How to Cancel Apache Spark

To cancel or stop Apache Spark applications and processes, follow these steps:

Stopping Spark Shells

• Spark Shell: To exit the Spark shell, use the commands :quit or :q, or press Ctrl+z. This will close the shell and return you to the terminal.
• PySpark Shell: To exit the PySpark shell, use the functions exit() or quit(), or press Ctrl+z.

Stopping Structured Streaming Queries

• Use the stop() method on the streaming query object to cancel the query. This method updates the query state to "TERMINATED" and cancels all related jobs.

Stopping Spark Applications

• To stop a Spark application submitted via spark-submit, you can use the spark-submit --kill command. However, this method interacts with the resource manager rather than directly stopping the query.

Additional Considerations

• When stopping Spark applications, especially those running on clusters, ensure that all resources are properly cleaned up to avoid leaving unfinished tasks or event logs.
• For more complex applications, consider using shutdown hooks or external markers to implement a graceful shutdown mechanism.