How to compare two dataframe and print columns that are different in scala

Question

We have two data frames here:

the expected dataframe:

+------+---------+--------+----------+-------+--------+
|emp_id| emp_city|emp_name| emp_phone|emp_sal|emp_site|
+------+---------+--------+----------+-------+--------+
|     3|  Chennai|  rahman|9848022330|  45000|SanRamon|
|     1|Hyderabad|     ram|9848022338|  50000|      SF|
|     2|Hyderabad|   robin|9848022339|  40000|      LA|
|     4|  sanjose|   romin|9848022331|  45123|SanRamon|
+------+---------+--------+----------+-------+--------+

and the actual data frame:

+------+---------+--------+----------+-------+--------+
|emp_id| emp_city|emp_name| emp_phone|emp_sal|emp_site|
+------+---------+--------+----------+-------+--------+
|     3|  Chennai|  rahman|9848022330|  45000|SanRamon|
|     1|Hyderabad|     ram|9848022338|  50000|      SF|
|     2|Hyderabad|   robin|9848022339|  40000|      LA|
|     4|  sanjose|  romino|9848022331|  45123|SanRamon|
+------+---------+--------+----------+-------+--------+

the difference between the two dataframes now is:

+------+--------+--------+----------+-------+--------+
|emp_id|emp_city|emp_name| emp_phone|emp_sal|emp_site|
+------+--------+--------+----------+-------+--------+
|     4| sanjose|  romino|9848022331|  45123|SanRamon|
+------+--------+--------+----------+-------+--------+

We are using the except function df1.except(df2), however the problem with this is, it returns the entire rows that are different. What we want is to see which columns are different within that row (in this case, "romin" and "romino" from "emp_name" are different). We have been having tremendous difficulty with it and any help would be great.

Answer 1

From the scenario that is described in the above question, it looks like that difference has to found between columns and not rows.

So, in order to do that we need to apply selective difference here, which will provide us the columns that have different values, along with the values.

Now, to apply selective difference we have to write code something like this:

1. First we need to find the columns in expected and actual dataframes.

   val columns = df1.schema.fields.map(_.name)

2. Then we have to find difference columnwise.

   val selectiveDifferences = columns.map(col => df1.select(col).except(df2.select(col)))

3. At last we need to find out which columns contains different values.

   selectiveDifferences.map(diff => {if(diff.count > 0) diff.show})

And, we will get only the columns which contains different values. Like this:

+--------+
|emp_name|
+--------+
|  romino|
+--------+

I hope this helps!