drop hive table partition through pig script

Question

Currently we are dropping the table daily and running the script which loads the data to the tables. Script takes 3-4 hrs during which data will not be available. So now our aim is to make the old hive data available to analysts until new data load execution is complete.

I am achieving this thing in hql script by loading daily data to the hive tables partitioned on load_year, load_month and load_day and dropping the yesterdays data by dropping the partition. But what is the option for pig script to achieve the same? Can we alter the table through pig script? I dont want to execute the other hql to drop partition after pig. Thanks

Answer 1

Since HDP 2.3 you can use HCatalog commands inside Pig scripts. Therefore, you can use the HCatalog command to drop a Hive table partition. The following is an example of dropping a Hive partition:

-- Set the correct hcat path 
set hcat.bin /usr/bin/hcat;
-- Drop a table partion or execute other any Hcatalog command
sql ALTER TABLE midb1.mitable1 DROP IF EXISTS PARTITION(activity_id = "VENTA_ALIMENTACION",transaction_month = 1);

Another way is to use sh command execution inside Pig Script. However I had some problems to escape special characters in ALTER commands. So, the first is the best option in my opinion.

Regards, Roberto Tardío