[HIVE-27741] Invalid timezone value in to_utc_timestamp() is treated as UTC which can lead to data consistency issues

• Type: Sub-task
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 4.0.0, 4.0.0-beta-1
• Fix Version/s: 4.1.0
• Labels: pull-request-available
• Target Version/s: 4.1.0
• Assignee: Zoltán Rátkai
• Reporter: Janos Kovacs
• Created: 26/Sep/23 21:04
• Updated: 09/Apr/24 11:22
• Resolved: 09/Apr/24 11:21

Description

When the timezone specified in the to_utc_timestamp() function is not valid, it still treated as UTC instead of throwing an error. If the user accidentally made a typo - e.g. America/Lost_Angeles, the query runs successfully returning an invalid converted value which can lead to data consistency issues. 

Repro code:

docker rm -f hive4

export HIVE_VERSION=4.0.0-beta-2-SNAPSHOT
export HS2_ENV_TZ="Europe/Budapest"
export HS2_USER_TZ=${HS2_ENV_TZ}
export HIVE_LOCAL_TZ="America/Los_Angeles"

export HS2_OPTS="-Duser.timezone=$HS2_USER_TZ -Dhive.local.time.zone=$HIVE_LOCAL_TZ"
export HS2_OPTS="$HS2_OPTS  -Dhive.server2.tez.initialize.default.sessions=false"
docker run -d -p 10000:10000 -p 10001:10001 -p 10002:10002 --env TZ=${HS2_ENV_TZ} --env SERVICE_OPTS=${HS2_OPTS} --env SERVICE_NAME=hiveserver2 --name hive4 apache/hive:${HIVE_VERSION}

docker exec -it hive4 beeline -u 'jdbc:hive2://localhost:10000/' -e "
SELECT '\${env:TZ}' as \`env:TZ\`,
       '\${system:user.timezone}' as \`system:user.timezone\`,
       '\${hiveconf:hive.local.time.zone}' as \`hiveconf:hive.local.time.zone\`;

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS timestamptest;
CREATE TABLE timestamptest (
  ts timestamp,
  tz timestamp with local time zone
) STORED AS TEXTFILE;
INSERT INTO timestamptest select TIMESTAMP'2016-01-03 12:26:34',TIMESTAMPLOCALTZ'2016-01-03 12:26:34 America/Los_Angeles';

SELECT
  tz                                            as orig,
  to_utc_timestamp(tz, 'America/Los_Angeles')   as utc_correct_tz,
  to_utc_timestamp(tz, 'Europe/HereIsATypo')    as utc_incorrect_tz,
  to_utc_timestamp(tz, 'LOCAL')                 as utc_local_aslo_incorrect_tz,
  to_utc_timestamp(tz, 'UTC')                   as utc_tz
FROM timestamptest;
"

 
The results are:

+------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
|      env:tz      | system:user.timezone  | hiveconf:hive.local.time.zone  |
+------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+
| Europe/Budapest  | Europe/Budapest       | America/Los_Angeles            |
+------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------------+

+--------------------------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+------------------------------+------------------------+
|                    orig                    |     utc_correct_tz     |    utc_incorrect_tz    | utc_local_aslo_incorrect_tz  | utc_tz                 |
+--------------------------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+------------------------------+------------------------+
| 2016-01-03 12:26:34.0 America/Los_Angeles  | 2016-01-03 20:26:34.0  | 2016-01-03 12:26:34.0  | 2016-01-03 12:26:34.0        | 2016-01-03 12:26:34.0  |
+--------------------------------------------+------------------------+------------------------+------------------------------+------------------------+

Note:

• the invalid timezone - utc_incorrect_tz - is treated as UTC
• also note that LOCAL is also treated as UTC which in fact should be treated as system's timezone, but as LOCAL is also an invalid timezone value in hive4, ut becomes UTC just like any other invalid and/or typo timezone values (see HIVE-27742)

 

Hive should throw an Exception in that case to let the user know that the provided timezone is wrong - at least this should be configurable, e.g. via something like hive.strict.time.zone.check.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #5014