How to view Apache Parquet file in Windows?

Question

I couldn\'t find any plain English explanations regarding Apache Parquet files. Such as:

1. What are they?
2. Do I need Hadoop or HDFS to view/create/store

Answer 1

Maybe too late for this thread, just make some complement for anyone who wants to view Parquet file with a desktop application running on MAC or Linux.
There is a desktop application to view Parquet and also other binary format data like ORC and AVRO. It's pure Java application so that can be run at Linux, Mac and also Windows. Please check Bigdata File Viewer for details.

It supports complex data type like array, map, etc.