When load data from HDFS to Hive, using
LOAD DATA INPATH 'hdfs_file' INTO TABLE tablename;
command, it looks like it is moving the hdfs_file to hive/warehouse dir.
Is it possible (How?) to copy it instead of moving it, in order, for the file, to be used by another process.
I found that, when you use EXTERNAL TABLE and LOCATION together, Hive creates table and initially no data will present (assuming your data location is different from the Hive 'LOCATION').
When you use 'LOAD DATA INPATH' command, the data get MOVED (instead of copy) from data location to location that you specified while creating Hive table.
If location is not given when you create Hive table, it uses internal Hive warehouse location and data will get moved from your source data location to internal Hive data warehouse location (i.e. /user/hive/warehouse/).
An alternative to 'LOAD DATA' is available in which the data will not be moved from your existing source location to hive data warehouse location.
You can use ALTER TABLE command with 'LOCATION' option. Here is below required command
ALTER TABLE table_name ADD PARTITION (date_col='2017-02-07') LOCATION 'hdfs/path/to/location/'
The only condition here is, the location should be a directory instead of file.
Hope this will solve the problem.
Source: Stackoverflow.com