Search code examples
hadoophdfsclouderaapache-nifihortonworks-data-platform

Apache Nifi MergeContent output data inconsistent?

Fairly new to using nifi. Need help with the design. I am trying to create a simple flow with dummy csv files(for now) in HDFS dir and prepend some text data to each record in each flowfile.

Incoming files:

dummy1.csv
dummy2.csv
dummy3.csv

contents:

"Eldon Base for stackable storage shelf, platinum",Muhammed MacIntyre,3,-213.25,38.94,35,Nunavut,Storage & Organization,0.8
"1.7 Cubic Foot Compact ""Cube"" Office Refrigerators",BarryFrench,293,457.81,208.16,68.02,Nunavut,Appliances,0.58
"Cardinal Slant-D Ring Binder, Heavy Gauge Vinyl",Barry French,293,46.71,8.69,2.99,Nunavut,Binders and Binder Accessories,0.39
...

Desired output:

d17a3259-0718-4c7b-bee8-924266aebcc7,Mon Jun 04 16:36:56 EDT 2018,Fellowes Recycled Storage Drawers,Allen Rosenblatt,11137,395.12,111.03,8.64,Northwest Territories,Storage & Organization,0.78
25f17667-9216-4f1d-b69c-23403cd13464,Mon Jun 04 16:36:56 EDT 2018,Satellite Sectional Post Binders,Barry Weirich,11202,79.59,43.41,2.99,Northwest Territories,Binders and Binder Accessories,0.39
ce0b569f-5d93-4a54-b55e-09c18705f973,Mon Jun 04 16:36:56 EDT 2018,Deflect-o DuraMat Antistatic Studded Beveled Mat for Medium Pile Carpeting,Doug Bickford,11456,399.37,105.34,24.49,Northwest Territories,Office Furnishings,0.61

the flow enter image description here splitText- enter image description here ReplaceText- enter image description here MergeContent-

enter image description here enter image description here

(this may be a poor way to achieve what I am trying to get, but I saw somewhere that uuid is best bet when it comes to generating unique session id. So thought of extracting each line from incoming data to flowfile and generating uuid)

But somehow, as you can see the order of data is messing up. The first 3 rows are not the same in output. However, the test data I am using (50000 entries) seems to have the data in some other line. Multiple tests show usually the data order changes after 2001st line.

And yes, I did search similar issues here and tried using defragment method in merge but it didnt work. I would appreciate if someone can explain what is happening here and how can I get the data in the same way with unique session_id,timestamp for each record. Is there some parameter I need to change or modify to get the correct output? I am open to suggestions if there is a better way as well.

Solution

  • First of all thank you for such an elaborate and detailed response. I think you cleared a lot of doubts I had as to how the processor works!

    The ordering of the merge is only guaranteed in defragment mode because it will put the flow files in order according to their fragment index. I'm not sure why that wouldn't be working, but if you could create a template of a flow with sample data that showed the problem it would be helpful to debug.

    I will try to replicate this method using a clean template again. Could be some parameter problem and the HDFS writer not able to write.

    I'm not sure if the intent of your flow is to just re-merge the original CSV that was split, or to merge together several different CSVs. Defragment mode will only re-merge the original CSV, so if ListHDFS picked up 10 CSVs, after splitting and re-merging, you should again have 10 CSVs.

    Yes, that is exactly what I need. Split and join data to their corresponding files. I dont specifically (yet) need to join the outputs again.

    The approach of splitting a CSV down to 1 line per flow file to manipulate each line is a common approach, however it won't perform very well if you have many large CSV files. A more efficient approach would be to try and manipulate the data in place without splitting. This can generally be done with the record-oriented processors.

    1. I used this approach purely instinctively and did not realize this is a common method. Sometimes the datafile could be very large, that means more than a million records in a single file. Wont that be an issue with the i/o in the cluster? coz that would mean each record=one flowfile=one unique uuid. What is a comfortable number of flowfiles that nifi can handle? (i know it depends on cluster config and will try to get more info about the cluster from hdp admin)
    2. What do you suggest by "try and manipulate the data in place without splitting" ? can you give an example or template or processor to use?

    In this case you would need to define a schema for your CSV which included all the columns in your data, plus the session id and timestamp. Then using an UpdateRecord processor you would use record path expressions like /session_id = ${UUID()} and /timestamp = ${now()}. This would stream the content line by line and update each record and write it back out, keeping it all as one flow file.

    This looks promising. Can you share a simple template pulling files from hdfs>processing>write hdfs files but without splitting?

    I am reluctant to share the template due to restrictions. But let me see if I can create a generic templ and I will share

    Thank you for your wisdom! :)