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As mentioned earlier, one can read an Avro schema into a program either by generating a class corresponding to a schema or by using the parsers library. In Avro, data is always stored with its corresponding schema. Therefore, we can always read a serialized item without code generation.

This chapter describes how to read the schema using parsers library and Deserializing the data using Avro.

Deserialization Using Parsers Library

The serialized data is stored in the file mydata.txt. You can deserialize and read it using Avro.

Follow the procedure given below to deserialize the serialized data from a file.

Step 1

First of all, read the schema from the file. To do so, use Schema.Parser class. This class provides methods to parse the schema in different formats.

Instantiate the Schema.Parser class by passing the file path where the schema is stored.

Schema schema = new Schema.Parser().parse(new File("/path/to/emp.avsc"));

Step 2

Create an object of DatumReader interface using SpecificDatumReader class.

DatumReader<emp>empDatumReader = new SpecificDatumReader<emp>(emp.class);

Step 3

Instantiate DataFileReader class. This class reads serialized data from a file. It requires the DatumReader object, and path of the file where the serialized data exists, as a parameters to the constructor.

DataFileReader<GenericRecord> dataFileReader = new DataFileReader<GenericRecord>(new File("/path/to/mydata.txt"), datumReader);

Step 4

Print the deserialized data, using the methods of DataFileReader.

• The hasNext() method returns a boolean if there are any elements in the Reader .
• The next() method of DataFileReader returns the data in the Reader.

while(dataFileReader.hasNext()){

   em=dataFileReader.next(em);
   System.out.println(em);
}

Example – Deserialization Using Parsers Library

The following complete program shows how to deserialize the serialized data using Parsers library −

public class Deserialize {
   public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception{
	
      //Instantiating the Schema.Parser class.
      Schema schema = new Schema.Parser().parse(new File("/home/Hadoop/Avro/schema/emp.avsc"));
      DatumReader<GenericRecord> datumReader = new GenericDatumReader<GenericRecord>(schema);
      DataFileReader<GenericRecord> dataFileReader = new DataFileReader<GenericRecord>(new File("/home/Hadoop/Avro_Work/without_code_gen/mydata.txt"), datumReader);
      GenericRecord emp = null;
		
      while (dataFileReader.hasNext()) {
         emp = dataFileReader.next(emp);
         System.out.println(emp);
      }
      System.out.println("hello");
   }
}

Browse into the directory where the generated code is placed. In this case, it is at home/Hadoop/Avro_work/without_code_gen.

$ cd home/Hadoop/Avro_work/without_code_gen/

Now copy and save the above program in the file named DeSerialize.java. Compile and execute it as shown below −

$ javac Deserialize.java
$ java Deserialize

Output

{"name": "ramu", "id": 1, "salary": 30000, "age": 25, "address": "chennai"}
{"name": "rahman", "id": 2, "salary": 35000, "age": 30, "address": "Delhi"}