SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE

Shows the definition of an external table, including table attributes and column attributes. You can use the output of the SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE statement to recreate the table.

For more information about external table creation, see CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE.

Syntax

SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE [external_database].external_schema.table_name [ PARTITION ]

Parameters

external_database

The name of the associated external database. This parameter is optional.

external_schema

The name of the associated external schema.

table_name

The name of the table to show.

PARTITION

Displays ALTER TABLE statements to add partitions to the table definition.

Examples

The following examples are based on an external table defined as follows:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned (
     csmallint smallint,
     cint int,
     cbigint bigint,
     cfloat float4,
     cdouble float8,
     cchar char(10),
     cvarchar varchar(255),
     cdecimal_small decimal(18,9),
     cdecimal_big decimal(30,15),
     ctimestamp TIMESTAMP,
     cboolean boolean,
     cstring varchar(16383)
)
PARTITIONED BY (cdate date, ctime TIMESTAMP)
STORED AS PARQUET
LOCATION 's3://mybucket-test-copy/alldatatypes_parquet_partitioned';
         

Following is an example of the SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE command and output for the table my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned.

SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned;

"CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned (
    csmallint smallint,
    cint int,
    cbigint bigint,
    cfloat float4,
    cdouble float8,
    cchar char(10),
    cvarchar varchar(255),
    cdecimal_small decimal(18,9),
    cdecimal_big decimal(30,15),
    ctimestamp timestamp,
    cboolean boolean,
    cstring varchar(16383)
)
PARTITIONED BY (cdate date, ctime timestamp)
ROW FORMAT SERDE 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.serde.ParquetHiveSerDe'
STORED AS INPUTFORMAT 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.MapredParquetInputFormat'
OUTPUTFORMAT 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.MapredParquetOutputFormat'
LOCATION 's3://mybucket-test-copy/alldatatypes_parquet_partitioned';"

Following is an example of the SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE command and output for the same table, but with the database also specified in the parameter.

SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE my_database.my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned;

"CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE my_database.my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned (
    csmallint smallint,
    cint int,
    cbigint bigint,
    cfloat float4,
    cdouble float8,
    cchar char(10),
    cvarchar varchar(255),
    cdecimal_small decimal(18,9),
    cdecimal_big decimal(30,15),
    ctimestamp timestamp,
    cboolean boolean,
    cstring varchar(16383)
)
PARTITIONED BY (cdate date, ctime timestamp)
ROW FORMAT SERDE 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.serde.ParquetHiveSerDe'
STORED AS INPUTFORMAT 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.MapredParquetInputFormat'
OUTPUTFORMAT 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.MapredParquetOutputFormat'
LOCATION 's3://mybucket-test-copy/alldatatypes_parquet_partitioned';"

Following is an example of the SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE command and output when using the PARTITION parameter. The output contains ALTER TABLE statements to add partitions to the table definition.

SHOW EXTERNAL TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned PARTITION;

"CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned (
    csmallint smallint,
    cint int,
    cbigint bigint,
    cfloat float4,
    cdouble float8,
    cchar char(10),
    cvarchar varchar(255),
    cdecimal_small decimal(18,9),
    cdecimal_big decimal(30,15),
    ctimestamp timestamp,
    cboolean boolean,
    cstring varchar(16383)
)
PARTITIONED BY (cdate date)
ROW FORMAT SERDE 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.serde.ParquetHiveSerDe'
STORED AS INPUTFORMAT 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.MapredParquetInputFormat'
OUTPUTFORMAT 'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.parquet.MapredParquetOutputFormat'
LOCATION 's3://mybucket-test-copy/alldatatypes_parquet_partitioned';
ALTER TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned ADD IF NOT EXISTS PARTITION (cdate='2021-01-01') LOCATION 's3://mybucket-test-copy/alldatatypes_parquet_partitioned2/cdate=2021-01-01';
ALTER TABLE my_schema.alldatatypes_parquet_test_partitioned ADD IF NOT EXISTS PARTITION (cdate='2021-01-02') LOCATION 's3://mybucket-test-copy/alldatatypes_parquet_partitioned2/cdate=2021-01-02';"