Hive: Change the column name and type

Syntax

ALTER TABLE tableName CHANGE columnName newColumnName newColumnType

 

Example

ALTER TABLE employee CHANGE id emp_id BIGINT;

 

Above snippet rename the ‘id’ column of employee table to ‘emp_id’ and set the type to BIGINT.

 

Let’s experiment it with an example.

 

Step 1: Create user table.

CREATE TABLE employee (id INT, name STRING);

hive> CREATE TABLE employee (id INT, name STRING);
OK
Time taken: 0.133 seconds
hive> ;
hive> ;
hive> DESC employee;
OK
id                  	int                 	                    
name                	string              	                    
Time taken: 0.062 seconds, Fetched: 2 row(s)

Step 2: Let’s rename the column name ‘id’ to ‘emp_id’ and change the data type to BIGINT.

 

hive> ALTER TABLE employee CHANGE id emp_id BIGINT;
OK
Time taken: 0.116 seconds
hive> ;
hive> ;
hive> DESC employee;
OK
emp_id              	bigint              	                    
name                	string              	                    
Time taken: 0.081 seconds, Fetched: 2 row(s)

 

 

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