Loading the data

In order to build a machine learning model, we need data. Thus, before we start, we need to read some data. In this recipe, and throughout this chapter, we will be using the 1994 census income data. 

Getting ready

To execute this recipe, you need to have a working Spark environment. If you do not have one, you might want to go back to Chapter 1, Installing and Configuring Spark and follow the recipes you will find there. 

The dataset was sourced from http://archive.ics.uci.edu/ml/datasets/Census+Income.

Note

The dataset is located in the data folder in the GitHub repository for the book.

All the code that you will need in this chapter can be found in the GitHub repository we set up for the book: http://bit.ly/2ArlBck; go to Chapter05 and open the 5. Machine Learning with MLlib.ipynb notebook. 

No other prerequisites are required.

How to do it...

We will read the data into a DataFrame so it is easier for us to work with. Later on, we will convert it into an RDD of labeled points....