Options and settings¶

Koalas has an options system that lets you customize some aspects of its behaviour, display-related options being those the user is most likely to adjust.

Options have a full “dotted-style”, case-insensitive name (e.g. display.max_rows). You can get/set options directly as attributes of the top-level options attribute:

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.options.display.max_rows
1000
>>> ks.options.display.max_rows = 10
>>> ks.options.display.max_rows
10

The API is composed of 3 relevant functions, available directly from the koalas namespace:

get_option() / set_option() - get/set the value of a single option.
reset_option() - reset one or more options to their default value.

Note: Developers can check out databricks/koalas/config.py for more information.

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.get_option("display.max_rows")
1000
>>> ks.set_option("display.max_rows", 101)
>>> ks.get_option("display.max_rows")
101

Getting and setting options¶

As described above, get_option() and set_option() are available from the koalas namespace. To change an option, call set_option('option name', new_value).

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.get_option('compute.max_rows')
1000
>>> ks.set_option('compute.max_rows', 2000)
>>> ks.get_option('compute.max_rows')
2000

All options also have a default value, and you can use reset_option to do just that:

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.reset_option("display.max_rows")

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.get_option("display.max_rows")
1000
>>> ks.set_option("display.max_rows", 999)
>>> ks.get_option("display.max_rows")
999
>>> ks.reset_option("display.max_rows")
>>> ks.get_option("display.max_rows")
1000

option_context context manager has been exposed through the top-level API, allowing you to execute code with given option values. Option values are restored automatically when you exit the with block:

>>> with ks.option_context("display.max_rows", 10, "compute.max_rows", 5):
...    print(ks.get_option("display.max_rows"))
...    print(ks.get_option("compute.max_rows"))
10
5
>>> print(ks.get_option("display.max_rows"))
>>> print(ks.get_option("compute.max_rows"))
1000
1000

Operations on different DataFrames¶

Koalas disallows the operations on different DataFrames (or Series) by default to prevent expensive operations. It internally performs a join operation which can be expensive in general.

This can be enabled by setting compute.ops_on_diff_frames to True to allow such cases. See the examples below.

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.set_option('compute.ops_on_diff_frames', True)
>>> kdf1 = ks.range(5)
>>> kdf2 = ks.DataFrame({'id': [5, 4, 3]})
>>> (kdf1 - kdf2).sort_index()
    id
0 -5.0
1 -3.0
2 -1.0
3  NaN
4  NaN
>>> ks.reset_option('compute.ops_on_diff_frames')

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.set_option('compute.ops_on_diff_frames', True)
>>> kdf = ks.range(5)
>>> kser_a = ks.Series([1, 2, 3, 4])
>>> # 'kser_a' is not from 'kdf' DataFrame. So it is considered as a Series not from 'kdf'.
>>> kdf['new_col'] = kser_a
>>> kdf
   id  new_col
0   0      1.0
1   1      2.0
3   3      4.0
2   2      3.0
4   4      NaN
>>> ks.reset_option('compute.ops_on_diff_frames')

Default Index type¶

In Koalas, the default index is used in several cases, for instance, when Spark DataFrame is converted into Koalas DataFrame. In this case, internally Koalas attaches a default index into Koalas DataFrame.

There are several types of the default index that can be configured by compute.default_index_type as below:

sequence: It implements a sequence that increases one by one, by PySpark’s Window function without specifying partition. Therefore, it can end up with whole partition in single node. This index type should be avoided when the data is large. This is default. See the example below:

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.set_option('compute.default_index_type', 'sequence')
>>> kdf = ks.range(3)
>>> ks.reset_option('compute.default_index_type')
>>> kdf.index
Int64Index([0, 1, 2], dtype='int64')

This is conceptually equivalent to the PySpark example as below:

>>> from pyspark.sql import functions as F, Window
>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> spark_df = ks.range(3).to_spark()
>>> sequential_index = F.row_number().over(
...    Window.orderBy(F.monotonically_increasing_id().asc())) - 1
>>> spark_df.select(sequential_index).rdd.map(lambda r: r[0]).collect()
[0, 1, 2]

distributed-sequence: It implements a sequence that increases one by one, by group-by and group-map approach in a distributed manner. It still generates the sequential index globally. If the default index must be the sequence in a large dataset, this index has to be used. Note that if more data are added to the data source after creating this index, then it does not guarantee the sequential index. See the example below:

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.set_option('compute.default_index_type', 'distributed-sequence')
>>> kdf = ks.range(3)
>>> ks.reset_option('compute.default_index_type')
>>> kdf.index
Int64Index([0, 1, 2], dtype='int64')

This is conceptually equivalent to the PySpark example as below:

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> spark_df = ks.range(3).to_spark()
>>> spark_df.rdd.zipWithIndex().map(lambda p: p[1]).collect()
[0, 1, 2]

distributed: It implements a monotonically increasing sequence simply by using PySpark’s monotonically_increasing_id function in a fully distributed manner. The values are indeterministic. If the index does not have to be a sequence that increases one by one, this index should be used. Performance-wise, this index almost does not have any penalty comparing to other index types. See the example below:

>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> ks.set_option('compute.default_index_type', 'distributed')
>>> kdf = ks.range(3)
>>> ks.reset_option('compute.default_index_type')
>>> kdf.index
Int64Index([25769803776, 60129542144, 94489280512], dtype='int64')

This is conceptually equivalent to the PySpark example as below:

>>> from pyspark.sql import functions as F
>>> import databricks.koalas as ks
>>> spark_df = ks.range(3).to_spark()
>>> spark_df.select(F.monotonically_increasing_id()) \
...     .rdd.map(lambda r: r[0]).collect()
[25769803776, 60129542144, 94489280512]

Warning

It is very unlikely for this type of index to be used for computing two different dataframes because it is not guaranteed to have the same indexes in two dataframes. If you use this default index and turn on compute.ops_on_diff_frames, the result from the operations between two different DataFrames will likely be an unexpected output due to the indeterministic index values.

Available options¶

Option	Default	Description
display.max_rows	1000	This sets the maximum number of rows Koalas should output when printing out various output. For example, this value determines the number of rows to be shown at the repr() in a dataframe. Set None to unlimit the input length. Default is 1000.
compute.max_rows	1000	‘compute.max_rows’ sets the limit of the current Koalas DataFrame. Set None to unlimit the input length. When the limit is set, it is executed by the shortcut by collecting the data into the driver, and then using the pandas API. If the limit is unset, the operation is executed by PySpark. Default is 1000.
compute.shortcut_limit	1000	‘compute.shortcut_limit’ sets the limit for a shortcut. It computes specified number of rows and use its schema. When the dataframe length is larger than this limit, Koalas uses PySpark to compute.
compute.ops_on_diff_frames	False	This determines whether or not to operate between two different dataframes. For example, ‘combine_frames’ function internally performs a join operation which can be expensive in general. So, if compute.ops_on_diff_frames variable is not True, that method throws an exception.
compute.default_index_type	‘sequence’	This sets the default index type: sequence, distributed and distributed-sequence.
compute.ordered_head	False	‘compute.ordered_head’ sets whether or not to operate head with natural ordering. Koalas does not guarantee the row ordering so head could return some rows from distributed partitions. If ‘compute.ordered_head’ is set to True, Koalas performs natural ordering beforehand, but it will cause a performance overhead.
plotting.max_rows	1000	‘plotting.max_rows’ sets the visual limit on top-n- based plots such as plot.bar and plot.pie. If it is set to 1000, the first 1000 data points will be used for plotting. Default is 1000.
plotting.sample_ratio	None	‘plotting.sample_ratio’ sets the proportion of data that will be plotted for sample-based plots such as plot.line and plot.area. This option defaults to ‘plotting.max_rows’ option.
plotting.backend	‘plotly’	Backend to use for plotting. Default is plotly. Supports any package that has a top-level .plot method. Known options are: [matplotlib, plotly].

User Guide

Working with pandas and PySpark