I have created a table in hive, I would like to know which directory my table is created in?

Question

I have created a table in hive, I would like to know which directory my table is created in? I would like to know the path...

Answer 1

DESCRIBE FORMATTED my_table;

or

DESCRIBE FORMATTED my_table PARTITION (my_column='my_value');

Answer 2

There are three ways to describe a table in Hive.

1) To see table primary info of Hive table, use describe table_name; command

2) To see more detailed information about the table, use describe extended table_name; command

3) To see code in a clean manner use describe formatted table_name; command to see all information. also describe all details in a clean manner.

Resource: Hive interview tips

Answer 3

You can use below commands for the same.

show create table <table>;
desc formatted <table>;
describe formatted <table>;

Answer 4

in hive 0.1 you can use SHOW CREATE TABLE to find the path where hive store data.

in other versions, there is no good way to do this.

upadted:

thanks Joe K

use DESCRIBE FORMATTED <table> to show table information.

ps: database.tablename is not supported here.

Answer 5

Further to pensz answer you can get more info using:

DESCRIBE EXTENDED my_table;

or

DESCRIBE EXTENDED my_table PARTITION (my_column='my_value');

Answer 6

To see the structure of table (using create statement)-

show create table table_name;

Answer 7

DESCRIBE FORMATTED <tablename>

or

DESCRIBE EXTENDED <tablename>

I prefer formatted because it is more human readable format

Answer 8

If you use Hue, you can browse the table in the Metastore App and then click on 'View file location': that will open the HDFS File Browser in its directory.

Answer 9

All HIVE managed tables are stored in the below HDFS location.

hadoop fs -ls /user/hive/warehouse/databasename.db/tablename

Answer 10

in the 'default' directory if you have not specifically mentioned your location.

you can use describe and describe extended to know about the table structure.