How can I convert an RDD (org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD[org.apache.spark.sql.Row]
) to a Dataframe org.apache.spark.sql.DataFrame
. I converted a dataframe to rdd using .rdd
. After processing it I want it back in dataframe. How can I do this ?

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way to achieve this in [Spark 2.x](https://stackoverflow.com/a/42469625/1592191) – mrsrinivas Sep 18 '17 at 11:57
12 Answers
This code works perfectly from Spark 2.x with Scala 2.11
Import necessary classes
import org.apache.spark.sql.{Row, SparkSession}
import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{DoubleType, StringType, StructField, StructType}
Create SparkSession
Object, and Here it's spark
val spark: SparkSession = SparkSession.builder.master("local").getOrCreate
val sc = spark.sparkContext // Just used to create test RDDs
Let's an RDD
to make it DataFrame
val rdd = sc.parallelize(
Seq(
("first", Array(2.0, 1.0, 2.1, 5.4)),
("test", Array(1.5, 0.5, 0.9, 3.7)),
("choose", Array(8.0, 2.9, 9.1, 2.5))
)
)
##Method 1
Using SparkSession.createDataFrame(RDD obj)
.
val dfWithoutSchema = spark.createDataFrame(rdd)
dfWithoutSchema.show()
+------+--------------------+
| _1| _2|
+------+--------------------+
| first|[2.0, 1.0, 2.1, 5.4]|
| test|[1.5, 0.5, 0.9, 3.7]|
|choose|[8.0, 2.9, 9.1, 2.5]|
+------+--------------------+
##Method 2
Using SparkSession.createDataFrame(RDD obj)
and specifying column names.
val dfWithSchema = spark.createDataFrame(rdd).toDF("id", "vals")
dfWithSchema.show()
+------+--------------------+
| id| vals|
+------+--------------------+
| first|[2.0, 1.0, 2.1, 5.4]|
| test|[1.5, 0.5, 0.9, 3.7]|
|choose|[8.0, 2.9, 9.1, 2.5]|
+------+--------------------+
##Method 3 (Actual answer to the question)
This way requires the input rdd
should be of type RDD[Row]
.
val rowsRdd: RDD[Row] = sc.parallelize(
Seq(
Row("first", 2.0, 7.0),
Row("second", 3.5, 2.5),
Row("third", 7.0, 5.9)
)
)
create the schema
val schema = new StructType()
.add(StructField("id", StringType, true))
.add(StructField("val1", DoubleType, true))
.add(StructField("val2", DoubleType, true))
Now apply both rowsRdd
and schema
to createDataFrame()
val df = spark.createDataFrame(rowsRdd, schema)
df.show()
+------+----+----+
| id|val1|val2|
+------+----+----+
| first| 2.0| 7.0|
|second| 3.5| 2.5|
| third| 7.0| 5.9|
+------+----+----+

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2Thank you for showing the different ways of using createDataFrame in an understandable way – anaotha Oct 16 '18 at 13:55
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the third method is helpful on data bricks as others are not working and giving an error – Narendra Maru Jun 07 '19 at 09:37
SparkSession
has a number of createDataFrame
methods that create a DataFrame
given an RDD
. I imagine one of these will work for your context.
For example:
def createDataFrame(rowRDD: RDD[Row], schema: StructType): DataFrame
Creates a DataFrame from an RDD containing Rows using the given schema.

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Assuming your RDD[row] is called rdd, you can use:
val sqlContext = new SQLContext(sc)
import sqlContext.implicits._
rdd.toDF()

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6Since Spark 2.0 SQLContext is replaced by SparkSession, but the class is kept in the code base for backward compatibility [(scaladoc).](https://spark.apache.org/docs/2.0.1/api/java/org/apache/spark/sql/SQLContext.html) Using it throws deprecation warning. – tomaskazemekas Mar 05 '17 at 19:22
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this doesn't work. RDD[Row] doesnt give you that option. Need t o convert it to tuple of case class RDD – sho Sep 11 '22 at 12:37
Note: This answer was originally posted here
I am posting this answer because I would like to share additional details about the available options that I did not find in the other answers
To create a DataFrame from an RDD of Rows, there are two main options:
1) As already pointed out, you could use toDF()
which can be imported by import sqlContext.implicits._
. However, this approach only works for the following types of RDDs:
RDD[Int]
RDD[Long]
RDD[String]
RDD[T <: scala.Product]
(source: Scaladoc of the SQLContext.implicits
object)
The last signature actually means that it can work for an RDD of tuples or an RDD of case classes (because tuples and case classes are subclasses of scala.Product
).
So, to use this approach for an RDD[Row]
, you have to map it to an RDD[T <: scala.Product]
. This can be done by mapping each row to a custom case class or to a tuple, as in the following code snippets:
val df = rdd.map({
case Row(val1: String, ..., valN: Long) => (val1, ..., valN)
}).toDF("col1_name", ..., "colN_name")
or
case class MyClass(val1: String, ..., valN: Long = 0L)
val df = rdd.map({
case Row(val1: String, ..., valN: Long) => MyClass(val1, ..., valN)
}).toDF("col1_name", ..., "colN_name")
The main drawback of this approach (in my opinion) is that you have to explicitly set the schema of the resulting DataFrame in the map function, column by column. Maybe this can be done programatically if you don't know the schema in advance, but things can get a little messy there. So, alternatively, there is another option:
2) You can use createDataFrame(rowRDD: RDD[Row], schema: StructType)
as in the accepted answer, which is available in the SQLContext object. Example for converting an RDD of an old DataFrame:
val rdd = oldDF.rdd
val newDF = oldDF.sqlContext.createDataFrame(rdd, oldDF.schema)
Note that there is no need to explicitly set any schema column. We reuse the old DF's schema, which is of StructType
class and can be easily extended. However, this approach sometimes is not possible, and in some cases can be less efficient than the first one.

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In future, please don't post identical answers to multiple questions. If the questions are duplicats, post one good answer, then vote or flag to close the other question as a duplicate. If the question is not a duplicate, *tailor your answers to the question.* See [How do I write a good answer?](https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer). – Nov 12 '18 at 07:49
Suppose you have a DataFrame
and you want to do some modification on the fields data by converting it to RDD[Row]
.
val aRdd = aDF.map(x=>Row(x.getAs[Long]("id"),x.getAs[List[String]]("role").head))
To convert back to DataFrame
from RDD
we need to define the structure type of the RDD
.
If the datatype was Long
then it will become as LongType
in structure.
If String
then StringType
in structure.
val aStruct = new StructType(Array(StructField("id",LongType,nullable = true),StructField("role",StringType,nullable = true)))
Now you can convert the RDD to DataFrame using the createDataFrame method.
val aNamedDF = sqlContext.createDataFrame(aRdd,aStruct)

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Method 1: (Scala)
val sqlContext = new org.apache.spark.sql.SQLContext(sc)
import sqlContext.implicits._
val df_2 = sc.parallelize(Seq((1L, 3.0, "a"), (2L, -1.0, "b"), (3L, 0.0, "c"))).toDF("x", "y", "z")
Method 2: (Scala)
case class temp(val1: String,val3 : Double)
val rdd = sc.parallelize(Seq(
Row("foo", 0.5), Row("bar", 0.0)
))
val rows = rdd.map({case Row(val1:String,val3:Double) => temp(val1,val3)}).toDF()
rows.show()
Method 1: (Python)
from pyspark.sql import Row
l = [('Alice',2)]
Person = Row('name','age')
rdd = sc.parallelize(l)
person = rdd.map(lambda r:Person(*r))
df2 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(person)
df2.show()
Method 2: (Python)
from pyspark.sql.types import *
l = [('Alice',2)]
rdd = sc.parallelize(l)
schema = StructType([StructField ("name" , StringType(), True) ,
StructField("age" , IntegerType(), True)])
df3 = sqlContext.createDataFrame(rdd, schema)
df3.show()
Extracted the value from the row object and then applied the case class to convert rdd to DF
val temp1 = attrib1.map{case Row ( key: Int ) => s"$key" }
val temp2 = attrib2.map{case Row ( key: Int) => s"$key" }
case class RLT (id: String, attrib_1 : String, attrib_2 : String)
import hiveContext.implicits._
val df = result.map{ s => RLT(s(0),s(1),s(2)) }.toDF

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Here is a simple example of converting your List into Spark RDD and then converting that Spark RDD into Dataframe.
Please note that I have used Spark-shell's scala REPL to execute following code, Here sc is an instance of SparkContext which is implicitly available in Spark-shell. Hope it answer your question.
scala> val numList = List(1,2,3,4,5)
numList: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
scala> val numRDD = sc.parallelize(numList)
numRDD: org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD[Int] = ParallelCollectionRDD[80] at parallelize at <console>:28
scala> val numDF = numRDD.toDF
numDF: org.apache.spark.sql.DataFrame = [_1: int]
scala> numDF.show
+---+
| _1|
+---+
| 1|
| 2|
| 3|
| 4|
| 5|
+---+

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A fun fact: this stops working, when your List is of Double, instead of int (or Long, String,<: Product). – Rick Moritz Oct 17 '16 at 12:43
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On newer versions of spark (2.0+)
import org.apache.spark.sql.SparkSession
import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
import org.apache.spark.sql._
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
val spark = SparkSession
.builder()
.getOrCreate()
import spark.implicits._
val dfSchema = Seq("col1", "col2", "col3")
rdd.toDF(dfSchema: _*)

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One needs to create a schema, and attach it to the Rdd.
Assuming val spark is a product of a SparkSession.builder...
import org.apache.spark._
import org.apache.spark.sql._
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
/* Lets gin up some sample data:
* As RDD's and dataframes can have columns of differing types, lets make our
* sample data a three wide, two tall, rectangle of mixed types.
* A column of Strings, a column of Longs, and a column of Doubules
*/
val arrayOfArrayOfAnys = Array.ofDim[Any](2,3)
arrayOfArrayOfAnys(0)(0)="aString"
arrayOfArrayOfAnys(0)(1)=0L
arrayOfArrayOfAnys(0)(2)=3.14159
arrayOfArrayOfAnys(1)(0)="bString"
arrayOfArrayOfAnys(1)(1)=9876543210L
arrayOfArrayOfAnys(1)(2)=2.71828
/* The way to convert an anything which looks rectangular,
* (Array[Array[String]] or Array[Array[Any]] or Array[Row], ... ) into an RDD is to
* throw it into sparkContext.parallelize.
* http://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/api/scala/index.html#org.apache.spark.SparkContext shows
* the parallelize definition as
* def parallelize[T](seq: Seq[T], numSlices: Int = defaultParallelism)
* so in our case our ArrayOfArrayOfAnys is treated as a sequence of ArraysOfAnys.
* Will leave the numSlices as the defaultParallelism, as I have no particular cause to change it.
*/
val rddOfArrayOfArrayOfAnys=spark.sparkContext.parallelize(arrayOfArrayOfAnys)
/* We'll be using the sqlContext.createDataFrame to add a schema our RDD.
* The RDD which goes into createDataFrame is an RDD[Row] which is not what we happen to have.
* To convert anything one tall and several wide into a Row, one can use Row.fromSeq(thatThing.toSeq)
* As we have an RDD[somethingWeDontWant], we can map each of the RDD rows into the desired Row type.
*/
val rddOfRows=rddOfArrayOfArrayOfAnys.map(f=>
Row.fromSeq(f.toSeq)
)
/* Now to construct our schema. This needs to be a StructType of 1 StructField per column in our dataframe.
* https://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/api/scala/index.html#org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructField shows the definition as
* case class StructField(name: String, dataType: DataType, nullable: Boolean = true, metadata: Metadata = Metadata.empty)
* Will leave the two default values in place for each of the columns:
* nullability as true,
* metadata as an empty Map[String,Any]
*
*/
val schema = StructType(
StructField("colOfStrings", StringType) ::
StructField("colOfLongs" , LongType ) ::
StructField("colOfDoubles", DoubleType) ::
Nil
)
val df=spark.sqlContext.createDataFrame(rddOfRows,schema)
/*
* +------------+----------+------------+
* |colOfStrings|colOfLongs|colOfDoubles|
* +------------+----------+------------+
* | aString| 0| 3.14159|
* | bString|9876543210| 2.71828|
* +------------+----------+------------+
*/
df.show
Same steps, but with fewer val declarations:
val arrayOfArrayOfAnys=Array(
Array("aString",0L ,3.14159),
Array("bString",9876543210L,2.71828)
)
val rddOfRows=spark.sparkContext.parallelize(arrayOfArrayOfAnys).map(f=>Row.fromSeq(f.toSeq))
/* If one knows the datatypes, for instance from JDBC queries as to RDBC column metadata:
* Consider constructing the schema from an Array[StructField]. This would allow looping over
* the columns, with a match statement applying the appropriate sql datatypes as the second
* StructField arguments.
*/
val sf=new Array[StructField](3)
sf(0)=StructField("colOfStrings",StringType)
sf(1)=StructField("colOfLongs" ,LongType )
sf(2)=StructField("colOfDoubles",DoubleType)
val df=spark.sqlContext.createDataFrame(rddOfRows,StructType(sf.toList))
df.show

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I tried to explain the solution using the word count problem. 1. Read the file using sc
- Produce word count
Methods to create DF
- rdd.toDF method
- rdd.toDF("word","count")
- spark.createDataFrame(rdd,schema)
Read file using spark
val rdd=sc.textFile("D://cca175/data/")
Rdd to Dataframe
val df=sc.textFile("D://cca175/data/").toDF("t1") df.show
Method 1
Create word count RDD to Dataframe
val df=rdd.flatMap(x=>x.split(" ")).map(x=>(x,1)).reduceByKey((x,y)=>(x+y)).toDF("word","count")
Method2
Create Dataframe from Rdd
val df=spark.createDataFrame(wordRdd) # with header val df=spark.createDataFrame(wordRdd).toDF("word","count") df.show
Method3
Define Schema
import org.apache.spark.sql.types._
val schema=new StructType(). add(StructField("word",StringType,true)). add(StructField("count",StringType,true))
Create RowRDD
import org.apache.spark.sql.Row val rowRdd=wordRdd.map(x=>(Row(x._1,x._2)))
Create DataFrame from RDD with schema
val df=spark.createDataFrame(rowRdd,schema)
df.show

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I meet the same problem, and finally solve it. It's quite simple and easy.
- You have to add this code
import sc.implicits._
,sc
meansSQLContext
. add this code you will get rdd.toDF()
method. - Transform your
rdd[RawData]
tordd[YourCaseClass]
. For example, you have a rdd type like thisrdd[(String, Integer, Long)]
, you can create a Case ClassYourCaseClass(name: String, age: Integer, timestamp: Long)
and convert raw rdd to rdd withYourCaseClass
type, then you getrdd[YourCaseClass]
- save
rdd[YourCaseClass]
to hive table.yourRdd.toDF().write.format("parquet").mode(SaveMode.Overwrite).insertInto(yourHiveTableName)
Use case class to represent rdd type, we can avoid naming each column field orStructType
related schema.

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To convert an Array[Row] to DataFrame or Dataset, the following works elegantly:
Say, schema is the StructType for the row,then
val rows: Array[Row]=...
implicit val encoder = RowEncoder.apply(schema)
import spark.implicits._
rows.toDS

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