Hive Data Definition Language

HiveQL DDL statements are documented here, including:

CREATE DATABASE/SCHEMA, TABLE, VIEW, FUNCTION, INDEX
DROP DATABASE/SCHEMA, TABLE, VIEW, INDEX
TRUNCATE TABLE
ALTER DATABASE/SCHEMA, TABLE, VIEW
MSCK REPAIR TABLE (or ALTER TABLE RECOVER PARTITIONS)
SHOW DATABASES/SCHEMAS, TABLES, TBLPROPERTIES, PARTITIONS, FUNCTIONS, INDEX[ES], COLUMNS, CREATE TABLE
DESCRIBE DATABASE/SCHEMA, table_name, view_name

PARTITION statements are usually options of TABLE statements, except for SHOW PARTITIONS.

1.Create/Drop/Alter/Use Database
CREATE (DATABASE|SCHEMA) [IF NOT EXISTS] database_name
[COMMENT database_comment]
[LOCATION hdfs_path]
[WITH DBPROPERTIES (property_name=property_value, ...)];

2.Drop Database
DROP (DATABASE|SCHEMA) [IF EXISTS] database_name [RESTRICT|CASCADE];

3.Alter Database
ALTER (DATABASE|SCHEMA) database_name SET DBPROPERTIES (property_name=property_value, ...);   -- (Note: SCHEMA added in Hive 0.14.0)

ALTER (DATABASE|SCHEMA) database_name SET OWNER [USER|ROLE] user_or_role;   -- (Note: Hive 0.13.0 and later; SCHEMA added in Hive 0.14.0)

4.Use Database
USE database_name;
USE DEFAULT;
To check which database is currently being used: SELECT current_database() (as of Hive 0.13.0).

5.Create Table
CREATE [TEMPORARY] [EXTERNAL] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] [db_name.]table_name    -- (Note: TEMPORARY available in Hive 0.14.0 and later)
[(col_name data_type [COMMENT col_comment], ...)]
[COMMENT table_comment]
[PARTITIONED BY (col_name data_type [COMMENT col_comment], ...)]
[CLUSTERED BY (col_name, col_name, ...) [SORTED BY (col_name [ASC|DESC], ...)] INTO num_buckets BUCKETS]
[SKEWED BY (col_name, col_name, ...)                  -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.10.0 and later)]
ON ((col_value, col_value, ...), (col_value, col_value, ...), ...)
[STORED AS DIRECTORIES]
[
[ROW FORMAT row_format]
[STORED AS file_format]
| STORED BY 'storage.handler.class.name' [WITH SERDEPROPERTIES (...)]  -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.6.0 and later)
]
[LOCATION hdfs_path]
[TBLPROPERTIES (property_name=property_value, ...)]   -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.6.0 and later)
[AS select_statement];   -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.5.0 and later; not supported for external tables)

CREATE [TEMPORARY] [EXTERNAL] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] [db_name.]table_name
LIKE existing_table_or_view_name
[LOCATION hdfs_path];

data_type
: primitive_type
| array_type
| map_type
| struct_type
| union_type  -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.7.0 and later)

primitive_type
: TINYINT
| SMALLINT
| INT
| BIGINT
| BOOLEAN
| FLOAT
| DOUBLE
| STRING
| BINARY      -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.8.0 and later)
| TIMESTAMP   -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.8.0 and later)
| DECIMAL     -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.11.0 and later)
| DECIMAL(precision, scale)  -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.13.0 and later)
| DATE        -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.12.0 and later)
| VARCHAR     -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.12.0 and later)
| CHAR        -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.13.0 and later)

array_type
: ARRAY < data_type >

map_type
: MAP < primitive_type, data_type >

struct_type
: STRUCT < col_name : data_type [COMMENT col_comment], ...>

union_type
: UNIONTYPE < data_type, data_type, ... >  -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.7.0 and later)

row_format
: DELIMITED [FIELDS TERMINATED BY char [ESCAPED BY char]] [COLLECTION ITEMS TERMINATED BY char]
[MAP KEYS TERMINATED BY char] [LINES TERMINATED BY char]
[NULL DEFINED AS char]   -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.13 and later)
| SERDE serde_name [WITH SERDEPROPERTIES (property_name=property_value, property_name=property_value, ...)]

file_format:
: SEQUENCEFILE
| TEXTFILE    -- (Default, depending on hive.default.fileformat configuration)
| RCFILE      -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.6.0 and later)
| ORC         -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.11.0 and later)
| PARQUET     -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.13.0 and later)
| AVRO        -- (Note: Available in Hive 0.14.0 and later)
| INPUTFORMAT input_format_classname OUTPUTFORMAT output_format_classname

6.Partitioned Tables
create table table_name (
id                int,
dtDontQuery       string,
name              string
)
partitioned by (date string)

CREATE TABLE page_view(viewTime INT, userid BIGINT,
page_url STRING, referrer_url STRING,
ip STRING COMMENT 'IP Address of the User')
COMMENT 'This is the page view table'
PARTITIONED BY(dt STRING, country STRING)
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\001'
STORED AS SEQUENCEFILE;

7.External Tables

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE page_view(viewTime INT, userid BIGINT,
page_url STRING, referrer_url STRING,
ip STRING COMMENT 'IP Address of the User',
country STRING COMMENT 'country of origination')
COMMENT 'This is the staging page view table'
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\054'
STORED AS TEXTFILE
LOCATION '<hdfs_location>';

8.Create Table As Select (CTAS)

CREATE TABLE new_key_value_store
ROW FORMAT SERDE "org.apache.hadoop.hive.serde2.columnar.ColumnarSerDe"
STORED AS RCFile
AS
SELECT (key % 1024) new_key, concat(key, value) key_value_pair
FROM key_value_store
SORT BY new_key, key_value_pair;

9.Create Table Like
CREATE TABLE empty_key_value_store
LIKE key_value_store;

10.Bucketed Sorted Tables

CREATE TABLE page_view(viewTime INT, userid BIGINT,
page_url STRING, referrer_url STRING,
ip STRING COMMENT 'IP Address of the User')
COMMENT 'This is the page view table'
PARTITIONED BY(dt STRING, country STRING)
CLUSTERED BY(userid) SORTED BY(viewTime) INTO 32 BUCKETS
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
FIELDS TERMINATED BY '\001'
COLLECTION ITEMS TERMINATED BY '\002'
MAP KEYS TERMINATED BY '\003'
STORED AS SEQUENCEFILE;