Uploaded image for project: 'Pig'
  1. Pig
  2. PIG-1912

non-deterministic output when a file is loaded multiple times

    XMLWordPrintableJSON

Details

    • Bug
    • Status: Closed
    • Major
    • Resolution: Fixed
    • None
    • 0.8.1
    • None
    • None
    • Ubuntu 10.04

    • Reviewed
    • non-deterministic, load, store

    Description

      I have a small demonstration script (actually, a directory with one main script and several other scripts that it calls) where the output (STOREd to a file) is not consistent between runs. I will paste the files below this message, and I can also email the tarball to anybody who would like it; I wanted to just upload the tarball but I don't see a way to do that.

      The problem appears to be that when a dataset X gets LOADed twice, with things other than LOADs occurring between the loads (like a FOREACH GENERATE), a FOREACH GENERATE that is later performed on X doesn't always choose the correct columns. The correctness of the output was highly variable on my computer, for one of my co-workers it almost always failed, and for two other of my co-workers they didn't see any failures, so it's likely to be a race condition or something like that.

      – FILES FOR REPLICATING THE PROBLEM
      – I will paste the name of the file as a comment, with the content of the file beneath it.
      – I will put the contents of the following files:
      – 1) The Pig scripts (main.pig, calc_x_W.pig, calc_x_Y.pig, and load_raw_data.pig)
      – 2) The input data file (data.csv)
      – 3) The correct output file (correct_output.csv)
      – 4) The shell script that runs the pig files and compares their output to what it should be
      – 5) README

      – main.pig
      RUN calc_x_W.pig;
      RUN calc_x_Y.pig;
      STORE x_W INTO 'output/W' USING PigStorage(',');
      STORE x_Y INTO 'output/Y' USING PigStorage(','); – this is wrong sometimes

      – calc_x_W.pig
      RUN load_raw_data.pig;
      x_W = FOREACH raw_data GENERATE x, w;

      – calc_x_Y.pig
      RUN load_raw_data.pig;
      x_Y = FOREACH raw_data GENERATE x, y;

      – load_raw_data.pig
      raw_data = LOAD 'data.csv' USING PigStorage(',')
      AS (
      x,
      y,
      w
      );

      – data.csv
      x1,CORRECT ANSWER,21148.59
      x2,CORRECT OUTPUT,27219.98
      x3,RIGHT ANSWER,10818.15

      – correct_output.csv
      x1,CORRECT ANSWER
      x2,CORRECT OUTPUT
      x3,RIGHT ANSWER

      – testmany.sh
      typeset -a results
      i=0
      while (( i < 10 )); do
      rm -rf output/*
      pig -x local -d WARN -e "set debug off;run main.pig" || break
      diff correct_output.csv output/Y/part-m-00000 && echo good
      results[$i]=$?
      i=$((i+1))
      done;
      echo ${results[*]}

      – README

      This directory is intended to show a non-deterministic bug in pig.
      Non-deterministic in the sense that the output of the script is not
      the same between different times it is run on the same input; usually
      the input is right, but sometimes it's wrong for no apparent reason.

      The scripts and dataset included in this directory demonstrate the
      issue. The scripts load the file data.csv and write to the output
      directory, but the file output/Y/part-m-00000 is sometimes different
      between consecutive runs. In particular, this file SHOULD just be
      the first and third columns of data.csv, but it sometimes uses the
      second column in place of the third.

      The root of the problem appears to be that there is an intermediate
      LOAD of data.csv, after some relations have already been defined.
      The following things will make the error stop:

      • commenting out "STORE x_W INTO 'output/W' USING PigStorage(',');" in main.pig
      • making a copy of data.csv called data2.csv, and a file load_daw_data2.pig
        that loads data2.csv and having having calc_x_W.pig use that instead.

      It's possible that this isn't a bug and I'm just mis-using Pig;
      if that is the case I would greatly appreciate hearing about it.
      I believe this issue was also discussed here:
      http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/pig-user/201102.mbox/%3CAANLkTi=2ZtkVGJevKLYSSzSH--KCcX38+Xaw2d2STNiS@mail.gmail.com%3E

      I have a shell script testmany.sh which runs my script multiple times
      and reports for which runs the output agrreed with the file correct_output.csv.

      IMPORTANT NOTE: We have run this code on 4 different laptops, all running
      pig 0.8.0. On one laptop (the one I'm using) the output of this script
      was highly non-deterministic, generally giving both the wrong and the right
      output several times each during 10 runs. Another laptop consistently got
      the wrong output up until the 28th run, when it finally gave the right output.
      The other two computer never actually observed the wrong output. We suspect
      this is likely a race condition.

      Thanks!

      USAGE
      $ cd pigbug
      $ bash testmany.sh
      $ # the last line of output will be a sequence of 0s and 1s, with 1
      $ # meaning that there was disagreement between the output and
      $ # correct_output.csv

      Field Cady
      field.cady@gmail.com
      fcady@operasolutions.com
      (360)621-4810

      Attachments

        1. PIG-1912-1.patch
          9 kB
          Daniel Dai
        2. PIG-1912-2.patch
          9 kB
          Daniel Dai
        3. PIG-1912-3_0.8.patch
          10 kB
          Daniel Dai
        4. PIG-1912-3.patch
          10 kB
          Daniel Dai
        5. pigbug.zip
          4 kB
          Field Cady

        Activity

          People

            daijy Daniel Dai
            field.cady Field Cady
            Votes:
            0 Vote for this issue
            Watchers:
            3 Start watching this issue

            Dates

              Created:
              Updated:
              Resolved: