title: How to convert sql table into a pyspark/python data structure and return back to sql in databricks notebook
body: <p>I am running a sql notebook on databricks. I would like to analyze a table with half a billion records in it. I can run simple sql queries on the data. However, I need to change the date column type from str to date.</p>
  
  <p>Unfortunately, update/alter statements do not seem to be supported by sparkSQL so it seems I cannot modify the data in the table.</p>
  
  <p><strong>What would be the one-line of code that would allow me to convert the SQL table to a python data structure (in pyspark) in the next cell?</strong> 
  Then I could modify the file and return it to SQL.</p>