What's the best way to write if/else if/else if/else in HIVE?

Question

Hive uses IF(condition, expression, expression), so when I want to do if / else if / else if / else, I have to do:

IF(a, 1, IF(b, 2, IF(c, 3, 4)))

Is there a better way to do this that's more readable?

Looking for something similar to the standard

if (a) {
  1
} else if (b) {
  2
} else if (c) {
  3
} else {
  4
}

Answer 1

You can use Hive Conditional CASE WHEN function for if-else scenario. The CASE Statement will provide you better readability with the same functionality.

CASE
  WHEN (condition1) THEN result1
  WHEN (condition2) THEN result2
  WHEN (condition3) THEN result3 
  WHEN (condition4) THEN result4
  ELSE result_default 
END AS attribute_name

Answer 2

The best way to handle if else will be to write customize UDF for particular column.