pyspark-explorer 0.0.13

Explore data files with pyspark

Spark File Explorer

When developing spark applications I came across the growing number of data files that I create.

CSVs are fine but what about JSON and complex PARQUET files?

To open and explore a file I used Excel to view CSV files, text editors with plugins to view JSON files, but there was nothing handy to view PARQUETs. Event formatted JSONs were not always readable. What about viewing schemas?

Each time I had to use spark and write simple apps which was not a problem itself but was tedious and boring.

Why not a database?

Well, for tabular data there problems is already solved - just use your preferred database. Quite often we can load text files or even parquets directly to the database.

So what's the big deal?

Hierarchical data sets

Unfortunately the files I often deal with have hierarchical structure. They cannot be simply visualized as tables or rather some fields contain tables of other structures. Each of these structures is a table itself but how to load and explore such embedded tables in a database?

For Spark files use... Spark!

Hold on - since I generate files using Apache Spark, why can't I use it to explore them? I can easily handle complex structures and file types using built-in features. So all I need is to build a use interface to display directories, files and their contents.

Why console?

I use Kubernetes in production environment, I develop Spark applications locally or in VM. In all environments I would like to have one tool to rule them all.

I like console tools a lot, they require some sort of simplicity. They can run locally or over SSH connection on the remote cluster. Sounds perfect. All I needed was a console UI library, so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Textual

What a great project textual is!

Years ago I used curses but textual is so superior to what I used back then. It has so many features packed in a friendly form of simple to use components. Highly recommended.

Usage

Install package with pip:

pip install pyspark-explorer

Run:

pyspark-explorer

I recommend that you provide a base path. For local files that could be for example:

# Linux
pyspark-explorer file:///home/myuser/datafiles/base_path
# Windows
pyspark-explorer file:///c:/datafiles/base_path
# Remote hdfs cluster
pyspark-explorer hdfs://somecluster/datafiles/base_path

Default path is set to /, which represents local root filesystem and works fine even in Windows thanks to Spark logics.