Github user petervandenabeele commented on the pull request:
https://github.com/apache/spark/pull/3517#issuecomment-65846515
More problematic (and sorry I had not seen that before) ... there already
_is_ an example file named `people.txt` with a different format:
```
$ spark git:(pv-docs-note-on-jsonFile-format/01) cat
examples/src/main/resources/people.txt
Michael, 29
Andy, 30
Justin, 19
```
In that case, I could rename the example jsonFile to `people.jsons`. It is
a weird name, but it's _reasonably_ accurate (following the `xs` pattern from
Scala, as it is like a list of json objects).
I would then indeed also need to change the name in all other locations
where a reference to `people.json` is made (confirming the list mentioned by
@marmbrus):
```
spark git:(pv-docs-note-on-jsonFile-format/01) grep -r 'people\.json' * |
grep -v Binary | grep -v _site
examples/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/examples/sql/JavaSparkSQL.java:
String path = "examples/src/main/resources/people.json";
examples/src/main/python/sql.py: path =
os.path.join(os.environ['SPARK_HOME'],
"examples/src/main/resources/people.json")
```
On a more fundamental note, from the outside, I would have perceived it
following the "principle of least astonishment" (POLA) if the import to this
function required a standard valid json file that needs to be formatted as an
array of hashes with identical "schema", like e.g.
```
[
{"name": "Tom",
"character":"cat"},
{"name":"Jerry",
"character":"mouse"}
]
```
This would have allowed us to simply import data generated from any other
language with `array.to_json`.
I hear the proposal from @marmbrus to also improve the error message (that
would also have helped us in more quickly understanding the issue), but it
would suggest to put that in a different JIRA issue (that needs some real
programming and testing work).
I look forward to directions on how to best fix at least the documentation
to avoid this confusion for others.
Thanks.
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