HDFS CSV File Writer Output Adapter

Introduction

The Spotfire Streaming CSV File Writer For Apache Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is suitable for saving tuples to comma-separated value (CSV) format files.

There are a number of options that help you control how and when files are created, how big files can be, and how strings are saved in the file.

Tip

In the StreamBase application that contains the HDFS CSV File Writer adapter, if the output CSV file will be used by an application that requires a specific order of fields, and the fields in the stream's tuples do not match that order, you can use a Map operator to arrange the fields as needed.

Tip

If you write a CSV file containing timestamps and import it into Microsoft Excel, by default Excel does not display fractions of seconds. To display times with millisecond precision, in Excel assign timestamp columns a custom format that you define as hh:mm:ss.000.

Note

When using the HDFS core libraries on Windows, you may see a console message similar to Failed to locate the winutils binary in the hadoop binary path. The Apache Hadoop project acknowledges that this is an error to be fixed in a future Hadoop release. In the meantime, you can either ignore the error message as benign, or you can download, build, and install the winutils executable as discussed on numerous Internet resources.

Properties

This section describes the properties you can set for this adapter, using the various tabs of the Properties view in StreamBase Studio.

In the tables in this section, the Property column shows each property name as found in the one or more adapter properties tabs of the Properties view for this adapter.

General Tab

Name: Use this required field to specify or change the name of this instance of this component. The name must be unique within the current EventFlow module. The name can contain alphanumeric characters, underscores, and escaped special characters. Special characters can be escaped as described in Identifier Naming Rules. The first character must be alphabetic or an underscore.

Adapter: A read-only field that shows the formal name of the adapter.

Class name: Shows the fully qualified class name that implements the functionality of this adapter. If you need to reference this class name elsewhere in your application, you can right-click this field and select Copy from the context menu to place the full class name in the system clipboard.

Start options: This field provides a link to the Cluster Aware tab, where you configure the conditions under which this adapter starts.

Enable Error Output Port: Select this checkbox to add an Error Port to this component. In the EventFlow canvas, the Error Port shows as a red output port, always the last port for the component. See Using Error Ports to learn about Error Ports.

Description: Optionally, enter text to briefly describe the purpose and function of the component. In the EventFlow Editor canvas, you can see the description by pressing Ctrl while the component's tooltip is displayed.

File Creation Tab

Property Data Type Default Description
File Name string none Name of file to write to. If this adapter is configured with a maximum file size, then this filename is appended with the date and time when the maximum file size is reached.

When using the Compress Data option described below, StreamBase recommends using the .csv.gz file name extension. The .gz extension is not added automatically.

User string none The user if none is provided on the control input port
Use Default Charset check box Selected If selected, specifies whether the Java platform's default character set is to be used. If cleared, a valid character set name must be specified for the Character Set property.
Character Set string None The name of the character set encoding that the adapter is to use to read input or write output.
Include Header In File check box true (selected) Specifies the Inclusion of an optional row at the top of each file with the name of each column.
If File Does not Exist radio buttons Create new file Specifies the action to take if the specified CSV file does not exist when the adapter is started: Create new file or Fail.
If File Exists drop-down list Append to existing file Specifies the action to take if the specified CSV file already exists when the adapter is started: Append to existing file, Truncate existing file, or Fail.
Open File During Initialization check box false (cleared) When selected, the output file is created, or opened and truncated, even if the adapter is not configured to start with the application, or the container in which the adapter is running has not started.
Compress data check box false (cleared) If selected, the adapter compresses its output in gzip format.
Start control port check box false (cleared) Select this checkbox to give this adapter instance a control port you can use to specify a new output file name. The schema for the control port must begin with a field of type string used to convey the name of the new file to open. When a tuple is enqueued to this port, the existing file, if any, is closed, and the new file is opened.
Start event port check box false (cleared)

Select this checkbox to create an output port that emits an informational tuple each time a CSV file is opened or closed. The informational tuple schema has five fields:

  • Type, string

  • Object, string

  • Action, string

  • Status, int

  • Info, string

For a file open event, the event port tuple's Type field is set to Open, while the Object field is set to the file name of the CSV file being opened.

For a file close event, the event port tuple's Type field is set to Close, while the Object field is set to the file name of the CSV file being closed.

For both open and close operations, the Status field is set to 0 to indicate success or –1 to indicate failure. The Info field always contains a text message describing the event.

For data events, the event port tuple's Type field is set to Write or Flush, depending on the operation that caused the status event. The Data field contains the input data tuple. These status events only output when Pass Through Data To Event Port is enabled.

Pass Through Data To Event Port check box false (cleared) If enabled, when data tuples are passed in and a status event occurs, the data tuple is passed to the status event.

Record Formatting Tab

Property Data Type Default Description
Field Delimiter string , (comma) Specifies the character used to mark the end of one field and the beginning of another. Control characters can be entered as &#ddd; where ddd is the character's ASCII value.
String Quote Character string " (double quote) Specifies the character to use to quote strings when they contain the field delimiter.
String Quote Option drop-down list Quote if necessary Specifies when string fields are quoted in the CSV file: Quote if necessary, Always quote, or Never quote.
Null Value Representation string null Specifies the string to write when a field is null.
Timestamp Format string yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSZ Determines the format of all timestamp objects written to the CSV output.
Add Timestamp drop-down list None Optionally prepend or append a timestamp to each CSV row of output. The column name in the header row will be Timestamp
Capture Transform Strategy radio button FLATTEN The strategy to use when transforming capture fields for this operator: FLATTEN or NEST.

Rolling and Flushing Tab

Property Data Type Default Description
Max File Size int 0 (no rollover) Maximum size, in bytes, of the file on disk. If the file reaches this limit, it is renamed with the current timestamp and new data is written to the current name specified in the File Name property. This field must contain either 0 to disable file size rolling, or an integer greater than 65535.
Max Roll Seconds int 0 (no rollover)

The maximum number of seconds before file names are rolled over as described in the previous row.

The Roll Period and Max Roll Seconds properties are mutually exclusive.

Roll Period drop-down list None Select among None, Weekly, Daily, and Hourly to specify the time period for automatic file rollover.
  • Weekly file rollover is performed at 12:00 AM every Monday. If the program starts after Monday, the rollover is performed the following Monday at 12:00 AM, and at subsequent Mondays thereafter. When rollover is performed, the current file is renamed by appending the previous week's Monday starting date, in the format yyyyMMdd.

  • Daily file rollover is performed at 12:00 AM every day by default. If the program starts during the day, the rollover is performed at the next 12:00 AM by default, and subsequent midnights going forward. When rollover is performed, the current file is renamed by appending the current date in the format yyyyMMdd. The roll over time can also be modified using the roll hour/minute/second options

  • Hourly rollover is performed every hour on the hour (1:00 AM, 2:00 AM, and so on). If the program starts after the hour (such as 1:20 PM), rollover starts at the next hour mark (such as 2:00 PM), and at subsequent hour marks. When rollover is performed, the current file is renamed by appending the timestamp in the format yyyyMMddHHmm.

Roll Hour int 0 Allows for selecting which hour (0-23) to perform the file roll when Daily is selected as the roll period. Defaults to 0, meaning 12:00:00 AM.
Roll Minute int 0 Allows for selecting which minute (0-59) to perform the file roll when Daily is selected as the roll period. Defaults to 0, meaning 12:00:00 AM.
Roll Second int 0 Allows for selecting which second (0-59) to perform the file roll when Daily is selected as the roll period. Defaults to 0, meaning 12:00:00 AM.
Check for Roll at Startup check box false (cleared) If selected, causes the adapter to roll the file at startup if, based on the file's last modification time, the configured roll period, and the current time, the file would have been rolled before the adapter was started.
Flush Interval int 1 Specifies how often, in seconds, to force tuples to disk. Set this value to zero to flush immediately.
Sync on flush check box false (cleared) If selected, StreamBase syncs operating system buffers to the file system on flush, to make sure that all changes are written. Using this option incurs a significant performance penalty.

Miscellaneous Tab

Property Data Type Default Description
Throttle Error Messages check box false (cleared) Specifies showing any particular error message only once.
Log Level drop-down list INFO Controls the level of verbosity the adapter uses to send notifications to the console. This setting can be higher than the containing application's log level. If set lower, the system log level will be used. Available values, in increasing order of verbosity, are: OFF, ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG, TRACE.

HDFS Tab

Property Data Type Description
Buffer Size (Bytes) Int The size of the buffer to be used. If empty, the default is used.
Replication Short The required block replication for the file. If empty, the server default is used, and only used during file creation.
Block Size (Bytes) Long The default data block size. If empty, the server default is used, and only used during file creation.
Configuration Files String The HDFS configuration files to use when connecting to the HDFS file system. For example, use the standard file, core-defaults.xml.

Cluster Aware Tab

Use the settings in this tab to enable this operator or adapter for runtime start and stop conditions in a multi-node cluster. During initial development of the fragment that contains this operator or adapter, and for maximum compatibility with releases before 10.5.0, leave the Cluster start policy control in its default setting, Start with module.

Cluster awareness is an advanced topic that requires an understanding of StreamBase Runtime architecture features, including clusters, quorums, availability zones, and partitions. See Cluster Awareness Tab Settings on the Using Cluster Awareness page for instructions on configuring this tab.

Concurrency Tab

Use the Concurrency tab to specify parallel regions for this instance of this component, or multiplicity options, or both. The Concurrency tab settings are described in Concurrency Options, and dispatch styles are described in Dispatch Styles.

Caution

Concurrency settings are not suitable for every application, and using these settings requires a thorough analysis of your application. For details, see Execution Order and Concurrency, which includes important guidelines for using the concurrency options.

Typechecking and Error Handling

Typechecking fails in the following circumstances:

  • The File Name is null or a zero length string.

  • The Flush Interval is less than zero.

  • The Max File Size is less than zero.

  • More than one string quote character is specified.

  • More than one field delimiter is specified.

  • An illegal string quote option is specified.

  • The Max Roll Seconds value greater than zero and the Roll Period option selected is other than None.

Suspend and Resume Behavior

On suspend, this adapter stops processing tuples, flushes all tuples to disk, and closes the current CSV file.

On resumption, it reopens the current CSV file and begins processing tuples again.