in spark 1.1 maybe not so easy like spark 1.0 after commit: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-2446
only binary with UTF8 annotation will be recognized as string after this commit, but in impala strings are always without UTF8 anno -- View this message in context: http://apache-spark-user-list.1001560.n3.nabble.com/Spark-1-0-1-SQL-on-160-G-parquet-file-snappy-compressed-made-by-cloudera-impala-23-core-and-60G-mem-d-tp10254p10490.html Sent from the Apache Spark User List mailing list archive at Nabble.com.