Spark Shell — spark-shell shell script

Spark shell is an interactive shell to learn how to make the most out of Apache Spark. This is a Spark application writted in Scala to offer a command-line environment with auto-completion (under TAB key) where you can run ad-hoc queries and get familiar with the features of Spark (that help you in developing your own standalone Spark applications). It is a very convenient tool to explore the many things available in Spark with immediate feedback. It is one of the many reasons why Spark is so helpful for tasks to process datasets of any size.

There are variants of Spark shell for different languages: spark-shell for Scala and pyspark for Python.

Note	This document uses `spark-shell` only.

You can start Spark shell using spark-shell script.

$ ./bin/spark-shell
scala>

spark-shell is an extension of Scala REPL with automatic instantiation of SparkSession as spark (and SparkContext as sc).

scala> :type spark
org.apache.spark.sql.SparkSession

// Learn the current version of Spark in use
scala> spark.version
res0: String = 2.1.0-SNAPSHOT

spark-shell also imports Scala SQL’s implicits and sql method.

scala> :imports
 1) import spark.implicits._       (59 terms, 38 are implicit)
 2) import spark.sql               (1 terms)

Note

When you execute spark-shell you actually execute Spark submit as follows:

org.apache.spark.deploy.SparkSubmit --class org.apache.spark.repl.Main --name Spark shell spark-shell

Set SPARK_PRINT_LAUNCH_COMMAND to see the entire command to be executed. Refer to Print Launch Command of Spark Scripts.

Using Spark shell

You start Spark shell using spark-shell script (available in bin directory).

$ ./bin/spark-shell
Setting default log level to "WARN".
To adjust logging level use sc.setLogLevel(newLevel). For SparkR, use setLogLevel(newLevel).
WARN NativeCodeLoader: Unable to load native-hadoop library for your platform... using builtin-java classes where applicable
WARN ObjectStore: Failed to get database global_temp, returning NoSuchObjectException
Spark context Web UI available at http://10.47.71.138:4040
Spark context available as 'sc' (master = local[*], app id = local-1477858597347).
Spark session available as 'spark'.
Welcome to
      ____              __
     / __/__  ___ _____/ /__
    _\ \/ _ \/ _ `/ __/  '_/
   /___/ .__/\_,_/_/ /_/\_\   version 2.1.0-SNAPSHOT
      /_/

Using Scala version 2.11.8 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.8.0_112)
Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
Type :help for more information.

scala>

Spark shell creates an instance of SparkSession under the name spark for you (so you don’t have to know the details how to do it yourself on day 1).

scala> :type spark
org.apache.spark.sql.SparkSession

Besides, there is also sc value created which is an instance of SparkContext.

scala> :type sc
org.apache.spark.SparkContext

To close Spark shell, you press Ctrl+D or type in :q (or any subset of :quit).

scala> :q

Settings

Table 1. Spark Properties
Spark Property	Default Value	Description
`spark.repl.class.uri`	`null`	Used in `spark-shell` to create REPL ClassLoader to load new classes defined in the Scala REPL as a user types code. Enable `INFO` logging level for org.apache.spark.executor.Executor logger to have the value printed out to the logs: `INFO Using REPL class URI: [classUri]`

Spark Shell — spark-shell shell script