Table deletes, updates, and merges

Delta Lake supports several statements to facilitate deleting data from and updating data in Delta tables.

Delete from a table

You can remove data that matches a predicate from a Delta table. For instance, to delete all events from before 2017, you can run the following:

DELETE FROM events WHERE date < '2017-01-01'

DELETE FROM delta.`/data/events/` WHERE date < '2017-01-01'

Note

The Python API is available in Databricks Runtime 6.1 and above.

from delta.tables import *
from pyspark.sql.functions import *

deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")

deltaTable.delete("date < '2017-01-01'")        # predicate using SQL formatted string

deltaTable.delete(col("date") < "2017-01-01")   # predicate using Spark SQL functions

Note

The Scala API is available in Databricks Runtime 6.0 and above.

import io.delta.tables._

val deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")

deltaTable.delete("date < '2017-01-01'")        // predicate using SQL formatted string

import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
import spark.implicits._

deltaTable.delete(col("date") < "2017-01-01")       // predicate using Spark SQL functions and implicits

Note

The Java API is available in Databricks Runtime 6.0 and above.

import io.delta.tables.*;
import org.apache.spark.sql.functions;

DeltaTable deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/");

deltaTable.delete("date < '2017-01-01'");            // predicate using SQL formatted string

deltaTable.delete(functions.col("date").lt(functions.lit("2017-01-01")));   // predicate using Spark SQL functions

See the Delta Lake API reference for details.

Important

delete removes the data from the latest version of the Delta table but does not remove it from the physical storage until the old versions are explicitly vacuumed. See vacuum for details.

Tip

When possible, provide predicates on the partition columns for a partitioned Delta table as such predicates can significantly speed up the operation.

Update a table

You can update data that matches a predicate in a Delta table. For example, to fix a spelling mistake in the eventType, you can run the following:

UPDATE events SET eventType = 'click' WHERE eventType = 'clck'

UPDATE delta.`/data/events/` SET eventType = 'click' WHERE eventType = 'clck'

Note

The Python API is available in Databricks Runtime 6.1 and above.

from delta.tables import *
from pyspark.sql.functions import *

deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")

deltaTable.update("eventType = 'clck'", { "eventType": "'click'" } )   # predicate using SQL formatted string

deltaTable.update(col("eventType") == "clck", { "eventType": lit("click") } )   # predicate using Spark SQL functions

Note

The Scala API is available in Databricks Runtime 6.0 and above.

import io.delta.tables._

val deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")

deltaTable.updateExpr(            // predicate and update expressions using SQL formatted string
  "eventType = 'clck'",
  Map("eventType" -> "'click'")

import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
import spark.implicits._

deltaTable.update(                // predicate using Spark SQL functions and implicits
  col("eventType") === "clck",
  Map("eventType" -> lit("click")));

Note

The Scala API is available in Databricks Runtime 6.0 and above.

import io.delta.tables.*;
import org.apache.spark.sql.functions;
import java.util.HashMap;

DeltaTable deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/");

deltaTable.updateExpr(            // predicate and update expressions using SQL formatted string
  "eventType = 'clck'",
  new HashMap<String, String>() {{
    put("eventType", "'click'");
  }}
);

deltaTable.update(                // predicate using Spark SQL functions
  functions.col(eventType).eq("clck"),
  new HashMap<String, Column>() {{
    put("eventType", functions.lit("click"));
  }}
);

See the Delta Lake API reference for details.

Tip

Similar to delete, update operations can get a significant speedup with predicates on partitions.

Upsert into a table using merge

You can upsert data from a source table, view, or DataFrame into a target Delta table using the MERGE SQL operation. Delta Lake supports inserts, updates and deletes in MERGE, and supports extended syntax beyond the SQL standards to facilitate advanced use cases.

Suppose you have a Spark DataFrame that contains new data for events with eventId. Some of these events may already be present in the events table. To merge the new data into the events table, you want to update the matching rows (that is, eventId already present) and insert the new rows (that is, eventId not present). You can run the following:

MERGE INTO events
USING updates
ON events.eventId = updates.eventId
WHEN MATCHED THEN
  UPDATE SET events.data = updates.data
WHEN NOT MATCHED
  THEN INSERT (date, eventId, data) VALUES (date, eventId, data)

For syntax details, see

Databricks Runtime 7.x and above: MERGE INTO (Delta Lake on Databricks)
Databricks Runtime 5.5 LTS and 6.x: _

from delta.tables import *

deltaTable = DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")

deltaTable.alias("events").merge(
    updatesDF.alias("updates"),
    "events.eventId = updates.eventId") \
  .whenMatchedUpdate(set = { "data" : "updates.data" } ) \
  .whenNotMatchedInsert(values =
    {
      "date": "updates.date",
      "eventId": "updates.eventId",
      "data": "updates.data"
    }
  ) \
  .execute()

import io.delta.tables._
import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._

val updatesDF = ...  // define the updates DataFrame[date, eventId, data]

DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")
  .as("events")
  .merge(
    updatesDF.as("updates"),
    "events.eventId = updates.eventId")
  .whenMatched
  .updateExpr(
    Map("data" -> "updates.data"))
  .whenNotMatched
  .insertExpr(
    Map(
      "date" -> "updates.date",
      "eventId" -> "updates.eventId",
      "data" -> "updates.data"))
  .execute()

import io.delta.tables.*;
import org.apache.spark.sql.functions;
import java.util.HashMap;

Dataset<Row> updatesDF = ...  // define the updates DataFrame[date, eventId, data]

DeltaTable.forPath(spark, "/data/events/")
  .as("events")
  .merge(
    updatesDF.as("updates"),
    "events.eventId = updates.eventId")
  .whenMatched()
  .updateExpr(
    new HashMap<String, String>() {{
      put("data", "events.data");
    }})
  .whenNotMatched()
  .insertExpr(
    new HashMap<String, String>() {{
      put("date", "updates.date");
      put("eventId", "updates.eventId");
      put("data", "updates.data");
    }})
  .execute();

See the Delta Lake API reference for Scala, Java, and Python syntax details.

Operation semantics

Here is a detailed description of the merge programmatic operation.

There can be any number of whenMatched and whenNotMatched clauses.

Note

In Databricks Runtime 7.2 and below, merge can have at most 2 whenMatched clauses and at most 1 whenNotMatched clause.
whenMatched clauses are executed when a source row matches a target table row based on the match condition. These clauses have the following semantics.
- whenMatched clauses can have at most one update and one delete action. The update action in merge only updates the specified columns (similar to the update operation) of the matched target row. The delete action deletes the matched row.
- Each whenMatched clause can have an optional condition. If this clause condition exists, the update or delete action is executed for any matching source-target row pair only when the clause condition is true.
- If there are multiple whenMatched clauses, then they are evaluated in order they are specified (that is, the order of the clauses matter). All whenMatched clauses, except the last one, must have conditions.
- If multiple whenMatched clauses have conditions and none of the conditions are true for a matching source-target row pair, then the matched target row is left unchanged.
- To update all the columns of the target Delta table with the corresponding columns of the source dataset, use whenMatched(...).updateAll(). This is equivalent to:
```
whenMatched(...).updateExpr(Map("col1" -> "source.col1", "col2" -> "source.col2", ...))
```
  for all the columns of the target Delta table. Therefore, this action assumes that the source table has the same columns as those in the target table, otherwise the query throws an analysis error.
  
  Note
  
  This behavior changes when automatic schema migration is enabled. See Automatic schema evolution for details.
whenNotMatched clauses are executed when a source row does not match any target row based on the match condition. These clauses have the following semantics.
- whenNotMatched clauses can have only the insert action. The new row is generated based on the specified column and corresponding expressions. You do not need to specify all the columns in the target table. For unspecified target columns, NULL is inserted.
  
  Note
  
  In Databricks Runtime 6.5 and below, you must provide all the columns in the target table for the INSERT action.
- Each whenNotMatched clause can have an optional condition. If the clause condition is present, a source row is inserted only if that condition is true for that row. Otherwise, the source column is ignored.
- If there are multiple whenNotMatched clauses, then they are evaluated in order they are specified (that is, the order of the clauses matter). All whenNotMatched clauses, except the last one, must have conditions.
- To insert all the columns of the target Delta table with the corresponding columns of the source dataset, use whenNotMatched(...).insertAll(). This is equivalent to:
```
whenNotMatched(...).insertExpr(Map("col1" -> "source.col1", "col2" -> "source.col2", ...))
```
  for all the columns of the target Delta table. Therefore, this action assumes that the source table has the same columns as those in the target table, otherwise the query throws an analysis error.
  
  Note
  
  This behavior changes when automatic schema migration is enabled. See Automatic schema evolution for details.

Important

A merge operation can fail if multiple rows of the source dataset match and the merge attempts to update the same rows of the target Delta table. According to the SQL semantics of merge, such an update operation is ambiguous as it is unclear which source row should be used to update the matched target row. You can preprocess the source table to eliminate the possibility of multiple matches. See the change data capture example—it shows how to preprocess the change dataset (that is, the source dataset) to retain only the latest change for each key before applying that change into the target Delta table.
A merge operation can produce incorrect results if the source dataset is non-deterministic. This is because merge may perform two scans of the source dataset and if the data produced by the two scans are different, the final changes made to the table can be incorrect. Non-determinism in the source can arise in many ways. Some of them are as follows:
- Reading from non-Delta tables. For example, reading from a CSV table where the underlying files can change between the multiple scans.
- Using non-deterministic operations. For example, Dataset.filter() operations that uses current timestamp to filter data can produce different results between the multiple scans.
You can apply a SQL MERGE operation on a SQL VIEW only if the view has been defined as CREATE VIEW viewName AS SELECT * FROM deltaTable.

Note

In Databricks Runtime 7.3 LTS and above, multiple matches are allowed when matches are unconditionally deleted (since unconditional delete is not ambiguous even if there are multiple matches).

Schema validation

merge automatically validates that the schema of the data generated by insert and update expressions are compatible with the schema of the table. It uses the following rules to determine whether the merge operation is compatible:

For update and insert actions, the specified target columns must exist in the target Delta table.
For updateAll and insertAll actions, the source dataset must have all the columns of the target Delta table. The source dataset can have extra columns and they are ignored.
For all actions, if the data type generated by the expressions producing the target columns are different from the corresponding columns in the target Delta table, merge tries to cast them to the types in the table.

Automatic schema evolution

Note

Schema evolution in merge is available in Databricks Runtime 6.6 and above.

By default, updateAll and insertAll assign all the columns in the target Delta table with columns of the same name from the source dataset. Any columns in the source dataset that don’t match columns in the target table are ignored. However, in some use cases, it is desirable to automatically add source columns to the target Delta table. To automatically update the table schema during a merge operation with updateAll and insertAll (at least one of them), you can set the Spark session configuration spark.databricks.delta.schema.autoMerge.enabled to true before running the merge operation.

Note

Schema evolution occurs only when there is either an updateAll (UPDATE SET *) or an insertAll (INSERT *) action, or both.
update and insert actions cannot explicitly refer to target columns that do not already exist in the target table (even it there are updateAll or insertAll as one of the clauses). See the examples below.

Note

In Databricks Runtime 7.4 and below, merge supports schema evolution of only top-level columns, and not of nested columns.

Here are a few examples of the effects of merge operation with and without schema evolution.

Columns	Query (in Scala)	Behavior without schema evolution (default)	Behavior with schema evolution
Target columns: `key, value` Source columns: `key, value, newValue`	targetDeltaTable.alias("t") .merge( sourceDataFrame.alias("s"), "t.key = s.key") .whenMatched().updateAll() .whenNotMatched().insertAll() .execute()	The table schema remains unchanged; only columns `key`, `value` are updated/inserted.	The table schema is changed to `(key, value, newValue)`. `updateAll` updates columns `value` and `newValue`, and `insertAll` inserts rows `(key, value, newValue)`.
Target columns: `key, oldValue` Source columns: `key, newValue`	targetDeltaTable.alias("t") .merge( sourceDataFrame.alias("s"), "t.key = s.key") .whenMatched().updateAll() .whenNotMatched().insertAll() .execute()	`updateAll` and `insertAll` actions throw an error because the target column `oldValue` is not in the source.	The table schema is changed to `(key, oldValue, newValue)`. `updateAll` updates columns `key` and `newValue` leaving `oldValue` unchanged, and `insertAll` inserts rows `(key, NULL, newValue)` (that is, `oldValue` is inserted as `NULL`).
Target columns: `key, oldValue` Source columns: `key, newValue`	targetDeltaTable.alias("t") .merge( sourceDataFrame.alias("s"), "t.key = s.key") .whenMatched().update(Map( "newValue" -> col("s.newValue"))) .whenNotMatched().insertAll() .execute()	`update` throws an error because column `newValue` does not exist in the target table.	`update` still throws an error because column `newValue` does not exist in the target table.
Target columns: `key, oldValue` Source columns: `key, newValue`	targetDeltaTable.alias("t") .merge( sourceDataFrame.alias("s"), "t.key = s.key") .whenMatched().updateAll() .whenNotMatched().insert(Map( "key" -> col("s.key"), "newValue" -> col("s.newValue"))) .execute()	`insert` throws an error because column `newValue` does not exist in the target table.	`insert` still throws an error as column `newValue` does not exist in the target table.

Special considerations for schemas that contain arrays of structs

Delta MERGE INTO supports resolving struct fields by name and evolving schemas for arrays of structs. With schema evolution enabled, target table schemas will evolve for arrays of structs, which also works with any nested structs inside of arrays.

Note

This feature is available in Databricks Runtime 9.1 and above. For Databricks Runtime 9.0 and below, implicit Spark casting is used for arrays of structs to resolve struct fields by position, and the effects of merge operations with and without schema evolution of structs in arrays are inconsistent with the behaviors of structs outside of arrays.

Here are a few examples of the effects of merge operations with and without schema evolution for arrays of structs.

Source schema	Target schema	Behavior without schema evolution (default)	Behavior with schema evolution
array<struct<b: string, a: string>>	array<struct<a: int, b: int>>	The table schema remains unchanged. Columns will be resolved by name and updated or inserted.	The table schema remains unchanged. Columns will be resolved by name and updated or inserted.
array<struct<a: int, c: string, d: string>>	array<struct<a: string, b: string>>	`update` and `insert` throw errors because `c` and `d` do not exist in the target table.	The table schema is changed to array<struct<a: string, b: string, c: string, d: string>>. `c` and `d` are inserted as `NULL` for existing entries in the target table. `update` and `insert` fill entries in the source table with `a` casted to string and `b` as `NULL`.
array<struct<a: string, b: struct<c: string, d: string>>>	array<struct<a: string, b: struct<c: string>>>	`update` and `insert` throw errors because `d` does not exist in the target table.	The target table schema is changed to array<struct<a: string, b: struct<c: string, d: string>>>. `d` is inserted as `NULL` for existing entries in the target table.

Performance tuning

You can reduce the time taken by merge using the following approaches:

Reduce the search space for matches: By default, the merge operation searches the entire Delta table to find matches in the source table. One way to speed up merge is to reduce the search space by adding known constraints in the match condition. For example, suppose you have a table that is partitioned by country and date and you want to use merge to update information for the last day and a specific country. Adding the condition
```
events.date = current_date() AND events.country = 'USA'
```
will make the query faster as it looks for matches only in the relevant partitions. Furthermore, it will also reduce the chances of conflicts with other concurrent operations. See Concurrency control for more details.
Compact files: If the data is stored in many small files, reading the data to search for matches can become slow. You can compact small files into larger files to improve read throughput. See Compact files for details.
Control the shuffle partitions for writes: The merge operation shuffles data multiple times to compute and write the updated data. The number of tasks used to shuffle is controlled by the Spark session configuration spark.sql.shuffle.partitions. Setting this parameter not only controls the parallelism but also determines the number of output files. Increasing the value increases parallelism but also generates a larger number of smaller data files.

Enable optimized writes: For partitioned tables, merge can produce a much larger number of small files than the number of shuffle partitions. This is because every shuffle task can write multiple files in multiple partitions, and can become a performance bottleneck. You can reduce the number of files by enabling Optimized Write.

Note

In Databricks Runtime 7.4 and above, Optimized Write is automatically enabled in merge operations on partitioned tables.

Tune file sizes in table: In Databricks Runtime 8.2 and above, Databricks can automatically detect if a Delta table has frequent merge operations that rewrite files and may choose to reduce the size of rewritten files in anticipation of further file rewrites in the future. See the section on tuning file sizes for details.

Merge examples

Here are a few examples on how to use merge in different scenarios.

In this section:

Data deduplication when writing into Delta tables
Slowly changing data (SCD) Type 2 operation into Delta tables
Write change data into a Delta table
Upsert from streaming queries using foreachBatch

Data deduplication when writing into Delta tables

A common ETL use case is to collect logs into Delta table by appending them to a table. However, often the sources can generate duplicate log records and downstream deduplication steps are needed to take care of them. With merge, you can avoid inserting the duplicate records.

MERGE INTO logs
USING newDedupedLogs
ON logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId
WHEN NOT MATCHED
  THEN INSERT *

deltaTable.alias("logs").merge(
    newDedupedLogs.alias("newDedupedLogs"),
    "logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId") \
  .whenNotMatchedInsertAll() \
  .execute()

deltaTable
  .as("logs")
  .merge(
    newDedupedLogs.as("newDedupedLogs"),
    "logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId")
  .whenNotMatched()
  .insertAll()
  .execute()

deltaTable
  .as("logs")
  .merge(
    newDedupedLogs.as("newDedupedLogs"),
    "logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId")
  .whenNotMatched()
  .insertAll()
  .execute();

Note

The dataset containing the new logs needs to be deduplicated within itself. By the SQL semantics of merge, it matches and deduplicates the new data with the existing data in the table, but if there is duplicate data within the new dataset, it is inserted. Hence, deduplicate the new data before merging into the table.

If you know that you may get duplicate records only for a few days, you can optimized your query further by partitioning the table by date, and then specifying the date range of the target table to match on.

MERGE INTO logs
USING newDedupedLogs
ON logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId AND logs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS
WHEN NOT MATCHED AND newDedupedLogs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS
  THEN INSERT *

deltaTable.alias("logs").merge(
    newDedupedLogs.alias("newDedupedLogs"),
    "logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId AND logs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS") \
  .whenNotMatchedInsertAll("newDedupedLogs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS") \
  .execute()

deltaTable.as("logs").merge(
    newDedupedLogs.as("newDedupedLogs"),
    "logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId AND logs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS")
  .whenNotMatched("newDedupedLogs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS")
  .insertAll()
  .execute()

deltaTable.as("logs").merge(
    newDedupedLogs.as("newDedupedLogs"),
    "logs.uniqueId = newDedupedLogs.uniqueId AND logs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS")
  .whenNotMatched("newDedupedLogs.date > current_date() - INTERVAL 7 DAYS")
  .insertAll()
  .execute();

This is more efficient than the previous command as it looks for duplicates only in the last 7 days of logs, not the entire table. Furthermore, you can use this insert-only merge with Structured Streaming to perform continuous deduplication of the logs.

In a streaming query, you can use merge operation in foreachBatch to continuously write any streaming data to a Delta table with deduplication. See the following streaming example for more information on foreachBatch.
In another streaming query, you can continuously read deduplicated data from this Delta table. This is possible because an insert-only merge only appends new data to the Delta table.

Note

Insert-only merge is optimized to only append data in Databricks Runtime 6.2 and above. In Databricks Runtime 6.1 and below, writes from insert-only merge operations cannot be read as a stream.

Slowly changing data (SCD) Type 2 operation into Delta tables

Another common operation is SCD Type 2, which maintains history of all changes made to each key in a dimensional table. Such operations require updating existing rows to mark previous values of keys as old, and the inserting the new rows as the latest values. Given a source table with updates and the target table with the dimensional data, SCD Type 2 can be expressed with merge.

Here is a concrete example of maintaining the history of addresses for a customer along with the active date range of each address. When a customer’s address needs to be updated, you have to mark the previous address as not the current one, update its active date range, and add the new address as the current one.

SCD Type 2 using merge notebook

Open notebook in new tab

Write change data into a Delta table

Similar to SCD, another common use case, often called change data capture (CDC), is to apply all data changes generated from an external database into a Delta table. In other words, a set of updates, deletes, and inserts applied to an external table needs to be applied to a Delta table. You can do this using merge as follows.

Write change data using MERGE notebook

Open notebook in new tab

Upsert from streaming queries using `foreachBatch`

You can use a combination of merge and foreachBatch (see foreachbatch for more information) to write complex upserts from a streaming query into a Delta table. For example:

Write streaming aggregates in Update Mode: This is much more efficient than Complete Mode.
Write a stream of database changes into a Delta table: The merge query for writing change data can be used in foreachBatch to continuously apply a stream of changes to a Delta table.
Write a stream data into Delta table with deduplication: The insert-only merge query for deduplication can be used in foreachBatch to continuously write data (with duplicates) to a Delta table with automatic deduplication.

Note

Make sure that your merge statement inside foreachBatch is idempotent as restarts of the streaming query can apply the operation on the same batch of data multiple times.
When merge is used in foreachBatch, the input data rate of the streaming query (reported through StreamingQueryProgress and visible in the notebook rate graph) may be reported as a multiple of the actual rate at which data is generated at the source. This is because merge reads the input data multiple times causing the input metrics to be multiplied. If this is a bottleneck, you can cache the batch DataFrame before merge and then uncache it after merge.

Write streaming aggregates in update mode using merge and foreachBatch notebook

Open notebook in new tab

Table deletes, updates, and merges

Delete from a table

Update a table

Upsert into a table using merge

Operation semantics

Schema validation

Automatic schema evolution

Special considerations for schemas that contain arrays of structs

Performance tuning

Merge examples

Data deduplication when writing into Delta tables

Slowly changing data (SCD) Type 2 operation into Delta tables

SCD Type 2 using merge notebook

Write change data into a Delta table

Write change data using MERGE notebook

Upsert from streaming queries using foreachBatch

Write streaming aggregates in update mode using merge and foreachBatch notebook

Upsert from streaming queries using `foreachBatch`