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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/BEAM-696?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=15588988#comment-15588988
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Amit Sela commented on BEAM-696:
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Following my last comment, and after further thought, I think that when using
merging windows, with sideInputs (that are not idempotent) it's up to the
pipeline author to use {{GroupByKey}} rather then {{CombineByKey}}.
I don't think runners should compromise on performance for merging windows in
general just for the case where non-idempotent sideInputs are used.
I suggest we change/move CombineTest#testSessionsCombineWithContext
accordingly, and any relevant documentation.
> Side-Inputs non-deterministic with merging main-input windows
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: BEAM-696
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/BEAM-696
> Project: Beam
> Issue Type: Bug
> Components: beam-model
> Reporter: Ben Chambers
> Assignee: Pei He
>
> Side-Inputs are non-deterministic for several reasons:
> 1. Because they depend on triggering of the side-input (this is acceptable
> because triggers are by their nature non-deterministic).
> 2. They depend on the current state of the main-input window in order to
> lookup the side-input. This means that with merging
> 3. Any runner optimizations that affect when the side-input is looked up may
> cause problems with either or both of these.
> This issue focuses on #2 -- the non-determinism of side-inputs that execute
> within a Merging WindowFn.
> Possible solution would be to defer running anything that looks up the
> side-input until we need to extract an output, and using the main-window at
> that point. Specifically, if the main-window is a MergingWindowFn, don't
> execute any kind of pre-combine, instead buffer all the inputs and combine
> later.
> This could still run into some non-determinism if there are triggers
> controlling when we extract output.
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