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186 <!-- ! Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
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202 ! --><h1>CSV Support in AsterixDB</h1>
203<div class="section">
204<h2><a name="Introduction_-_Defining_a_datatype_for_CSV"></a>Introduction - Defining a datatype for CSV</h2>
205<p>AsterixDB supports the CSV format for both data input and query result output. In both cases, the structure of the CSV data must be defined using a named ADM record datatype. The CSV format, limitations, and MIME type are defined by <a class="externalLink" href="https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180">RFC 4180</a>.</p>
206<p>CSV is not as expressive as the full Asterix Data Model, meaning that not all data which can be represented in ADM can also be represented as CSV. So the form of this datatype is limited. First, obviously it may not contain any nested records or lists, as CSV has no way to represent nested data structures. All fields in the record type must be primitive. Second, the set of supported primitive types is limited to numerics (<tt>int8</tt>, <tt>int16</tt>, <tt>int32</tt>, <tt>int64</tt>, <tt>float</tt>, <tt>double</tt>) and <tt>string</tt>. On output, a few additional primitive types (<tt>boolean</tt>, datetime types) are supported and will be represented as strings.</p>
207<p>For the purposes of this document, we will use the following dataverse and datatype definitions:</p>
208
209<div class="source">
210<div class="source">
211<pre>drop dataverse csv if exists;
212create dataverse csv;
213use dataverse csv;
214
215create type &quot;csv_type&quot; as closed {
216 &quot;id&quot;: int32,
217 &quot;money&quot;: float,
218 &quot;name&quot;: string
219};
220
221create dataset &quot;csv_set&quot; (&quot;csv_type&quot;) primary key &quot;id&quot;;
222</pre></div></div>
223<p>Note: There is no explicit restriction against using an open datatype for CSV purposes, and you may have optional fields in the datatype (eg., <tt>id: int32?</tt>). However, the CSV format itself is rigid, so using either of these datatype features introduces possible failure modes on output which will be discussed below.</p></div>
224<div class="section">
225<h2><a name="CSV_Input"></a>CSV Input</h2>
226<p>CSV data may be loaded into a dataset using the normal &#x201c;load dataset&#x201d; mechanisms, utilizing the builtin &#x201c;delimited-text&#x201d; format. See <a href="aql/externaldata.html">Accessing External Data</a> for more details. Note that comma is the default value for the &#x201c;delimiter&#x201d; parameter, so it does not need to be explicitly specified.</p>
227<p>In this case, the datatype used to interpret the CSV data is the datatype associated with the dataset being loaded. So, to load a file that we have stored locally on the NC into our example dataset:</p>
228
229<div class="source">
230<div class="source">
231<pre>use dataverse csv;
232
233load dataset &quot;csv_set&quot; using localfs
234((&quot;path&quot;=&quot;127.0.0.1:///tmp/my_sample.csv&quot;),
235 (&quot;format&quot;=&quot;delimited-text&quot;));
236</pre></div></div>
237<p>So, if the file <tt>/tmp/my_sample.csv</tt> contained</p>
238
239<div class="source">
240<div class="source">
241<pre>1,18.50,&quot;Peter Krabnitz&quot;
2422,74.50,&quot;Jesse Stevens&quot;
243</pre></div></div>
244<p>then the preceding query would load it into the dataset <tt>csv_set</tt>.</p>
245<p>If your CSV file has a header (that is, the first line contains a set of field names, rather than actual data), you can instruct Asterix to ignore this header by adding the parameter <tt>&quot;header&quot;=&quot;true&quot;</tt>, eg.</p>
246
247<div class="source">
248<div class="source">
249<pre>load dataset &quot;csv_set&quot; using localfs
250((&quot;path&quot;=&quot;127.0.0.1:///tmp/my_header_sample.csv&quot;),
251 (&quot;format&quot;=&quot;delimited-text&quot;),
252 (&quot;header&quot;=&quot;true&quot;));
253</pre></div></div>
254<p>CSV data may also be loaded from HDFS; see <a href="aql/externaldata.html">Accessing External Data</a> for details. However please note that CSV files on HDFS cannot have headers. Attempting to specify &#x201c;header&#x201d;=&#x201c;true&#x201d; when reading from HDFS could result in non-header lines of data being skipped as well.</p></div>
255<div class="section">
256<h2><a name="CSV_Output"></a>CSV Output</h2>
257<p>Any query may be rendered as CSV when using AsterixDB&#x2019;s HTTP interface. To do so, there are two steps required: specify the record type which defines the schema of your CSV, and request that Asterix use the CSV output format.</p>
258<div class="section">
259<div class="section">
260<h4><a name="Output_Record_Type"></a>Output Record Type</h4>
261<p>Background: The result of any AQL query is an unordered list of <i>instances</i>, where each <i>instance</i> is an instance of an AQL datatype. When requesting CSV output, there are some restrictions on the legal datatypes in this unordered list due to the limited expressability of CSV:</p>
262
263<ol style="list-style-type: decimal">
264
265<li>Each instance must be of a record type.</li>
266
267<li>Each instance must be of the <i>same</i> record type.</li>
268
269<li>The record type must conform to the content and type restrictions mentioned in the introduction.</li>
270</ol>
271<p>While it would be possible to structure your query to cast all result instances to a given type, it is not necessary. AQL offers a built-in feature which will automatically cast all top-level instances in the result to a specified named ADM record type. To enable this feature, use a <tt>set</tt> statement prior to the query to set the parameter <tt>output-record-type</tt> to the name of an ADM type. This type must have already been defined in the current dataverse.</p>
272<p>For example, the following request will ensure that all result instances are cast to the <tt>csv_type</tt> type declared earlier:</p>
273
274<div class="source">
275<div class="source">
276<pre>use dataverse csv;
277set output-record-type &quot;csv_type&quot;;
278
279for $n in dataset &quot;csv_set&quot; return $n;
280</pre></div></div>
281<p>In this case the casting is redundant since by definition every value in <tt>csv_set</tt> is already of type <tt>csv_type</tt>. But consider a more complex query where the result values are created by joining fields from different underlying datasets, etc.</p>
282<p>Two notes about <tt>output-record-type</tt>:</p>
283
284<ol style="list-style-type: decimal">
285
286<li>This feature is not strictly related to CSV; it may be used with any output formats (in which case, any record datatype may be specified, not subject to the limitations specified in the introduction of this page).</li>
287
288<li>When the CSV output format is requested, <tt>output-record-type</tt> is in fact required, not optional. This is because the type is used to determine the field names for the CSV header and to ensure that the ordering of fields in the output is consistent (which is obviously vital for the CSV to make any sense).</li>
289</ol></div>
290<div class="section">
291<h4><a name="Request_the_CSV_Output_Format"></a>Request the CSV Output Format</h4>
292<p>When sending requests to the Asterix HTTP API, Asterix decides what format to use for rendering the results in one of two ways:</p>
293
294<ul>
295
296<li>
297<p>A HTTP query parameter named &#x201c;output&#x201d;, which must be set to one of the following values: <tt>JSON</tt>, <tt>CSV</tt>, or <tt>ADM</tt>.</p></li>
298
299<li>
300<p>Based on the <a class="externalLink" href="http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.1"><tt>Accept</tt> HTTP header</a></p></li>
301</ul>
302<p>By default, Asterix will produce JSON output. To select CSV output, pass the parameter <tt>output=CSV</tt>, or set the <tt>Accept</tt> header on your request to the MIME type <tt>text/csv</tt>. The details of how to accomplish this will of course depend on what tools you are using to contact the HTTP API. Here is an example from a Unix shell prompt using the command-line utility &#x201c;curl&#x201d; and specifying the &quot;output query parameter:</p>
303
304<div class="source">
305<div class="source">
306<pre>curl -G &quot;http://localhost:19002/query&quot; \
307 --data-urlencode 'output=CSV' \
308 --data-urlencode 'query=use dataverse csv;
309 set output-record-type &quot;csv_type&quot;;
310 for $n in dataset csv_set return $n;'
311</pre></div></div>
312<p>Alternately, the same query using the <tt>Accept</tt> header:</p>
313
314<div class="source">
315<div class="source">
316<pre>curl -G -H &quot;Accept: text/csv&quot; &quot;http://localhost:19002/query&quot; \
317 --data-urlencode 'query=use dataverse csv;
318 set output-record-type &quot;csv_type&quot;;
319 for $n in dataset csv_set return $n;'
320</pre></div></div>
321<p>Similarly, a trivial Java program to execute the above sample query and selecting CSV output via the <tt>Accept</tt> header would be:</p>
322
323<div class="source">
324<div class="source">
325<pre>import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
326import java.net.URL;
327import java.net.URLEncoder;
328import java.io.BufferedReader;
329import java.io.InputStream;
330import java.io.InputStreamReader;
331
332public class AsterixExample {
333 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
334 String query = &quot;use dataverse csv; &quot; +
335 &quot;set output-record-type \&quot;csv_type\&quot;;&quot; +
336 &quot;for $n in dataset csv_set return $n&quot;;
337 URL asterix = new URL(&quot;http://localhost:19002/query?query=&quot; +
338 URLEncoder.encode(query, &quot;UTF-8&quot;));
339 HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) asterix.openConnection();
340 conn.setRequestProperty(&quot;Accept&quot;, &quot;text/csv&quot;);
341 BufferedReader result = new BufferedReader
342 (new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream()));
343 String line;
344 while ((line = result.readLine()) != null) {
345 System.out.println(line);
346 }
347 result.close();
348 }
349}
350</pre></div></div>
351<p>For either of the above examples, the output would be:</p>
352
353<div class="source">
354<div class="source">
355<pre>1,18.5,&quot;Peter Krabnitz&quot;
3562,74.5,&quot;Jesse Stevens&quot;
357</pre></div></div>
358<p>assuming you had already run the previous examples to create the dataverse and populate the dataset.</p></div>
359<div class="section">
360<h4><a name="Outputting_CSV_with_a_Header"></a>Outputting CSV with a Header</h4>
361<p>By default, AsterixDB will produce CSV results with no header line. If you want a header, you may explicitly request it in one of two ways:</p>
362
363<ul>
364
365<li>
366<p>By passing the HTTP query parameter &#x201c;header&#x201d; with the value &#x201c;present&#x201d;</p></li>
367
368<li>
369<p>By specifying the MIME type {{text/csv; header=present}} in your HTTP Accept: header. This is consistent with RFC 4180.</p></li>
370</ul></div>
371<div class="section">
372<h4><a name="Issues_with_open_datatypes_and_optional_fields"></a>Issues with open datatypes and optional fields</h4>
373<p>As mentioned earlier, CSV is a rigid format. It cannot express records with different numbers of fields, which ADM allows through both open datatypes and optional fields.</p>
374<p>If your output record type contains optional fields, this will not result in any errors. If the output data of a query does not contain values for an optional field, this will be represented in CSV as <tt>null</tt>.</p>
375<p>If your output record type is open, this will also not result in any errors. If the output data of a query contains any open fields, the corresponding rows in the resulting CSV will contain more comma-separated values than the others. On each such row, the data from the closed fields in the type will be output first in the normal order, followed by the data from the open fields in an arbitrary order.</p>
376<p>According to RFC 4180 this is not strictly valid CSV (Section 2, rule 4, &#x201c;Each line <i>should</i> contain the same number of fields throughout the file&#x201d;). Hence it will likely not be handled consistently by all CSV processors. Some may throw a parsing error. If you attempt to load this data into AsterixDB later using <tt>load dataset</tt>, the extra fields will be silently ignored. For this reason it is recommended that you use only closed datatypes as output record types. AsterixDB allows to use an open record type only to support cases where the type already exists for other parts of your application.</p></div></div></div>
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