pyspark: rolling average using timeseries data

It's worth noting, that if you don't care about the exact dates - but care to have the average of the last 30 days available you can use the rowsBetween function as follows:

w = Window.orderBy('timestampGMT').rowsBetween(-7, 0)

df = eurPrices.withColumn('rolling_average', F.avg('dollars').over(w))

Since you order by the dates, it will take the last 7 occurrences. You save all the casting.

Do you mean this :

df = spark.createDataFrame([(17, "2017-03-11T15:27:18+00:00"),
                            (13, "2017-03-11T12:27:18+00:00"),
                            (21, "2017-03-17T11:27:18+00:00")],
                           ["dollars", "timestampGMT"])
df = df.withColumn('timestampGMT', df.timestampGMT.cast('timestamp'))
df = df.withColumn('rolling_average', f.avg("dollars").over(Window.partitionBy(f.window("timestampGMT", "7 days"))))

Output:

+-------+-------------------+---------------+                                   
|dollars|timestampGMT       |rolling_average|
+-------+-------------------+---------------+
|21     |2017-03-17 19:27:18|21.0           |
|17     |2017-03-11 23:27:18|15.0           |
|13     |2017-03-11 20:27:18|15.0           |
+-------+-------------------+---------------+

I figured out the correct way to calculate a moving/rolling average using this stackoverflow:

Spark Window Functions - rangeBetween dates

The basic idea is to convert your timestamp column to seconds, and then you can use the rangeBetween function in the pyspark.sql.Window class to include the correct rows in your window.

Here's the solved example:

%pyspark
from pyspark.sql import functions as F
from pyspark.sql.window import Window


#function to calculate number of seconds from number of days
days = lambda i: i * 86400

df = spark.createDataFrame([(17, "2017-03-10T15:27:18+00:00"),
                        (13, "2017-03-15T12:27:18+00:00"),
                        (25, "2017-03-18T11:27:18+00:00")],
                        ["dollars", "timestampGMT"])
df = df.withColumn('timestampGMT', df.timestampGMT.cast('timestamp'))

#create window by casting timestamp to long (number of seconds)
w = (Window.orderBy(F.col("timestampGMT").cast('long')).rangeBetween(-days(7), 0))

df = df.withColumn('rolling_average', F.avg("dollars").over(w))

This results in the exact column of rolling averages that I was looking for:

dollars   timestampGMT            rolling_average
17        2017-03-10 15:27:18.0   17.0
13        2017-03-15 12:27:18.0   15.0
25        2017-03-18 11:27:18.0   19.0

I will add a variation which I personally found very useful. I hope someone will find it useful as well:

If you want to groupby then within the respective groups calculate the moving average:

Example of the dataframe :

from pyspark.sql.window import Window
from pyspark.sql import functions as func


df = spark.createDataFrame([("tshilidzi", 17.00, "2018-03-10T15:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("tshilidzi", 13.00, "2018-03-11T12:27:18+00:00"),   
  ("tshilidzi", 25.00, "2018-03-12T11:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("thabo", 20.00, "2018-03-13T15:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("thabo", 56.00, "2018-03-14T12:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("thabo", 99.00, "2018-03-15T11:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("tshilidzi", 156.00, "2019-03-22T11:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("thabo", 122.00, "2018-03-31T11:27:18+00:00"), 
  ("tshilidzi", 7000.00, "2019-04-15T11:27:18+00:00"),
  ("ash", 9999.00, "2018-04-16T11:27:18+00:00") 
  ],
  ["name", "dollars", "timestampGMT"])

# we need this timestampGMT as seconds for our Window time frame
df = df.withColumn('timestampGMT', df.timestampGMT.cast('timestamp'))

df.show(10000, False)

Output:

+---------+-------+---------------------+
|name     |dollars|timestampGMT         |
+---------+-------+---------------------+
|tshilidzi|17.0   |2018-03-10 17:27:18.0|
|tshilidzi|13.0   |2018-03-11 14:27:18.0|
|tshilidzi|25.0   |2018-03-12 13:27:18.0|
|thabo    |20.0   |2018-03-13 17:27:18.0|
|thabo    |56.0   |2018-03-14 14:27:18.0|
|thabo    |99.0   |2018-03-15 13:27:18.0|
|tshilidzi|156.0  |2019-03-22 13:27:18.0|
|thabo    |122.0  |2018-03-31 13:27:18.0|
|tshilidzi|7000.0 |2019-04-15 13:27:18.0|
|ash      |9999.0 |2018-04-16 13:27:18.0|
+---------+-------+---------------------+

To calculate the moving average based on the name and still maintain all rows:

#create window by casting timestamp to long (number of seconds)
w = (Window()
     .partitionBy(col("name"))
     .orderBy(F.col("timestampGMT").cast('long'))
     .rangeBetween(-days(7), 0))

df2 = df.withColumn('rolling_average', F.avg("dollars").over(w))

df2.show(100, False)

Output:

+---------+-------+---------------------+------------------+
|name     |dollars|timestampGMT         |rolling_average   |
+---------+-------+---------------------+------------------+
|ash      |9999.0 |2018-04-16 13:27:18.0|9999.0            |
|tshilidzi|17.0   |2018-03-10 17:27:18.0|17.0              |
|tshilidzi|13.0   |2018-03-11 14:27:18.0|15.0              |
|tshilidzi|25.0   |2018-03-12 13:27:18.0|18.333333333333332|
|tshilidzi|156.0  |2019-03-22 13:27:18.0|156.0             |
|tshilidzi|7000.0 |2019-04-15 13:27:18.0|7000.0            |
|thabo    |20.0   |2018-03-13 17:27:18.0|20.0              |
|thabo    |56.0   |2018-03-14 14:27:18.0|38.0              |
|thabo    |99.0   |2018-03-15 13:27:18.0|58.333333333333336|
|thabo    |122.0  |2018-03-31 13:27:18.0|122.0             |
+---------+-------+---------------------+------------------+