How to convert a pyspark dataframe column to numpy array

Question

I am trying to convert a pyspark dataframe column having approximately 90 million rows into a numpy array.

I need the array as an input for scipy.optimize.minimize

Answer 1

#1

You will have to call a .collect() in any way. To create a numpy array from the pyspark dataframe, you can use:

adoles = np.array(df.select("Adolescent").collect()) #.reshape(-1) for 1-D array

#2

You can convert it to a pandas dataframe using toPandas(), and you can then convert it to numpy array using .values.

pdf = df.toPandas()
adoles = df["Adolescent"].values

Or simply:

adoles = df.select("Adolescent").toPandas().values #.reshape(-1) for 1-D array

#3

For distributed arrays, you can try Dask Arrays

I haven't tested this, but assuming it would work the same as numpy (might have inconsistencies):

import dask.array as da
adoles = da.array(df.select("Adolescent").collect()) #.reshape(-1) for 1-D array