Transforming Datasets¶

The Ray Datasets transformations take in datasets and produce new datasets. For example, map is a transformation that applies a user-defined function (UDF) on each row of input dataset and returns a new dataset as result. The Datasets transformations are composable. Operations can be further applied on the result dataset, forming a chain of transformations to express more complex computations. Transformations are the core for expressing business logic in Datasets.

Transformations¶

In general, we have two types of transformations:

One-to-one transformations: each input block will contribute to only one output block, such as ds.map_batches(). In other systems this may be called narrow transformations.
All-to-all transformations: input blocks can contribute to multiple output blocks, such as ds.random_shuffle(). In other systems this may be called wide transformations.

Here is a table listing some common transformations supported by Ray Datasets.

Common Ray Datasets transformations.¶
Transformation	Type	Description
`ds.map_batches()`	One-to-one	Apply a given function to batches of records of this dataset.
`ds.split()`	One-to-one	Split the dataset into N disjoint pieces.
`ds.repartition(shuffle=False)`	One-to-one	Repartition the dataset into N blocks, without shuffling the data.
`ds.repartition(shuffle=True)`	All-to-all	Repartition the dataset into N blocks, shuffling the data during repartition.
`ds.random_shuffle()`	All-to-all	Randomly shuffle the elements of this dataset.
`ds.sort()`	All-to-all	Sort the dataset by a sortkey.
`ds.groupby()`	All-to-all	Group the dataset by a groupkey.

Tip

Datasets also provides the convenience transformation methods ds.map(), ds.flat_map(), and ds.filter(), which are not vectorized (slower than ds.map_batches()), but may be useful for development.

The following is an example to make use of those transformation APIs for processing the Iris dataset.

import ray
import pandas

# Create a dataset from file with Iris data.
# Tip: "example://" is a convenient protocol to access the
# python/ray/data/examples/data directory.
ds = ray.data.read_csv("example://iris.csv")
# Dataset(num_blocks=1, num_rows=150,
#         schema={sepal.length: float64, sepal.width: float64,
#                 petal.length: float64, petal.width: float64, variety: object})
ds.show(3)
# -> {'sepal.length': 5.1, 'sepal.width': 3.5,
#     'petal.length': 1.4, 'petal.width': 0.2, 'variety': 'Setosa'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.9, 'sepal.width': 3.0,
#     'petal.length': 1.4, 'petal.width': 0.2, 'variety': 'Setosa'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.7, 'sepal.width': 3.2,
#     'petal.length': 1.3, 'petal.width': 0.2, 'variety': 'Setosa'}

# Repartition the dataset to 5 blocks.
ds = ds.repartition(5)
# Dataset(num_blocks=5, num_rows=150,
#         schema={sepal.length: double, sepal.width: double,
#                 petal.length: double, petal.width: double, variety: string})

# Find rows with sepal.length < 5.5 and petal.length > 3.5.
def transform_batch(df: pandas.DataFrame) -> pandas.DataFrame:
    return df[(df["sepal.length"] < 5.5) & (df["petal.length"] > 3.5)]

# Map processing the dataset.
ds.map_batches(transform_batch).show()
# -> {'sepal.length': 5.2, 'sepal.width': 2.7,
#     'petal.length': 3.9, 'petal.width': 1.4, 'variety': 'Versicolor'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 5.4, 'sepal.width': 3.0,
#     'petal.length': 4.5, 'petal.width': 1.5, 'variety': 'Versicolor'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.9, 'sepal.width': 2.5,
#     'petal.length': 4.5, 'petal.width': 1.7, 'variety': 'Virginica'}

# Split the dataset into 2 datasets
ds.split(2)
# -> [Dataset(num_blocks=3, num_rows=90,
#             schema={sepal.length: double, sepal.width: double,
#                     petal.length: double, petal.width: double, variety: string}),
#     Dataset(num_blocks=2, num_rows=60,
#             schema={sepal.length: double, sepal.width: double,
#                     petal.length: double, petal.width: double, variety: string})]

# Sort the dataset by sepal.length.
ds = ds.sort("sepal.length")
ds.show(3)
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.3, 'sepal.width': 3.0,
#     'petal.length': 1.1, 'petal.width': 0.1, 'variety': 'Setosa'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.4, 'sepal.width': 2.9,
#     'petal.length': 1.4, 'petal.width': 0.2, 'variety': 'Setosa'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.4, 'sepal.width': 3.0,
#     'petal.length': 1.3, 'petal.width': 0.2, 'variety': 'Setosa'}

# Shuffle the dataset.
ds = ds.random_shuffle()
ds.show(3)
# -> {'sepal.length': 6.7, 'sepal.width': 3.1,
#     'petal.length': 4.4, 'petal.width': 1.4, 'variety': 'Versicolor'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 6.7, 'sepal.width': 3.3,
#     'petal.length': 5.7, 'petal.width': 2.1, 'variety': 'Virginica'}
# -> {'sepal.length': 4.5, 'sepal.width': 2.3,
#     'petal.length': 1.3, 'petal.width': 0.3, 'variety': 'Setosa'}

# Group by the variety.
ds.groupby("variety").count().show()
# -> {'variety': 'Setosa', 'count()': 50}
# -> {'variety': 'Versicolor', 'count()': 50}
# -> {'variety': 'Virginica', 'count()': 50}

Compute Strategy¶

Datasets transformations are executed by either Ray tasks or Ray actors across a Ray cluster. By default, Ray tasks are used (with compute="tasks"). For transformations that require expensive setup, it’s preferrable to use Ray actors, which are stateful and allow setup to be reused for efficiency. You can specify compute=ray.data.ActorPoolStrategy(min, max) and Ray will use an autoscaling actor pool of min to max actors to execute your transforms. For a fixed-size actor pool, just specify ActorPoolStrategy(n, n).

The following is an example of using the Ray tasks and actors compute strategy for batch inference:

import ray
import pandas
import numpy
from ray.data import ActorPoolStrategy

# Dummy model to predict Iris variety.
def predict_iris(df: pandas.DataFrame) -> pandas.DataFrame:
    conditions = [
        (df["sepal.length"] < 5.0),
        (df["sepal.length"] >= 5.0) & (df["sepal.length"] < 6.0),
        (df["sepal.length"] >= 6.0)
    ]
    values = ["Setosa", "Versicolor", "Virginica"]
    return pandas.DataFrame({"predicted_variety": numpy.select(conditions, values)})

class IrisInferModel:
    def __init__(self):
        self._model = predict_iris 

    def __call__(self, batch: pandas.DataFrame) -> pandas.DataFrame:
        return self._model(batch)

ds = ray.data.read_csv("example://iris.csv").repartition(10)

# Batch inference processing with Ray tasks (the default compute strategy).
predicted = ds.map_batches(predict_iris)

# Batch inference processing with Ray actors. Autoscale the actors between 3 and 10.
predicted = ds.map_batches(
    IrisInferModel, compute=ActorPoolStrategy(3, 10), batch_size=256)

Ray 3.0.0.dev0

Transforming Datasets¶

Transformations¶

Compute Strategy¶