Input formats

This section contains a collection of guides that will show you how to import data from a Pinot supported input format.

Pinot offers support for various popular input formats during ingestion. By changing the input format, you can reduce the time spent doing serialization-deserialization and speed up the ingestion.

Configuring input formats

The input format can be changed using the recordReaderSpec config in the ingestion job spec.

recordReaderSpec:
  dataFormat: 'csv'
  className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.csv.CSVRecordReader'
  configClassName: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.csv.CSVRecordReaderConfig'
  configs: 
    key1 : 'value1'
    key2 : 'value2'

The config consists of the following keys:

• dataFormat - Name of the data format to consume.

• className - name of the class that implements the RecordReader interface. This class is used for parsing the data.

• configClassName - name of the class that implements the RecordReaderConfig interface. This class is used the parse the values mentioned in configs

• configs - Key value pair for format specific configs. This field can be left out.

To configure input format for realtime ingestion, you can add the following to the table config json

"streamConfigs": {
    "streamType": "foo_bar",
    "stream.foo_bar.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.csv.CSVMessageDecoder"
    "stream.foo_bar.decoder.prop.key1": "value1" ,
    "stream.foo_bar.decoder.prop.key2" : "value2"
}

Supported input formats

Pinot supports the multiple input formats out of the box. You just need to specify the corresponding readers and the associated custom configs to switch between the formats.

CSV

Batch

dataFormat: 'csv'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.csv.CSVRecordReader'
configClassName: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.csv.CSVRecordReaderConfig'
configs:
	fileFormat: 'default' #should be one of default, rfc4180, excel, tdf, mysql
	header: 'columnName seperated by delimiter'
  delimiter: ','
  multiValueDelimiter: '-'

Realtime

"streamType": "kafka",
"stream.kafka.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.csv.CSVMessageDecoder"
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.delimiter": "," ,
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.multiValueDelimiter" : "-"

Supported Configs

fileFormat - can be one of default, rfc4180, excel, tdf, mysql

header - header of the file. The columnNames should be seperated by the delimiter mentioned in the config

delimiter - The character seperating the columns

multiValueDelimiter - The character seperating multiple values in a single column. This can be used to split a column into a list.

nullValueString - use this to specify how NULL values are represented in your csv files. Default is empty string interpreted as NULL.

Your CSV file may have raw text fields that cannot be reliably delimited using any character. In this case, explicitly set the multiValueDelimeter field to empty in the ingestion config. multiValueDelimiter: ''

AVRO

Batch

dataFormat: 'avro'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.avro.AvroRecordReader'

Realtime

"streamType": "kafka",
"stream.kafka.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.stream.kafka.KafkaAvroMessageDecoder",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.schema.registry.rest.url": "http://localhost:2222/schemaRegistry",

The Avro record reader converts the data in file to a GenericRecord. A java class or .avro file is not required.

You can also specify Kafka schema registry for avro records in stream.

JSON

Batch

dataFormat: 'json'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.json.JSONRecordReader'

Realtime

"streamType": "kafka",
"stream.kafka.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.stream.kafka.KafkaJSONMessageDecoder",

Thrift

Batch

dataFormat: 'thrift'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.thrift.ThriftRecordReader'
configs:
    thriftClass: 'ParserClassName'

Thrift requires the generated class using .thrift file to parse the data. The .class file should be available in the Pinot's classpath. You can put the files in the lib/ folder of pinot distribution directory.

Parquet

Batch

dataFormat: 'parquet'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.parquet.ParquetRecordReader'

The above class doesn't read the Parquet INT96 and Decimaltype.

Please use the below class to handle INT96 and Decimaltype.

dataFormat: 'parquet'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.parquet.ParquetNativeRecordReader'

Parquet Data Type	Java Data Type	Comment
INT96	INT64	ParquetINT96 type converts nanoseconds to Pinot INT64 type of milliseconds
DECIMAL	DOUBLE

ORC

Batch

dataFormat: 'orc'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.orc.ORCRecordReader'

ORC record reader supports the following data types -

ORC Data Type	Java Data Type
BOOLEAN	String
SHORT	Integer
INT	Integer
LONG	Integer
FLOAT	Float
DOUBLE	Double
STRING	String
VARCHAR	String
CHAR	String
LIST	Object[]
MAP	Map<Object, Object>
DATE	Long
TIMESTAMP	Long
BINARY	byte[]
BYTE	Integer

In LIST and MAP types, the object should only belong to one of the data types supported by Pinot.

Protocol Buffers

Batch

dataFormat: 'proto'
className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.protobuf.ProtoBufRecordReader'
configs:
    descriptorFile: 'file:///path/to/sample.desc'
    protoClassName: 'Metrics'

Realtime

"streamType": "kafka",
"stream.kafka.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.protobuf.ProtoBufMessageDecoder",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.descriptorFile": "file:///tmp/Workspace/protobuf/metrics.desc",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.protoClassName": "Metrics"

The reader requires a descriptor file to deserialize the data present in the files. You can generate the descriptor file (.desc) from the .proto file using the command -

protoc --include_imports --descriptor_set_out=/absolute/path/to/output.desc /absolute/path/to/input.proto

Descriptor file in DFS

The descriptorFile needs to be present on all pinot server machines for ingestion to work. You can also upload the descriptor file to a DFS such as S3, GCS etc. and mention that path in the configs. Do note that you'll also need to specify filesystem config for the directory in the pinot configuration or ingestion spec as well.

Batch

recordReaderSpec:
  dataFormat: 'proto'
  className: 'org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.protobuf.ProtoBufRecordReader'
  configs:
  	descriptorFile: 's3://path/to/sample.desc'
pinotFSSpecs:
  - scheme: s3
    className: org.apache.pinot.plugin.filesystem.S3PinotFS
    configs:
      region: 'us-west-1'

Realtime

"streamType": "kafka",
"stream.kafka.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.protobuf.ProtoBufMessageDecoder",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.descriptorFile": "s3://tmp/Workspace/protobuf/metrics.desc",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.protoClassName": "Metrics"

Both proto2 and proto3 formats are supported by the reader.

Schema Registry

Protobuf reader also supports Confluent schema registry. Using schema registry allows you to not create and upload any descriptor file. The schema is fetched from the registry itself using the metadata present in the Kafka message. The only pre-requisite for it to work is that your messages should be serialized using io.confluent.kafka.serializers.protobuf.KafkaProtobufSerializer in producer.

Realtime

"streamType": "kafka",
"stream.kafka.decoder.class.name": "org.apache.pinot.plugin.inputformat.protobuf.KafkaConfluentSchemaRegistryProtoBufMessageDecoder",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.schema.registry.rest.url": "http://localhost:2222/schemaRegistry",
"stream.kafka.decoder.prop.cached.schema.map.capacity": 1000