User-Defined Functions (UDFs)
Pinot currently supports two ways for you to implement your own functions:
Pinot allows you to run any function using scripts. The syntax for executing Groovy script within the query is as follows:
GROOVY('result value metadata json', ''groovy script', arg0, arg1, arg2...)
This function will execute the groovy script using the arguments provided and return the result that matches the provided result value metadata. **** The function requires the following arguments:
Result value metadata json - json string representing result value metadata. Must contain non-null keys resultType and isSingleValue.
Groovy script to execute- groovy script string, which uses arg0, arg1, arg2
Examples
Add colA and colB and return a single-value INT
groovy( '{"returnType":"INT","isSingleValue":true}', 'arg0 + arg1', colA, colB)\
Find the max element in mvColumn array and return a single-value INT
groovy('{"returnType":"INT","isSingleValue":true}', 'arg0.toList().max()', mvColumn)\
⚠️ Note that Groovy script doesn't accept Built-In ScalarFunction that's specific to Pinot queries. See the section below for more information.
⚠️ Enabling Groovy
Allowing execuatable Groovy in queries can be a security vulnerability. Use caution and be aware of the security risks if you decide to allow groovy. If you would like to enable Groovy in Pinot queries, you can set the following broker config.
pinot.broker.disable.query.groovy=false
If not set, Groovy in queries is disabled by default.
The above configuration applies across the entire Pinot cluster. If you want a table level override to enable/disable Groovy queries, the following property can be set in the query table config.
Scalar Functions
Since the 0.5.0 release, Pinot supports custom functions that return a single output for multiple inputs. Examples of scalar functions can be found in and
Pinot automatically identifies and registers all the functions that have the @ScalarFunction annotation.
Only Java methods are supported.
Adding user defined scalar functions
You can add new scalar functions as follows:
Create a new java project. Make sure you keep the package name as org.apache.pinot.scalar.XXXX
In your java project include the dependency
Annotate your methods with @ScalarFunction annotation. Make sure the method is static and returns only a single value output. The input and output can have one of the following types -
Place the compiled JAR in the /plugins directory in pinot. You will need to restart all Pinot instances if they are already running.
Now, you can use the function in a query as follows:
⚠️ Note that the function name in SQL is the same as the function name in Java. The SQL function name is case-insensitive as well.