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.

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

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: '-'

CSV Record Reader supports the following 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.

Supported from 0.11 release - skipHeader - skip header record in the file. Boolean

ignoreEmptyLines - ignore empty lines instead of consuming them and filling with default values. Boolean

ignoreSurroundingSpaces - ignore spaces around column names and values. Boolean

quoteCharacter - single character that is being used for quotes in CSV files

recordSeparator - character used to seperate records in the input file. Default is \n or \r\n depending on the platform.

nullStringValue - string value the represents null in CSV files. Default is empty string.

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

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

The Avro record reader converts the data in file to a GenericRecord. A java class or .avro file is not required. By default the avro record reader only supports primitive types. You can set enableLogicalTypes to true to enable support for rest of the avro data types.

We use the following conversion table to translate between avro and pinot data types. The conversions are done using the offical avro methods present in org.apache.avro.Conversions

Avro Data Type	Pinot Data Type	Comment
INT	INT
LONG	LONG
FLOAT	FLOAT
DOUBLE	DOUBLE
BOOLEAN	BOOLEAN
STRING	STRING
ENUM	STRING
BYTES	BYTES
FIXED	BYTES
MAP	JSON
ARRAY	JSON
RECORD	JSON
UNION	JSON
DECIMAL	BYTES
UUID	STRING
DATE	STRING	yyyy-MM-dd format
TIME_MILLIS	STRING	HH:mm:ss.SSS format
TIME_MICROS	STRING	HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS format
TIMESTAMP_MILLIS	TIMESTAMP
TIMESTAMP_MICROS	TIMESTAMP

JSON

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

Thrift

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

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

Since 0.11.0 release, The Parquet record reader determines whether to use ParquetAvroRecordReader or ParquetNativeRecordReader to read records. The reader looks for parquet.avro.schema or avro.schema key in the parquet file footer and if present uses the Avro reader.

Users can however change the record reader manually in case of a misconfiguration.

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

For the support of DECIMAL and other parquet native data types, always use ParquetNativeRecordReader

INT96	LONG	ParquetINT96 type converts nanoseconds to Pinot INT64 type of milliseconds
INT64	LONG
INT32	INT
FLOAT	FLOAT
DOUBLE	DOUBLE
BINARY	BYTES
FIXED-LEN-BYTE-ARRAY	BYTES
DECIMAL	DOUBLE
ENUM	STRING
UTF8	STRING
REPEATED	MULTIVALUE/MAP (represented as MV	if parquet original type is LIST, then it is converted to MULTIVALUE column otherwise a MAP column.

For ParquetAvroRecordReader , you can refer to the Avro section above for the type conversions.

ORC

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

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

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