Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:
In Apache Spark, broadcast variables are used to efficiently distribute large, read-only data to all worker nodes. However, broadcasting very large datasets can lead to memory issues on executors if the data does not fit into the available memory.
According to the Spark documentation:
"Broadcast variables allow the programmer to keep a read-only variable cached on each machine rather than shipping a copy of it with tasks. This can greatly reduce the amount of data sent over the network."
However, it also notes:
"Using the broadcast functionality available in SparkContext can greatly reduce the size of each serialized task, and the cost of launching a job over a cluster. If your tasks use any large object from the driver program inside of them (e.g., a static lookup table), consider turning it into a broadcast variable."
But caution is advised when broadcasting large datasets:
"Broadcasting large variables can cause out-of-memory errors if the data does not fit in the memory of each executor."
Therefore, if the broadcasted DataFrame containing millions of rows exceeds the memory capacity of the executors, the job may fail due to memory constraints.
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