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Pipeline
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Cheatsheet: Pipeline

Recommended reading: 3 mins

Core Description

Learn the fundamentals of creating, running, and managing Apache Beam pipelines.

beam.Pipeline()
returns: Pipeline
Purpose

Initializes the pipeline execution graph context representing the complete data flow.

Syntax Signaturewith beam.Pipeline(options=options) as p:
Usage Example
import apache_beam as beam
from apache_beam.options.pipeline_options import PipelineOptions

# Configure pipeline options
options = PipelineOptions(runner="DirectRunner")

# Define and execute the pipeline
with beam.Pipeline(options=options) as p:
    (p 
     | "Create Data" >> beam.Create(["A", "B", "C"])
     | "Print" >> beam.Map(print))
Expected Stdout / Output
A
B
C
Time Complexity

O(1) initialization, pipeline building is O(V + E)

Used In

Main pipeline initialization block.

Related Methods

PipelineOptions(), Pipeline.run()

Comparison note

Differs from standard programming scripts as it builds a lazy evaluation graph before execution.

Common Pitfall

Forgetting the 'with' context manager or not calling p.run() if context manager is omitted.

Remember:

Always name every step. Unique transform names (e.g. 'Create Data' >>) are mandatory for visualization and production debugging.

PipelineOptions()
returns: PipelineOptions
Purpose

Parses execution arguments and configures runner environments (Dataflow, Spark, Flink).

Syntax Signatureoptions = PipelineOptions(flags=None, **options)
Usage Example
from apache_beam.options.pipeline_options import PipelineOptions

# Instantiate options with explicit configuration parameters
options = PipelineOptions(
    runner="DirectRunner",
    project="my-gcp-project",
    temp_location="gs://my-bucket/temp"
)
Used In

Defining runner settings, GCP project IDs, staging directories, and worker bounds.

Remember:

Pass standard CLI flags using sys.argv to allow override scripts at execution runtime.

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