apache spark - How to read multiple text files into a single RDD?

Question

I want to read a bunch of text files from a hdfs location and perform mapping on it in an iteration using spark.

JavaRDD<String> records = ctx.textFile(args[1], 1); is capable of reading only one file at a time.

I want to read more than one file and process them as a single RDD. How?

Answer 1

You can specify whole directories, use wildcards and even CSV of directories and wildcards. E.g.:

sc.textFile("/my/dir1,/my/paths/part-00[0-5]*,/another/dir,/a/specific/file")

As Nick Chammas points out this is an exposure of Hadoop's FileInputFormat and therefore this also works with Hadoop (and Scalding).