[HIVE-18852] Misleading error message in alter table validation

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.4.0
• Fix Version/s: 4.0.0-alpha-1
• Component/s: Metastore
• Assignee: Andrew Sherman
• Reporter: Dan Burkert
• Created: 02/Mar/18 22:29
• Updated: 17/Nov/22 08:55
• Resolved: 25/Jul/18 03:00

Description

The metastore's validation error message when attempting to rename a table to a non-existent database is wrong. For instance, attempting to alter table 'db.table' to 'non_existent_database.table' results in the Thrift error:

TException - service has thrown: InvalidOperationException(message=Unable to change partition or table. Database db does not exist Check metastore logs for detailed stack.non_existent_database)

I believe the offending line of code is here, notice that dbname is used in the message, not newDbName. I don't know if switching that would cause the case of a non-existing dbname case to regress, though.