scala - How to unwind array in DataFrame (from JSON)?

Question

Each record in an RDD contains a json. I'm using SQLContext to create a DataFrame from the Json like this:

val signalsJsonRdd = sqlContext.jsonRDD(signalsJson)

Below is the schema. datapayload is an array of items. I want to explode the array of items to get a dataframe where each row is an item from datapayload. I tried to do something based on this answer, but it seems that I would need to model the entire structure of the item in the case Row(arr: Array[...]) statement. I'm probably missing something.

val payloadDfs = signalsJsonRdd.explode($"data.datapayload"){ 
    case org.apache.spark.sql.Row(arr: Array[String]) =>  arr.map(Tuple1(_)) 
}

The above code throws a scala.MatchError, because the type of the actual Row is very different from Row(arr: Array[String]). There is probably a simple way to do what I want, but I can't find it. Please help.

Schema give below

signalsJsonRdd.printSchema()

root
 |-- _corrupt_record: string (nullable = true)
 |-- data: struct (nullable = true)
 |    |-- dataid: string (nullable = true)
 |    |-- datapayload: array (nullable = true)
 |    |    |-- element: struct (containsNull = true)
 |    |    |    |-- Reading: struct (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- A2DPActive: boolean (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Accuracy: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Active: boolean (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Address: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Charging: boolean (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Connected: boolean (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- DeviceName: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Guid: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- HandsFree: boolean (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Header: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Heading: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Latitude: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Longitude: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- PositionSource: long (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Present: boolean (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Radius: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- SSID: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- SSIDLength: long (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- SpeedInKmh: double (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- State: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Time: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |    |-- Type: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |-- Time: string (nullable = true)
 |    |    |    |-- Type: string (nullable = true)

Answer 1

tl;dr explode function is your friend (or my favorite flatMap).

explode function creates a new row for each element in the given array or map column.

Something like the following should work:

signalsJsonRdd.withColumn("element", explode($"data.datapayload"))

See functions object.