[jira] [Commented] (SPARK-28481) More expressions should extend NullIntolerant

["Takeshi Yamamuro (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-28481?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=16891609#comment-16891609 ] 

Takeshi Yamamuro commented on SPARK-28481:
------------------------------------------

> I'd propose to add "is this null-intolerant?" to a checklist to use when reviewing PRs which add new Catalyst expressions. 

Just a suggestion though, we cannot use a style checker to automatically detect this?

> More expressions should extend NullIntolerant
> ---------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: SPARK-28481
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-28481
>             Project: Spark
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>          Components: SQL
>    Affects Versions: 3.0.0
>            Reporter: Josh Rosen
>            Priority: Major
>
> SPARK-13995 introduced the {{NullIntolerant}} trait to generalize the logic for inferring {{IsNotNull}} constraints from expressions. An expression is _null-intolerant_ if it returns {{null}} when any of its input expressions are {{null}}.
> I've noticed that _most_ expressions are null-intolerant: anything which extends UnaryExpression / BinaryExpression and keeps the default {{eval}} method will be null-intolerant. However, only a subset of these expressions mix in the {{NullIntolerant}} trait. As a result, we're missing out on the opportunity to infer certain types of non-null constraints: for example, if we see a {{WHERE length\(x\) > 10}} condition then we know that the column {{x}} must be non-null and can push this non-null filter down to our datasource scan.
> I can think of a few ways to fix this:
>  # Modify every relevant expression to mix in the {{NullIntolerant}} trait. We can use IDEs or other code-analysis tools (e.g. {{ClassUtil}} plus reflection) to help automate the process of identifying expressions which do not override the default {{eval}}.
>  # Make a backwards-incompatible change to our abstract base class hierarchy to add {{NullSafe*aryExpression}} abstract base classes which define the {{nullSafeEval}} method and implement a {{final eval}} method, then leave {{eval}} unimplemented in the regular {{*aryExpression}} base classes.
>  ** This would fix the somewhat weird code smell that we have today where {{nullSafeEval}} has a default implementation which calls {{sys.error}}.
>  ** This would negatively impact users who have implemented custom Catalyst expressions.
>  # Use runtime reflection to determine whether expressions are null-intolerant by virtue of using one of the default null-intolerant {{eval}} implementations. We can then use this in an {{isNullIntolerant}} helper method which checks that classes either (a) extend {{NullIntolerant}} or (b) are null-intolerant according to the reflective check (which is basically just figuring out which concrete implementation the {{eval}} method resolves to).
>  ** We only need to perform the reflection once _per-class_ and can cache the result for the lifetime of the JVM, so the performance overheads would be pretty small (especially compared to other non-cacheable reflection / traversal costs in Catalyst).
>  ** The downside is additional complexity in the code which pattern-matches / checks for null-intolerance.
> Of these approaches, I'm currently leaning towards option 1 (semi-automated identification and manual update of hundreds of expressions): if we go with that approach then we can perform a one-time catch-up to fix all existing expressions. To handle ongoing maintenance (as we add new expressions), I'd propose to add "is this null-intolerant?" to a checklist to use when reviewing PRs which add new Catalyst expressions. 
> /cc [~maropu] [~viirya]



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