Integrate Spark-SQL (Spark 1.6.1) with Avro

You integrate Spark-SQL with Avro when you want to read and write Avro data. This information is for Spark 1.6.1 or earlier users.

About this task

Use the following steps to perform the integration. Previous versions of Spark do not require these steps.

Procedure

  1. Download the Avro 1.7.7 JAR file to the Spark lib (opt/mapr/spark/spark-<version>/lib) directory.
    You can download the file from the maven repository: http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.avro/avro/1.7.7
  2. Use one of the following methods to add the Avro 1.7.7 JAR to the classpath:
    • Prepend the Avro 1.7.7 JAR file to the spark.executor.extraClassPath and spark.driver.extraClassPath in the spark-defaults.conf (/opt/mapr/spark/spark-<version>/conf/spark-defaults.conf) file:
      spark.executor.extraClassPath  /opt/mapr/spark/spark-<spark_version>/lib/avro-1.7.7.jar:<rest_of_path>
spark.driver.extraClassPath  /opt/mapr/spark/spark-<spark_version>/lib/avro-1.7.7.jar:<rest_of_path>
    • Specify the Avro 1.7.7 JAR files with command line arguments on the spark shell:
      /opt/mapr/spark/spark-<version>/bin/spark-shell \
--packages com.databricks:spark-avro_2.10:2.0.1 \
--driver-class-path /opt/mapr/spark/spark-<version>/lib/avro-1.7.7.jar \
--conf spark.executor.extraClassPath=/opt/mapr/spark/spark-<version>/lib/avro-1.7.7.jar --master <master-url>