[IMPALA-973] Improve Invalidate Metadata <table> error message

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: Impala 1.2.4
• Fix Version/s: Impala 1.4
• Assignee: Anusha Dasarakothapalli
• Reporter: Alan Choi
• Created: 02/May/14 00:24
• Updated: 22/Jun/14 22:21
• Resolved: 17/Jun/14 20:42

Description

Right now, when a user mistype the table name, there's no warning or error. It can be improved.

There are few use cases for that:

1. The table was created in Hive. So, it doesn't exist in Impala yet. We want to load the metadata.
2. The table existed in Impala, but was dropped in Hive. We want to clear out the metadata.
3. The table might, or might not exist in Impala, but it was dropped in Hive. We want to clear out the metadata.

So, if the table doesn't exist in the hive metastore and it doesn't exist in impala's cache, then Impala should probably raise a warning or error. For usecase 3, you'll get an error, but I think it's acceptable.