Apache Hive Cookbook

Altering a database schema

In this recipe, you will learn how to alter a database in Hive.

Getting ready

The ALTER DATABASE command in Hive is used to alter dbproperties or set the dbproperties of a database. Using the ALTER DATABASE command, we can only alter dbproperties and nothing else (not even the name and directory location of a database can be altered). No other metadata about the database can be changed. The general format for altering a database is as follows:

ALTER (DATABASE|SCHEMA) database_name SET DBPROPERTIES (property_name=property_value, ...);

Where:

DATABASE|SCHEMA: These are the same thing. These words can be used interchangeably:

SET DBPROPERTIES (property_name=property_value, ...)

This clause is used to set the properties for ...