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docs: add two frequently asked questions to the FAQ (#719)
These two questions come up often on Slack / other channels and I felt it was time to update the FAQ. --------- Co-authored-by: Bryce Mecum <[email protected]>
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title: FAQ | ||
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# Frequently Asked Question | ||
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# Frequently Asked Questions | ||
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## What is the purpose of the post-join filter field on Join relations? | ||
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The post-join filter on the various Join relations is not always equivalent to an explicit Filter relation AFTER the Join. | ||
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See the example [here](https://facebookincubator.github.io/velox/develop/joins.html#hash-join-implementation) that highlights how the post-join filter behaves differently than a Filter relation in the case of a left join. | ||
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## Why does the project relation keep existing columns? | ||
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In several relational algebra systems ([DuckDB](https://duckdb.org/), [Velox](https://velox-lib.io/), [Apache Spark](https://spark.apache.org/), [Apache DataFusion](https://datafusion.apache.org/), etc.) the project relation is used both | ||
to add new columns and remove existing columns. It is defined by a list of expressions and there is one output | ||
column for each expression. | ||
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In Substrait, the project relation is only used to add new columns. Any relation can remove columns by using the | ||
`emit` property in `RelCommon`. This is because it is very common for optimized plans to discard columns once they | ||
are no longer needed and this can happen anywhere in a plan. If this discard required a project relation then | ||
optimized plans would be cluttered with project relations that only remove columns. | ||
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As a result, Substrait's project relation is a little different. It is also defined by a list of expressions. | ||
However, the output columns are a combination of the input columns and one column for each of the expressions. | ||
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## Where are field names represented? | ||
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Some relational algebra systems, such as Spark, give names to the output fields of a relation. For example, in | ||
PySpark I might run `df.withColumn("num_chars", length("text")).filter("num_chars > 10")`. This creates a | ||
project relation, which calculates a new field named `num_chars`. This field is then referenced in the filter | ||
relation. Spark's logical plan maps closely to this and includes both the expression (`length("text")`) and the | ||
name of the output field (`num_chars`) in its project relation. | ||
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Substrait does not name intermediate fields in a plan. This is because these field names have no effect on | ||
the computation that must be performed. In addition, it opens the door to name-based references, which Substrait | ||
also does not support, because these can be a source of errors and confusion. One of the goals of Substrait is | ||
to make it very easy for consumers to understand plans. All references in Substrait are done with ordinals. | ||
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In order to allow plans that do use named fields to round-trip through Substrait there is a hint that can be | ||
used to add field names to a plan. This hint is called `output_names` and is located in `RelCommon`. Consumers | ||
should not rely on this hint being present in a plan but, if present, it can be used to provide field names to | ||
intermediate relations in a plan for round-trip or debugging purposes. | ||
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There are a few places where Substrait DOES define field names: | ||
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- Read relations have field names in the base schema. This is because it is quite common for reads to do a | ||
name-based lookup to determine the columns that need to be read from source files. | ||
- The root relation has field names. This is because the root relation is the final output of the plan and | ||
it is useful to have names for the fields in the final output. |