[HIVE-14795] ALTER TABLE ... RENAME [OVERWRITE] [TO] to overwrite existing table

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.1.0, 1.2.0, 2.0.0, 2.1.0
• Component/s: Hive
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Ruslan Dautkhanov
• Created: 20/Sep/16 03:05
• Updated: 20/Sep/16 03:05

Description

It would be great to Have in OVERWRITE option in Hive's rename command:

ALTER TABLE ... RENAME [OVERWRITE] [TO] to overwrite existing table, if it exists.

There are many commands like DROP TABLE IF EXISTS, LOAD DATA .. OVERWRITE that tell how to deal if table already exists.

We currently have to check in our ETL pipelines (outside of Hive) if table already exists and call different actions depending on that result.

It would simplify that logic quite a bit.

Closest in functionaility I found in MySQL: http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=36271

This is not a compatibility breaking change.