Including null values in an Apache Spark Join - sql

Question

I would like to include null values in an Apache Spark join. Spark doesn't include rows with null by default.
Here is the default Spark behavior.
val numbersDf = Seq(
("123"),
("456"),
(null),
("")
).toDF("numbers")
val lettersDf = Seq(
("123", "abc"),
("456", "def"),
(null, "zzz"),
("", "hhh")
).toDF("numbers", "letters")
val joinedDf = numbersDf.join(lettersDf, Seq("numbers"))
Here is the output of joinedDf.show():
+-------+-------+
|numbers|letters|
+-------+-------+
| 123| abc|
| 456| def|
| | hhh|
+-------+-------+
This is the output I would like:
+-------+-------+
|numbers|letters|
+-------+-------+
| 123| abc|
| 456| def|
| | hhh|
| null| zzz|
+-------+-------+

Answer 1

Spark provides a special NULL safe equality operator:
numbersDf
.join(lettersDf, numbersDf("numbers") <=> lettersDf("numbers"))
.drop(lettersDf("numbers"))
+-------+-------+
|numbers|letters|
+-------+-------+
| 123| abc|
| 456| def|
| null| zzz|
| | hhh|
+-------+-------+
Be careful not to use it with Spark 1.5 or earlier. Prior to Spark 1.6 it required a Cartesian product (SPARK-11111 - Fast null-safe join).
In Spark 2.3.0 or later you can use Column.eqNullSafe in PySpark:
numbers_df = sc.parallelize([
("123", ), ("456", ), (None, ), ("", )
]).toDF(["numbers"])
letters_df = sc.parallelize([
("123", "abc"), ("456", "def"), (None, "zzz"), ("", "hhh")
]).toDF(["numbers", "letters"])
numbers_df.join(letters_df, numbers_df.numbers.eqNullSafe(letters_df.numbers))
+-------+-------+-------+
|numbers|numbers|letters|
+-------+-------+-------+
| 456| 456| def|
| null| null| zzz|
| | | hhh|
| 123| 123| abc|
+-------+-------+-------+
and %<=>% in SparkR:
numbers_df <- createDataFrame(data.frame(numbers = c("123", "456", NA, "")))
letters_df <- createDataFrame(data.frame(
numbers = c("123", "456", NA, ""),
letters = c("abc", "def", "zzz", "hhh")
))
head(join(numbers_df, letters_df, numbers_df$numbers %<=>% letters_df$numbers))
numbers numbers letters
1 456 456 def
2 <NA> <NA> zzz
3 hhh
4 123 123 abc
With SQL (Spark 2.2.0+) you can use IS NOT DISTINCT FROM:
SELECT * FROM numbers JOIN letters
ON numbers.numbers IS NOT DISTINCT FROM letters.numbers
This is can be used with DataFrame API as well:
numbersDf.alias("numbers")
.join(lettersDf.alias("letters"))
.where("numbers.numbers IS NOT DISTINCT FROM letters.numbers")

Answer 2

val numbers2 = numbersDf.withColumnRenamed("numbers","num1") //rename columns so that we can disambiguate them in the join
val letters2 = lettersDf.withColumnRenamed("numbers","num2")
val joinedDf = numbers2.join(letters2, $"num1" === $"num2" || ($"num1".isNull && $"num2".isNull) ,"outer")
joinedDf.select("num1","letters").withColumnRenamed("num1","numbers").show //rename the columns back to the original names

Answer 3

Based on K L's idea, you could use foldLeft to generate join column expression:
def nullSafeJoin(rightDF: DataFrame, columns: Seq[String], joinType: String)(leftDF: DataFrame): DataFrame =
{
val colExpr: Column = leftDF(columns.head) <=> rightDF(columns.head)
val fullExpr = columns.tail.foldLeft(colExpr) {
(colExpr, p) => colExpr && leftDF(p) <=> rightDF(p)
}
leftDF.join(rightDF, fullExpr, joinType)
}
then, you could call this function just like:
aDF.transform(nullSafejoin(bDF, columns, joinType))

Answer 4

Complementing the other answers, for PYSPARK < 2.3.0 you would not have Column.eqNullSafe neither IS NOT DISTINCT FROM.
You still can build the <=> operator with an sql expression to include it in the join, as long as you define alias for the join queries:
from pyspark.sql.types import StringType
import pyspark.sql.functions as F
numbers_df = spark.createDataFrame (["123","456",None,""], StringType()).toDF("numbers")
letters_df = spark.createDataFrame ([("123", "abc"),("456", "def"),(None, "zzz"),("", "hhh") ]).\
toDF("numbers", "letters")
joined_df = numbers_df.alias("numbers").join(letters_df.alias("letters"),
F.expr('numbers.numbers <=> letters.numbers')).\
select('letters.*')
joined_df.show()
+-------+-------+
|numbers|letters|
+-------+-------+
| 456| def|
| null| zzz|
| | hhh|
| 123| abc|
+-------+-------+

Answer 5

Based on timothyzhang's idea one can further improve it by removing duplicate columns:
def dropDuplicateColumns(df: DataFrame, rightDf: DataFrame, cols: Seq[String]): DataFrame
= cols.foldLeft(df)((df, c) => df.drop(rightDf(c)))
def joinTablesWithSafeNulls(rightDF: DataFrame, leftDF: DataFrame, columns: Seq[String], joinType: String): DataFrame =
{
val colExpr: Column = leftDF(columns.head) <=> rightDF(columns.head)
val fullExpr = columns.tail.foldLeft(colExpr) {
(colExpr, p) => colExpr && leftDF(p) <=> rightDF(p)
}
val finalDF = leftDF.join(rightDF, fullExpr, joinType)
val filteredDF = dropDuplicateColumns(finalDF, rightDF, columns)
filteredDF
}

Answer 6

Try the following method to include the null rows to the result of JOIN operator:
def nullSafeJoin(leftDF: DataFrame, rightDF: DataFrame, columns: Seq[String], joinType: String): DataFrame = {
var columnsExpr: Column = leftDF(columns.head) <=> rightDF(columns.head)
columns.drop(1).foreach(column => {
columnsExpr = columnsExpr && (leftDF(column) <=> rightDF(column))
})
var joinedDF: DataFrame = leftDF.join(rightDF, columnsExpr, joinType)
columns.foreach(column => {
joinedDF = joinedDF.drop(leftDF(column))
})
joinedDF
}