All HIVE
managed tables are stored in the below HDFS
location.
hadoop fs -ls /user/hive/warehouse/databasename.db/tablename
DESCRIBE FORMATTED my_table;
or
DESCRIBE FORMATTED my_table PARTITION (my_column='my_value');
To see both of the structure and location (directory) of an any (internal or external)table, we can use table's create statment-
show create table table_name;
Further to pensz answer you can get more info using:
DESCRIBE EXTENDED my_table;
or
DESCRIBE EXTENDED my_table PARTITION (my_column='my_value');
There are three ways to describe a table in Hive.
1) To see table primary info of Hive table, use describe table_name; command
2) To see more detailed information about the table, use describe extended table_name; command
3) To see code in a clean manner use describe formatted table_name; command to see all information. also describe all details in a clean manner.
Resource: Hive interview tips
You can use below commands for the same.
show create table <table>;
desc formatted <table>;
describe formatted <table>;
in hive 0.1 you can use SHOW CREATE TABLE
to find the path where hive store data.
in other versions, there is no good way to do this.
upadted:
thanks Joe K
use DESCRIBE FORMATTED <table>
to show table information.
ps: database.tablename is not supported here.
in the 'default' directory if you have not specifically mentioned your location.
you can use describe and describe extended to know about the table structure.
DESCRIBE FORMATTED <tablename>
or
DESCRIBE EXTENDED <tablename>
I prefer formatted because it is more human readable format
If you use Hue, you can browse the table in the Metastore App and then click on 'View file location': that will open the HDFS File Browser in its directory.
Source: Stackoverflow.com