Apache Pig Explain operator

The explain operator is used to display the logic, physics, and MapReduce execution plans for relationships.

Grammar

The syntax of the explain operator is given below.

grunt> explain Relation_name;

Cases

Suppose you have a file in HDFS that contains the following student_data.txt.

001,Rajiv,Reddy,9848022337,Hyderabad
002,siddarth,Battacharya,9848022338,Kolkata
003,Rajesh,Khanna,9848022339,Delhi
004,Preethi,Agarwal,9848022330,Pune
005,Trupthi,Mohanthy,9848022336,Bhuwaneshwar
006,Archana,Mishra,9848022335,Chennai.

Use the LOAD operator to read it into the relationship student, as shown below.

grunt> student = LOAD 'hdfs://localhost:9000/pig_data/student_data.txt' USING PigStorage(',')
   as ( id:int, firstname:chararray, lastname:chararray, phone:chararray, city:chararray );

Now, let's use the explain operator to explain the relationship called student, as shown below.

grunt> explain student;

Output

It will produce the following output.

$ explain student;

2015-10-05 11:32:43,660 [main]
2015-10-05 11:32:43,660 [main] INFO  org.apache.pig.newplan.logical.optimizer
.LogicalPlanOptimizer -
{RULES_ENABLED=[AddForEach, ColumnMapKeyPrune, ConstantCalculator,
GroupByConstParallelSetter, LimitOptimizer, LoadTypeCastInserter, MergeFilter, 
MergeForEach, PartitionFilterOptimizer, PredicatePushdownOptimizer,
PushDownForEachFlatten, PushUpFilter, SplitFilter, StreamTypeCastInserter]}  
#-----------------------------------------------
# New Logical Plan: 
#-----------------------------------------------
student: (Name: LOStore Schema:
id#31:int,firstname#32:chararray,lastname#33:chararray,phone#34:chararray,city#
35:chararray)
| 
|---student: (Name: LOForEach Schema:
id#31:int,firstname#32:chararray,lastname#33:chararray,phone#34:chararray,city#
35:chararray)
    |   |
    |   (Name: LOGenerate[false,false,false,false,false] Schema:
id#31:int,firstname#32:chararray,lastname#33:chararray,phone#34:chararray,city#
35:chararray)ColumnPrune:InputUids=[34, 35, 32, 33,
31]ColumnPrune:OutputUids=[34, 35, 32, 33, 31]
    |   |   | 
    |   |   (Name: Cast Type: int Uid: 31) 
    |   |   |     |   |   |---id:(Name: Project Type: bytearray Uid: 31 Input: 0 Column: (*))
    |   |   |     
    |   |   (Name: Cast Type: chararray Uid: 32)
    |   |   | 
    |   |   |---firstname:(Name: Project Type: bytearray Uid: 32 Input: 1
Column: (*))
    |   |   |
    |   |   (Name: Cast Type: chararray Uid: 33)
    |   |   |
    |   |   |---lastname:(Name: Project Type: bytearray Uid: 33 Input: 2
	 Column: (*))
    |   |   | 
    |   |   (Name: Cast Type: chararray Uid: 34)
    |   |   |  
    |   |   |---phone:(Name: Project Type: bytearray Uid: 34 Input: 3 Column:
(*))
    |   |   | 
    |   |   (Name: Cast Type: chararray Uid: 35)
    |   |   |  
    |   |   |---city:(Name: Project Type: bytearray Uid: 35 Input: 4 Column:
(*))
    |   | 
    |   |---(Name: LOInnerLoad[0] Schema: id#31:bytearray)
    |   |  
    |   |---(Name: LOInnerLoad[1] Schema: firstname#32:bytearray)
    |   |
    |   |---(Name: LOInnerLoad[2] Schema: lastname#33:bytearray)
    |   |
    |   |---(Name: LOInnerLoad[3] Schema: phone#34:bytearray)
    |   | 
    |   |---(Name: LOInnerLoad[4] Schema: city#35:bytearray)
    |
    |---student: (Name: LOLoad Schema: 
id#31:bytearray,firstname#32:bytearray,lastname#33:bytearray,phone#34:bytearray
,city#35:bytearray)RequiredFields:null 
#-----------------------------------------------
# Physical Plan: #-----------------------------------------------
student: Store(fakefile:org.apache.pig.builtin.PigStorage) - scope-36
| 
|---student: New For Each(false,false,false,false,false)[bag] - scope-35
    |   |
    |   Cast[int] - scope-21
    |   |
    |   |---Project[bytearray][0] - scope-20
    |   |  
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-24
    |   |
    |   |---Project[bytearray][1] - scope-23
    |   | 
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-27
    |   |  
    |   |---Project[bytearray][2] - scope-26 
    |   |  
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-30 
    |   |  
    |   |---Project[bytearray][3] - scope-29
    |   |
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-33
    |   | 
    |   |---Project[bytearray][4] - scope-32
    | 
    |---student: Load(hdfs://localhost:9000/pig_data/student_data.txt:PigStorage(',')) - scope19
2015-10-05 11:32:43,682 [main]
INFO  org.apache.pig.backend.hadoop.executionengine.mapReduceLayer.MRCompiler - 
File concatenation threshold: 100 optimistic? false
2015-10-05 11:32:43,684 [main]
INFO  org.apache.pig.backend.hadoop.executionengine.mapReduceLayer.MultiQueryOp timizer - 
MR plan size before optimization: 1 2015-10-05 11:32:43,685 [main]
INFO  org.apache.pig.backend.hadoop.executionengine.mapReduceLayer.
MultiQueryOp timizer - MR plan size after optimization: 1 
#--------------------------------------------------
# Map Reduce Plan                                   
#--------------------------------------------------
MapReduce node scope-37
Map Plan
student: Store(fakefile:org.apache.pig.builtin.PigStorage) - scope-36
|
|---student: New For Each(false,false,false,false,false)[bag] - scope-35
    |   |
    |   Cast[int] - scope-21 
    |   |
    |   |---Project[bytearray][0] - scope-20
    |   |
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-24
    |   |
    |   |---Project[bytearray][1] - scope-23
    |   |
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-27
    |   | 
    |   |---Project[bytearray][2] - scope-26 
    |   | 
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-30 
    |   |  
    |   |---Project[bytearray][3] - scope-29 
    |   | 
    |   Cast[chararray] - scope-33
    |   | 
    |   |---Project[bytearray][4] - scope-32 
    |  
    |---student:
Load(hdfs://localhost:9000/pig_data/student_data.txt:PigStorage(',')) - scope
19-------- Global sort: false
 ----------------