In PySpark, the .show() function is used to display DataFrame content in a tabular format.
Syntax of show()
DataFrame.show(n=20, truncate=True, vertical=False)
Parameters:
n(default = 20) → Number of rows to display.truncate(default = True) → If True, long strings will be truncated to 20 characters. You can also specify an integer value to limit the number of characters.vertical(default = False) → If True, displays rows in a vertical format instead of a table.
Example 1: Using show() without Arguments
from pyspark.sql import SparkSession
# Start Spark Session
spark = SparkSession.builder.appName("ShowExample").getOrCreate()
# Sample Data
data =
columns =
# Create DataFrame
df = spark.createDataFrame(data, schema=columns)
# Show DataFrame
df.show()
Output:
+---+-------+---+
| ID| Name |Age|
+---+-------+---+
| 1| Alice | 25|
| 2| Bob | 30|
| 3|Charlie| 35|
+---+-------+---+
Example 2: Display Only 2 Rows
df.show(2)
Output:
+---+-----+---+
| ID| Name|Age|
+---+-----+---+
| 1|Alice| 25|
| 2| Bob| 30|
+---+-----+---+
Example 3: Truncating Long Strings
long_data =
df_long = spark.createDataFrame(long_data, )
df_long.show(truncate=True) # Default truncates strings to 20 characters
df_long.show(truncate=10) # Truncates strings to 10 characters
df_long.show(truncate=False) # Shows full content
Output:
Example 4: Displaying in Vertical Format
df.show(vertical=True)
Output:
-RECORD 0--------
ID | 1
Name | Alice
Age | 25
-RECORD 1--------
ID | 2
Name | Bob
Age | 30
-RECORD 2--------
ID | 3
Name | Charlie
Age | 35
This is useful when there are many columns, making the output more readable.
# Default - displays 20 rows and
# 20 charactes from column value
df.show()
#Display full column contents
df.show(truncate=False)
# Display 2 rows and full column contents
df.show(2,truncate=False)
# Display 2 rows & column values 25 characters
df.show(2,truncate=25)
# Display DataFrame rows & columns vertically
df.show(n=3,truncate=25,vertical=True)Conclusion
.show()is a handy function to display data in PySpark.- It allows controlling the number of rows, truncation of strings, and vertical display.
- Helps in quickly inspecting data while working with large datasets.