How to create correct data frame for classification in Spark ML

Question

I am trying to run random forest classification by using Spark ML api but I am having issues with creating right data frame input into pipeline.

Here is sample data

Answer 1

You simply need to make sure that you have a "features" column in your dataframe that is of type VectorUDF as show below:

scala> val df2 = dataFixed.withColumnRenamed("age", "features")
df2: org.apache.spark.sql.DataFrame = [features: int, hours_per_week: int, education: string, sex: string, salaryRange: string]

scala> val cmModel = cv.fit(df2) 
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: requirement failed: Column features must be of type org.apache.spark.mllib.linalg.VectorUDT@1eef but was actually IntegerType.
    at scala.Predef$.require(Predef.scala:233)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.util.SchemaUtils$.checkColumnType(SchemaUtils.scala:37)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.PredictorParams$class.validateAndTransformSchema(Predictor.scala:50)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.Predictor.validateAndTransformSchema(Predictor.scala:71)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.Predictor.transformSchema(Predictor.scala:118)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.Pipeline$$anonfun$transformSchema$4.apply(Pipeline.scala:164)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.Pipeline$$anonfun$transformSchema$4.apply(Pipeline.scala:164)
    at scala.collection.IndexedSeqOptimized$class.foldl(IndexedSeqOptimized.scala:51)
    at scala.collection.IndexedSeqOptimized$class.foldLeft(IndexedSeqOptimized.scala:60)
    at scala.collection.mutable.ArrayOps$ofRef.foldLeft(ArrayOps.scala:108)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.Pipeline.transformSchema(Pipeline.scala:164)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.tuning.CrossValidator.transformSchema(CrossValidator.scala:142)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.PipelineStage.transformSchema(Pipeline.scala:59)
    at org.apache.spark.ml.tuning.CrossValidator.fit(CrossValidator.scala:107)
    at $iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC.(:67)
    at $iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC.(:72)
    at $iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC.(:74)
    at $iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC$$iwC.(:76)

EDIT1

Essentially there need to be two fields in your data frame "features" for feature vector and "label" for instance labels. Instance must be of type Double.

To create a "features" fields with Vector type first create a udf as show below:

val toVec4    = udf[Vector, Int, Int, String, String] { (a,b,c,d) => 
  val e3 = c match {
    case "hs-grad" => 0
    case "bachelors" => 1
    case "masters" => 2
  }
  val e4 = d match {case "male" => 0 case "female" => 1}
  Vectors.dense(a, b, e3, e4) 
}

Now to also encode the "label" field, create another udf as shown below:

val encodeLabel    = udf[Double, String]( _ match { case "A" => 0.0 case "B" => 1.0} )

Now we transform original dataframe using these two udf:

val df = dataFixed.withColumn(
  "features",
  toVec4(
    dataFixed("age"),
    dataFixed("hours_per_week"),
    dataFixed("education"),
    dataFixed("sex")
  )
).withColumn("label", encodeLabel(dataFixed("salaryRange"))).select("features", "label")

Note that there can be extra columns / fields present in the dataframe, but in this case I have selected only features and label:

scala> df.show()
+-------------------+-----+
|           features|label|
+-------------------+-----+
|[38.0,40.0,0.0,0.0]|  0.0|
|[28.0,40.0,1.0,1.0]|  0.0|
|[52.0,45.0,0.0,0.0]|  1.0|
|[31.0,50.0,2.0,1.0]|  1.0|
|[42.0,40.0,1.0,0.0]|  1.0|
+-------------------+-----+

Now its upto you to set correct parameters for your learning algorithm to make it work.