  2|  b|3.0|0.0|
+---+---+---+---+

With the main advantage being that the columns on which the tables are joined are not duplicated in the output, reducing the risk of encountering errors such as org.apache.spark.sql.AnalysisException: Reference 'x1' is ambiguous, could be: x1#50L, x1#57L.

Whenever the columns in the two tables have different names, (let’s say in the example above, df2 has the columns y1, y2 and y4), you could use the following syntax:

df = df1.join(df2.withColumnRenamed('y1','x1').withColumnRenamed('y2','x2'), ['x1','x2'])

Answered By: Florian

Answer 3

test = numeric.join(Ref, 
   on=[
     numeric.ID == Ref.ID, 
     numeric.TYPE == Ref.TYPE,
     numeric.STATUS == Ref.STATUS 
   ], how='inner')

Answered By: Ander Herrrera

Answer 4

You can also provide a list of strings, if the column names are the same.

df1 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "a", 2.0), (2, "b", 3.0), (3, "c", 3.0)],
    ("x1", "x2", "x3"))

df2 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "f", -1.0), (2, "b", 0.0)], ("x1", "x2", "x3"))

df = df1.join(df2, ["x1","x2"])

df.show()
+---+---+---+---+
| x1| x2| x3| x3|
+---+---+---+---+
|  2|  b|3.0|0.0|
+---+---+---+---+

Another way to go about this, if column names are different and if you want to rely on column name strings is the following:

df1 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "a", 2.0), (2, "b", 3.0), (3, "c", 3.0)],
    ("x1", "x2", "x3"))

df2 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
    [(1, "f", -1.0), (2, "b", 0.0)], ("y1", "y2", "y3"))

df = df1.join(df2, (col("x1")==col("y1")) & (col("x2")==col("y2")))

df.show()
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| x1| x2| x3| y1| y2| y3|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|  2|  b|3.0|  2|  b|0.0|
+---+---+---+---+---+---+

This is useful if you want to reference column names dynamically and also in instances where there is a space in the column name and you cannot use the df.col_name syntax. You should look at changing the column name in that case anyway though.

Answered By: Mehul Fadnavis

How to join on multiple columns in Pyspark?

Question:

Answers: