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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PIG-795?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12705072#action_12705072
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Eric Gaudet commented on PIG-795:
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Thanks for your feedback. (BTW, should these issues be discussed in a different
place?)
Here's my comments:
1) I agree that the 1% minimum looks arbitrary and annoying, but I decided to
keep it like this for several reasons. Most importantly, I didn't want to
disturb the syntax of LIMIT, which expects an integer. Secondly, 1% is a
reasonable minimum if you want a statistically significant result. And finally,
you can work around the limitation by adding a 2nd level of sample (or more): b
= SAMPLE a 1; c = SAMPLE b 1; gives you 0.01%.
Now that I think about it, it's easy to change the syntax and use a float for
SAMPLE. The value would be a probability between 0.0 and 1.0. It's cleaner this
way, and I will send a new patch for that.
2) I implemented it in limit because they are both specialized filters in a
way, with a similar syntax. This way the code changes are very small.
It already exists as a filter without any coding needed:
b = FILTER a BY org.apache.pig.piggybank.evaluation.math.RANDOM()<0.01;
The syntax not very user friendly, though.
3) Will add unit tests in the new patch with floats.
I will produce a new patch with the float syntax and unit tests in the next few
days, unless you tell me you prefer FILTER BY.
> Command that selects a random sample of the rows, similar to LIMIT
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: PIG-795
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PIG-795
> Project: Pig
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Components: impl
> Reporter: Eric Gaudet
> Priority: Trivial
> Attachments: sample2.diff
>
>
> When working with very large data sets (imagine that!), running a pig script
> can take time. It may be useful to run on a small subset of the data in some
> situations (eg: debugging / testing, or to get fast results even if less
> accurate.)
> The command "LIMIT N" selects the first N rows of the data, but these are not
> necessarily randomzed. A command "SAMPLE X" would retain the row only with
> the probability x%.
> Note: it is possible to implement this feature with FILTER BY and an UDF, but
> so is LIMIT, and limit is built-in.
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