[HIVE-7891] Table-creation fails through HCatClient for Oracle-based metastore.

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Critical
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 0.14.0
• Fix Version/s: 0.14.0
• Component/s: HCatalog, Metastore
• Assignee: Mithun Radhakrishnan
• Reporter: Mithun Radhakrishnan
• Created: 27/Aug/14 08:42
• Updated: 13/Nov/14 19:41
• Resolved: 01/Oct/14 00:15

Description

When tables are created using HCatClient.createTable(), if the HCatTable's creation-comment is an empty string, the table creation fails spectacularly, with this guttural utterance:

Exception in thread "main" org.apache.hive.hcatalog.common.HCatException : 9001 : Exception occurred while processing HCat request : MetaException while creating table.. Cause : MetaException(message:java.lang.NullPointerException: Null values not allowed in persistent maps.)
        at org.apache.hive.hcatalog.api.HCatClientHMSImpl.createTable(HCatClientHMSImpl.java:185)
        at net.myth.HiveClient.main(HiveClient.java:67)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
        at org.apache.hadoop.util.RunJar.main(RunJar.java:208)
Caused by: MetaException(message:java.lang.NullPointerException: Null values not allowed in persistent maps.)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.api.ThriftHiveMetastore$create_table_with_environment_context_result$create_table_with_environment_context_resultStandardScheme.read(ThriftHiveMetastore.java:22138)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.api.ThriftHiveMetastore$create_table_with_environment_context_result$create_table_with_environment_context_resultStandardScheme.read(ThriftHiveMetastore.java:22106)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.api.ThriftHiveMetastore$create_table_with_environment_context_result.read(ThriftHiveMetastore.java:22032)
        at org.apache.thrift.TServiceClient.receiveBase(TServiceClient.java:78)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.api.ThriftHiveMetastore$Client.recv_create_table_with_environment_context(ThriftHiveMetastore.java:797)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.api.ThriftHiveMetastore$Client.create_table_with_environment_context(ThriftHiveMetastore.java:783)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.HiveMetaStoreClient.createTable(HiveMetaStoreClient.java:487)
        at org.apache.hadoop.hive.metastore.HiveMetaStoreClient.createTable(HiveMetaStoreClient.java:476)
        at org.apache.hive.hcatalog.api.HCatClientHMSImpl.createTable(HCatClientHMSImpl.java:175)

This manifests with an Oracle backend, because an empty comment-string is stored in the table-properties map as a null-string. I've a patch that fixes this.