Pyspark string contains substring. Let’s explore how to master regex-based string .

Pyspark string contains substring Using substring vs. PySpark Replace String Column Values By using PySpark SQL function regexp_replace() you can replace a column value with a string for another string/substring. contains # pyspark. , with df4[df4['col']. Aug 19, 2025 · PySpark SQL contains () function is used to match a column value contains in a literal string (matches on part of the string), this is mostly used to filter rows on DataFrame. com or case-insensitive matches without regex. functions lower and upper come in handy, if your data could have column entries like “foo” and “Foo”: Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow! I have a Spark dataframe with a column (assigned_products) of type string that contains values such as the following: Nov 3, 2023 · In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll show you how to use PySpark‘s substring () to effortlessly extract substrings from large datasets. co Column. Oct 1, 2019 · Suppose that we have a pyspark dataframe that one of its columns (column_a) contains some string values, and also there is a list of strings (list_a). If the substring is not found, the function returns 0. regexp_extract for this. Nov 21, 2018 · I have a pyspark dataframe with a lot of columns, and I want to select the ones which contain a certain string, and others. lower (). One useful feature of PySpark is the ability to filter for values that do not contain a specific substring or pattern. Working with large datasets often requires robust methods for data cleaning and validation, especially when dealing with PySpark DataFrames. When filtering a DataFrame with string values, I find that the pyspark. Aug 19, 2025 · In this PySpark article, you will learn how to apply a filter on DataFrame columns of string, arrays, and struct types by using single and multiple Jun 6, 2025 · To remove specific characters from a string column in a PySpark DataFrame, you can use the regexp_replace() function. Let’s explore how to master regex-based string pyspark. regexp_extract # pyspark. substr(str, pos, len=None) [source] # Returns the substring of str that starts at pos and is of length len, or the slice of byte array that starts at pos and is of length len. contains The contains function allows you to match strings or Apr 17, 2025 · PySpark provides several methods for case-insensitive string matching, primarily using filter () with functions like lower (), contains (), or like (). You‘ll learn: What exactly substring () does How to use it with different PySpark DataFrame methods When to reach for substring () vs other string methods Real-world examples and use cases Underlying distributed processing that makes substring () powerful Jul 21, 2025 · Comparison with contains (): Unlike contains(), which only supports simple substring searches, rlike() enables complex regex-based queries. contains(left, right) [source] # Returns a boolean. , "blue" should match "the sky is blue" but not Apr 18, 2024 · Learn the syntax of the contains function of the SQL language in Databricks SQL and Databricks Runtime. In pyspark, we have two functions like () and rlike () ; which are used to check the substring of the data frame. Oct 12, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to filter for rows in a PySpark DataFrame that contain one of multiple values, including an example. This can be achieved by using the “filter” function, which allows users to specify conditions for selecting rows from a dataset. Return Value A Column object of booleans. Both left or right must be of STRING or BINARY type. Jun 8, 2022 · I would like to see if a string column is contained in another column as a whole word. replace(src, search, replace=None) [source] # Replaces all occurrences of search with replace. contains () in PySpark to filter by single or multiple substrings? Asked 4 years ago Modified 3 years, 3 months ago Viewed 19k times Apr 17, 2025 · The primary method for filtering rows in a PySpark DataFrame is the filter () method (or its alias where ()), combined with the contains () function to check if a column’s string values include a specific substring. This is especially useful when you want to match strings using wildcards such as % (any sequence of characters) and _ (a single character). The default is 1. PySpark makes it easy to handle such cases with its powerful set of string functions. One of the most common requirements is determining whether a specific column contains a particular string or substring. For Python users, related PySpark operations are discussed at PySpark DataFrame Regex Expressions and other blogs. Nov 18, 2025 · pyspark. Nov 29, 2019 · Edit: Per comments, the matched sub-string might not be the same as df1. Sep 9, 2021 · In this article, we are going to see how to get the substring from the PySpark Dataframe column and how to create the new column and put the substring in that newly created column. You can use it to filter rows where a column contains a specific substring. Dataframe: May 28, 2024 · The PySpark substring() function extracts a portion of a string column in a DataFrame. It will also show how one of them can be leveraged to provide the best features of the other two. contains() function works in conjunction with the filter() operation and provides an effective way to select rows based on substring presence within a string column. column_dataset_1, so we will need to reverse-engineer the sub-string from the normalized string. Writing Beautiful Spark Code is the best way to learn how to use For Python users, related PySpark operations are discussed at PySpark DataFrame String Manipulation and other blogs. This post will consider three of the most useful. Aug 9, 2017 · I've read several posts on using the "like" operator to filter a spark dataframe by the condition of containing a string/expression, but was wondering if the following is a "best-practice" on using Feb 1, 2023 · I have one dataframe and within that dataframe there is a column that contains a string value. Jul 16, 2019 · I want to count the occurrences of list of substrings and create a column based on a column in the pyspark df which contains a long string. Which is the column contains function in pyspark? pyspark. Returns a boolean Column based on a string match. contains(string) Returns a boolean column expression indicating whether the column's string value contains the string (literal, or other column) provided in the parameter. Otherwise, returns False. There are few approaches like using contains as described here or using array_contains as described here. join (df2 ['sub_string Searching for matching values in dataset columns is a frequent need when wrangling and analyzing data. The second argument is the amount of characters in the substring, or, in other words, it’s length. instr # pyspark. Use contains for simple literals, but rlike for complex patterns. It can also be used to filter data. Nov 11, 2021 · i need help to implement below Python logic into Pyspark dataframe. PySpark - String matching to create new column Asked 8 years, 2 months ago Modified 5 years, 1 month ago Viewed 94k times Jun 16, 2022 · Spark Contains () Function to Search Strings in DataFrame You can use contains() function in Spark and PySpark to match the dataframe column values contains a literal string. ingredients. The value is True if right is found inside left. In order to filter for rows that contain one of multiple values, users can use the “isin” function pyspark. substr # pyspark. Dec 9, 2023 · Learn the syntax of the substring function of the SQL language in Databricks SQL and Databricks Runtime. contains () is only available in pyspark version 2. This constraint dictates that the search pattern must May 8, 2025 · 1. For example, I created a data frame based on the following json format. Oct 12, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to filter rows in a PySpark DataFrame that do not contain a specific string, including an example. Summary of Best Practices for PySpark Filtering Efficient and accurate filtering is central to data preparation in DataFrame manipulation. For non-string columns, the values are converted to strings before Oct 12, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to filter a PySpark DataFrame for rows that contain a specific string, including an example. Column. instr(str, substr) [source] # Locate the position of the first occurrence of substr column in the given string. Following sample example searches term "hello": Dec 17, 2020 · Pyspark filter dataframe if column does not contain string Asked 4 years, 11 months ago Modified 4 years, 11 months ago Viewed 32k times Jul 30, 2024 · The instr () function is a straightforward method to locate the position of a substring within a string. I'd like to perform some basic stemming on a Spark Dataframe column by replacing substrings. PySpark rlike () PySpark rlike() function is used to apply regular expressions to string columns for advanced pattern matching. Based on how the normalization is conducted, the following udf might help (notice this will not cover any leading/trailing non-alnum that might be in the matched). con Aug 22, 2019 · How to replace substrings of a string. I want to subset my dataframe so that only rows that contain specific key words I'm looking for in ' Nov 16, 2025 · For general-purpose, simple substring exclusion, the combination of ~ and . Creating Dataframe for Learn how to use PySpark string functions such as contains (), startswith (), substr (), and endswith () to filter and transform string columns in DataFrames. For example, "learning pyspark" is a substring of "I am learning pyspark from GeeksForGeeks". What's the quickest way to do this? In my current use case, I have a list of addresses that I want to Dec 1, 2023 · Manipulating Strings Using Regular Expressions in Spark DataFrames: A Comprehensive Guide This tutorial assumes you’re familiar with Spark basics, such as creating a SparkSession and working with DataFrames (Spark Tutorial). substring # pyspark. other | string or Column A string or a Column to perform the check. Parameters 1. This checks if a column value contains a substring using the StringUtils. It's commonly used for string-based filtering or categorization. like, but I can't figure out how to make either of these work properly inside the join. col_name. Feb 18, 2021 · Need to update a PySpark dataframe if the column contains the certain substring for example: df looks like id address 1 spring-field_garden 2 spring-field_lane 3 new_berry pl I am brand new to pyspark and want to translate my existing pandas / python code to PySpark. One such common operation is extracting a portion of a string—also known as a substring—from a column. With regexp_extract, you can easily extract portions Mar 27, 2024 · Similar to SQL regexp_like() function Spark & PySpark also supports Regex (Regular expression matching) by using rlike() function, This function is available in org. If the regex did not match, or the specified group did not match, an empty string is returned. regexp_substr # pyspark. column. Oct 12, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to use a case-insensitive "contains" in PySpark, including an example. substring(str: ColumnOrName, pos: int, len: int) → pyspark. It takes three parameters: the column containing the string, the starting index of the substring (1-based), and optionally, the length of the substring. Since, the elements of array are of type struct, use getField () to read the string type field, and then use contains () to check if the string contains the search term. regexp_extract(str, pattern, idx) [source] # Extract a specific group matched by the Java regex regexp, from the specified string column. Use contains function The syntax of this function is defined as: contains (left, right) - This function returns a boolean. If the length is not specified, the function extracts from the starting index to the end of the string. Returns null if either of the arguments are null. contains(r'foo(?!$)')] search for multiple substrings (similar to isin), e. This matches rlike (r"email"), but contains can’t handle patterns like email. Learn data transformations, string manipulation, and more in the cheat sheet. The first argument in both function is the index that identifies the start position of the substring. In our example, filtering by rows which contain the substring “an” would be a good way to get all rows that contains “an”. g: Suppose I want to filter a column contains beef, Beef: I can do: beefDF=df. By default, the standard contains function available within the PySpark SQL API is inherently case-sensitive. Quick reference for essential PySpark functions with examples. When working with text data in PySpark, it’s often necessary to clean or modify strings by eliminating unwanted characters, substrings, or symbols. String functions can be applied to string columns or literals to perform various operations such as concatenation, substring extraction, padding, case conversions, and pattern matching with regular expressions. String manipulation in PySpark DataFrames is a vital skill for transforming text data, with functions like concat, substring, upper, lower, trim, regexp_replace, and regexp_extract offering versatile tools for cleaning and extracting information. Sep 30, 2022 · I need to get a substring from a column of a dataframe that starts at a fixed number and goes all the way to the end. str. substring to take "all except the final 2 characters", or to use something like pyspark. Jan 22, 2014 · I have a dataframe with column names, and I want to find the one that contains a certain string, but does not exactly match it. Jul 17, 2018 · I want to drop columns in a pyspark dataframe that contains any of the words in the banned_columns list and form a new dataframe out of the remaining columns banned_columns = ["basket","cricket"," Nov 10, 2021 · I have a column in a Spark Dataframe that contains a list of strings. This can be achieved by using the “not like” or “not rlike” functions, which allow users to specify a pattern to be excluded from the filtered Jun 6, 2025 · In PySpark, understanding the concept of like() vs rlike() vs ilike() is essential, especially when working with text data. You can use these functions to filter rows based on specific patterns, such as checking if a name contains both uppercase and lowercase letters or ends with a certain keyword. spark. contains # Column. Oct 6, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to check if a column contains a string in a PySpark DataFrame, including several examples. Nov 5, 2025 · In Spark & PySpark, contains () function is used to match a column value contains in a literal string (matches on part of the string), this is mostly used to filter rows on DataFrame. The like () function is used to check if any particular column contains specified pattern, whereas the rlike () function checks for the regular expression pattern in the column. I am hoping to do the following and am not sure how: Search the column for the presence of a substring, if this substring is p How do I select by partial string from a pandas DataFrame? This post is meant for readers who want to search for a substring in a string column (the simplest case) as in df1[df1['col']. I'm searching for 'spike' in column names like 'spike-2', 'hey spike', ' Mar 10, 2023 · WHERE column_name LIKE '%substring%' INSTR function can be used to find the position of a substring within a string. Aug 12, 2023 · To remove rows that contain specific substrings in PySpark DataFrame columns, apply the filter method using the contains (~), rlike (~) or like (~) method. filter(df. Retuns True if right is found inside left. Returns NULL if either input expression is NULL. The syntax is as follows: SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE INSTR(column_name, 'substring') > 0 Or the good old Regex SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE column_name RLIKE 'regexp . Feb 5, 2017 · How to search for a sub string within a string using Pyspark Asked 8 years, 4 months ago Modified 8 years, 4 months ago Viewed 2k times Aug 9, 2020 · Just wondering if there are any efficient ways to filter columns contains a list of value, e. Dec 23, 2024 · Introduction When dealing with large datasets in PySpark, it's common to encounter situations where you need to manipulate string data within your DataFrame columns. functions. Nov 10, 2021 · How to use . This process is essential for filtering records, identifying anomalies, or performing conditional transformations. Aug 19, 2025 · PySpark startswith() and endswith() are string functions that are used to check if a string or column begins with a specified string and if a string or column ends with a specified string, respectively. contains() method in Spark: new StringContains(left, right) Where left is the DataFrame column and right is the search substring. I need to extract a substring from that column whenever a certain set of characters are present and c pyspark. I currently know how to search for a substring through one column using filter and contains: df. In this tutorial, we will explore how Extracting Substrings in PySpark In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use PySpark string functions like substr(), substring(), overlay(), left(), and right() to manipulate string columns in DataFrames. These methods allow you to normalize string case and match substrings efficiently. regexp_extract The substring function extracts a fixed portion of a string by position, less dynamic than regexp_extract: Mar 14, 2023 · In Pyspark, string functions can be applied to string columns or literal values to perform various operations, such as concatenation, substring extraction, case conversion, padding, trimming, and In this PySpark tutorial, you'll learn how to use powerful string functions like contains (), startswith (), substr (), and endswith () to filter, extract, and manipulate text data in DataFrames Dec 30, 2019 · There are a variety of ways to filter strings in PySpark, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Apr 1, 2024 · Learn how to use different Spark SQL string functions to manipulate string data with explanations and code examples. For example: Nov 2, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to select only columns that contain a specific string in a PySpark DataFrame, including an example. contains("bar")) like (SQL like with SQL simple regular expression whith _ matching an arbitrary character and % matching an arbitrary sequence): Nov 16, 2025 · When processing massive datasets, efficient and accurate string manipulation is paramount. One useful feature of PySpark is the ability to filter data based on specific criteria. It is commonly used for pattern matching and extracting specific information from unstructured or semi-structured data. Introduction to regexp_extract function The regexp_extract function is a powerful string manipulation function in PySpark that allows you to extract substrings from a string based on a specified regular expression pattern. We can get the substring of the column using substring () and substr () function. Substring is a continuous sequence of characters within a larger string size. Dec 19, 2022 · 1 Use filter () to get array elements matching given criteria. Apr 4, 2024 · PySpark is a powerful tool for data analysis and manipulation that allows users to filter for specific values in a dataset. contains(other) [source] # Contains the other element. Let‘s dive deep into how to apply contains() for efficient data exploration! What Exactly Does the PySpark contains() Function Do? The contains() function […] Jul 18, 2021 · In this article, we are going to see how to check for a substring in PySpark dataframe. You can use this function to filter the DataFrame rows by single or multiple conditions, to derive a new column. When used these functions with filter (), it filters DataFrame rows based on a column’s initial and final characters. An accompanying workbook can be found on Databricks community edition. position - a positive integer literal that indicates the position within str to begin searching. Underlying Implementation in Spark Under the hood, the contains() function in PySpark leverages the StringContains expression. contains(r'foo|baz')] match a whole word from text (e. Aug 12, 2023 · PySpark Column's contains(~) method returns a Column object of booleans where True corresponds to column values that contain the specified substring. If the regular expression is not found, the result is null. Syntax: substring (str,pos,len) df. rep - a string expression to replace matched substrings. replace # pyspark. regexp_substr(str, regexp) [source] # Returns the first substring that matches the Java regex regexp within the string str. So, for example, for one row the substring starts at 7 and goes to 20, for anot Description: This query illustrates how to check if a string column contains a specific substring in PySpark and create a new column accordingly. Aug 8, 2017 · I would be happy to use pyspark. Aug 12, 2023 · To replace certain substrings in column values of a PySpark DataFrame column, use either PySpark SQL Functions' translate (~) method or regexp_replace (~) method. PySpark provides a handy contains() method to filter DataFrame rows based on substring or value existence. The Oct 16, 2019 · I am trying to find a substring across all columns of my spark dataframe using PySpark. pyspark. Apr 5, 2024 · PySpark is a powerful tool for data analysis and manipulation in Python. regexp_replace() uses Java regex for matching, if the regex does not match it returns an empty string, the below example replaces the street name Rd value with Road string on address Jul 30, 2009 · It's recommended to use a raw string literal (with the r prefix) to avoid escaping special characters in the pattern string if exists. Both left or right must be Oct 7, 2021 · For checking if a single string is contained in rows of one column. Advanced String Matching with Spark's rlike Method The Spark rlike method allows you to write powerful string matching algorithms with regular expressions (regexp). If the long text contains the number I want to keep the column. Let’s explore how to master string manipulation in Spark DataFrames to create clean, consistent, and analyzable datasets. substr (start, length) Parameter: str - It can be string or name of the column from which Jun 6, 2025 · The like() function in PySpark is used to filter rows based on pattern matching using wildcard characters, similar to SQL’s LIKE operator. Let us look at different ways in which we can find a substring from one or more columns of a PySpark dataframe. (for example, "abc" is contained in "abcdef"), the following code is useful: Learn how to use PySpark string functions like contains, startswith, endswith, like, rlike, and locate with real-world examples. Use regex expression with rlike () to filter rows by checking case insensitive (ignore case) and to filter rows that have only numeric/digits and more examples. g. In the context of big data engineering using PySpark, developers frequently rely on filtering operations to isolate relevant subsets of data. Oct 27, 2023 · This tutorial explains how to extract a substring from a column in PySpark, including several examples. apache. sql. This blog post will outline tactics to detect strings that match multiple different patterns and how to abstract these regular expression patterns to CSV files. substring(str, pos, len) [source] # Substring starts at pos and is of length len when str is String type or returns the slice of byte array that starts at pos in byte and is of length len when str is Binary type. Make the column new equal to "yes" if you're able to extract the word "baby" with a word boundary on both sides, and "no" otherwise. the above code selects column with column name like mathe% Filter column name contains in pyspark : Returns rows where strings of a column contain a provided substring. Column class. filter($"foo". The regexp_replace() function is a powerful tool that provides regular expressions to identify and replace these patterns within Jul 30, 2021 · I'd use pyspark. Python: df1 ['isRT'] = df1 ['main_string']. functions module provides string functions to work with strings for manipulation and data processing. 2 and above. In PySpark, you have Dec 3, 2022 · Filter Pyspark Dataframe column based on whether it contains or does not contain substring Asked 2 years, 4 months ago Modified 2 years, 4 months ago Viewed 624 times df. contains ('|'. startsWith () filters rows where a specified substring serves as the Feb 25, 2019 · I am trying to filter my pyspark data frame the following way: I have one column which contains long_text and one column which contains numbers. contains() remains the recommended and most readable approach in PySpark. If you set this argument to, let’s say, 4, it means that the substring you want to extract starts at the 4th character in the input string. Jul 9, 2022 · Spark SQL functions contains and instr can be used to check if a string contains a string. Column ¶ Substring starts at pos and is of length len when str is String type or returns the slice of byte array that starts at pos in byte and is of length len when str is Binary type. uxtxe fkbri ugav hdodj kupibd cji kgzx rsqr wbdici kmstw eqpvh pehg ibkr cvsnhs rzybm