Using reserved words in Hive

Question

I'm migrating data to Hive 1.2, and I realized that, by default, I'm no longer allowed to use reserved words as column names. If you want to use reserved words, you need to explicitly set the below setting:

hive.support.sql11.reserved.keywords=false

My question is, does changing this default value result in any unexpected issues? Are there any problems I should be aware of before changing it?

By the way, this change is documented in this ticket: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-6617

Lunette

You can still use whatever string literal you want, as long as you quote the column name every time with back-quotes (and you avoid punctuation) => create table DUH (`user` string, `Look ma no hands` string) – Epochal

Yeah I saw that solution too, but I was hoping to be able to keep the table exactly the same as it was in previous versions. I've always found quoted column names to be confusing. – Lunette

Answer 1

This configuration property hive.support.sql11.reserved.keywords was added in Hive 1.2.0 with HIVE-6617 and is removed in Hive 2.3.0 with HIVE-14872

It was removed to simplify parser logic and reduce the size of generated parser code. Please read the description in the HIVE-14872 for more details.

Taking this into account, rewrite your code using quoted identifiers (using backticks) OR rename identifiers the sooner the better.

Krafftebing

What is the new settings for hive.support.sql11.reserved.keywords in HIVE 3 version, is it the same or there is any other settings – Carmella

@SanthoshChakka This setting is removed. Use backticks or rename. – Krafftebing