[jira] [Created] (MAPREDUCE-5511) Multifilewc and the mapred.* API: Is the use of getPos() valid?

["jay vyas (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

jay vyas created MAPREDUCE-5511:
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             Summary: Multifilewc and the mapred.* API:  Is the use of getPos() valid?
                 Key: MAPREDUCE-5511
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MAPREDUCE-5511
             Project: Hadoop Map/Reduce
          Issue Type: Bug
          Components: examples
            Reporter: jay vyas
            Priority: Minor


The MultiFileWordCount class in the hadoop examples libraries uses a record reader which switches between files.  This behaviour can cause the RawLocalFileSystem to break in a concurrent environment because of the way buffering works (in RawLocalFileSystem, switching between streams results in a temproraily "null" inner stream, and that inner stream is called by the getPos() implementation in the custom RecordReader for MultiFileWordCount). 

There are basically 2 ways to handle this:

1) Wrap the getPos() implementation in the object returned by open() in the RawLocalFileSystem to cache the value of getPos() everytime it is called, so that calls to getPos() can return a valid long even if underlying stream is null. OR

2) Update the RecordReader in multifilewc to not rely on the inner input stream and cache the position / return 0 if the stream cannot return a valid value. 

The final question here is:  Is the RecordReader for MultiFileWordCount doing the right thing ?  Or is it breaking the contract of getPos()... and really... what SHOULD getPos() return if the underlying stream has already been consumed? 



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