[IMPALA-3109] For Avro table schema defined in tblproperties, add column should have no effect instead of writing to meta store

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: Impala 2.2, Impala 2.3.0, Impala 2.5.0
• Component/s: Frontend
• Labels: supportability usability
• Target Version: Product Backlog
• Assignee: Huaisi Xu
• Reporter: Huaisi Xu
• Created: 01/Mar/16 22:24
• Updated: 30/Oct/18 17:49

Description

create external table d2 like functional_avro.tinytable;
alter table d2 add columns (ff int); -> succeed
Now second insert:
alter table d2 add columns (ff int);
RROR:
ImpalaRuntimeException: Error making 'alter_table' RPC to Hive Metastore:
CAUSED BY: MetaException: javax.jdo.JDODataStoreException: Add request failed : INSERT INTO "COLUMNS_V2" ("CD_ID","COMMENT","COLUMN_NAME","TYPE_NAME","INTEGER_IDX") VALUES (?,?,?,?,?)
...
...
...
... ( stack traces )

In hive the behavior seems like the add columns statement is ignored.

We do not use meta data's version during the query stage and thus we should behave similar to Hive as well.