Introduction to File Formats

Now, let's understand the file structure in detail and distinguish between these file formats. This section will decompose the file formats and dive into the structure of files to elaborate on the efficiency of each file format.

Parquet

Apache Parquet is an open-source column-oriented representation and stores data in an optimized columnar format. It is language-independent and framework-independent because the objective of creating this format was to optimize the operation and storage of data across Hadoop.

Shortly after its introduction, it acquired popularity in the industry. The reasons for its acceptance are primarily the fast retrieval and processing capabilities that it offers. However, writes are usually time-consuming and considerably expensive.

As it is a columnar-based format, homogenous data is stored together, resulting in better compression. The compression and encoding scheme can have a significant impact on performance.

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