Is Hbase schema on read?

Question

I am new to hbase . I know that HBase is key/value store which stores the data in array of bytes. couple of queries

1. Does Hbase support data types for columns ?
2. Is Hbase schema on read (like hive ) or write ?

For the first question , I saw couple of links and got confused.

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https://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSPT3X_4.0.0/com.ibm.swg.im.infosphere.biginsights.analyze.doc/doc/bsql_encoding.html

Java(HBase) API: How to know the data type of a value stored in bytes

Answer 1

1. Natively HBase does not support data types for columns everything is treated as byte arrays. Here is an excert from hbase book on supported data types . But you could use high level frameworks like phoenix and here are its supported data types .

2. As HBase is schema-less I would say HBase relies on schema on read mechanism.