CREATE TABLE doesn't load data from disk

Question

I have a bunch of parquet files and I'm trying to load them into hive with the following query:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE `events` (
    // ... fields ...
)
PARTITIONED BY (... partition columns ...)
SORED AS PARQUET
LOCATION '/path/to/parquet/files';

It creates the table, but it doesn't load the data at the location. Is there something wrong with the query?

Answer 1

The location you specified in CREATE TABLE statement should be HDFS location. CREATE TABLE does not load files.

Use LOAD DATA LOCAL INPATH './local/file/path' OVERWRITE INTO TABLE invites PARTITION (key='value'); See manual here.

Alternatively, you can put files in the HDFS into locations with partitions subdirectories using hadoop fs -copyFromLocal /path/in/linux /hdfs/path command, then create table and use MSCK REPAIR TABLE to create partitions, see manual here.