getAs defined as:
def getAs[T](i: Int): T = get(i).asInstanceOf[T]
and when you do toString you call Object.toString which doesn't depend on
the type,
so asInstanceOf[T] get dropped by the compiler, i.e.
row.getAs[Int](0).toString -> row.get(0).toString
we can confirm that by writing a simple
The following Scala (Spark 1.6) code for reading a value from a Row fails
with a NullPointerException when the value is null.
val test = row.getAs[Int]("ColumnName").toString
while this works fine
val test1 = row.getAs[Int]("ColumnName") // returns 0 for nullval
test2 = test1.toString //
