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Writer's pictureAhmed Sulaiman

DP-600 Article 12: Mastering Dataframe Manipulation in Spark with PySpark and SQL

Updated: Sep 28





Preparing for the Microsoft Fabric Certification (DP-600) exam? Mastering data manipulation in Spark is essential, and this post dives into two key techniques: merging and deduplicating data using PySpark, SQL, and Dataflow Gen2.


Data Merging:


PySpark: Utilize `union` for merging dataframes with identical schemas and `unionByName` to handle scenarios with missing columns, leveraging the `allowMissingColumns` parameter for flexibility.


SQL: Employ `UNION` to combine datasets while removing duplicates and `UNION ALL` to preserve all rows. Address schema mismatches by using `NULL` for missing values.


Dataflow Gen2: Visually merge data using the "Append" transformation, choosing between Union and Union All based on your duplicate handling requirements.


Data Deduplication:


Identifying Duplicates: In PySpark, combine `groupBy`, `count`, and `where` to pinpoint duplicate rows. In SQL, leverage `GROUP BY` and `HAVING` for the same purpose.


Removing Duplicates: Utilize `distinct` in both PySpark and SQL to eliminate entire duplicate rows. In PySpark, `dropDuplicates` provides granular control by removing duplicates based on specific columns. Dataflow Gen2 offers a visual "Remove Rows" transformation for deduplication.






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