Hive insert query like SQL

Question

I am new to hive, and want to know if there is anyway to insert data into Hive table like we do in SQL. I want to insert my data into hive like

INSERT INTO tablename VALUES (value1,value2..)

I have read that you can load the data from a file to hive table or you can import data from one table to hive table but is there any way to append the data as in SQL?

ACID properties are supported in hive post 0.14 version.So yes insert ,update delete is possible but for single row and single condition operations.https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/LanguageManual+DML#LanguageManualDML-InsertingvaluesintotablesfromSQL — nilakantha singh deo, May 16 '20 at 15:12

score 134 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 27 '15 at 14:55

134

Some of the answers here are out of date as of Hive 0.14

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/LanguageManual+DML#LanguageManualDML-InsertingvaluesintotablesfromSQL

It is now possible to insert using syntax such as:

CREATE TABLE students (name VARCHAR(64), age INT, gpa DECIMAL(3, 2));

INSERT INTO TABLE students
  VALUES ('fred flintstone', 35, 1.28), ('barney rubble', 32, 2.32);

answered Jul 27 '15 at 14:55

mattinbits

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FAILED: Parse Error: line 1:28 cannot recognize input near 'VARCHAR' '(' '64' in column type – pavel_orekhov Jun 07 '22 at 16:53

unique2 · Answer 2 · 2020-06-23T15:09:38.790

You can use the table generating function stack to insert literal values into a table.

First you need a dummy table which contains only one line. You can generate it with the help of limit.

CREATE TABLE one AS
SELECT 1 AS one
FROM any_table_in_your_database
LIMIT 1;

Now you can create a new table with literal values like this:

CREATE TABLE my_table AS
SELECT stack(3
  , "row1", 1
  , "row2", 2
  , "row3", 3
) AS (column1, column2)
FROM one
;

The first argument of stack is the number of rows you are generating.

You can also add values to an existing table:

INSERT INTO TABLE my_table
SELECT stack(2
  , "row4", 1
  , "row5", 2
) AS (column1, column2)
FROM one
;

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 04 '15 at 15:34

16

Slightly better version of the unique2 suggestion is below:

insert overwrite table target_table
select * from 
(
select stack(
    3,                 # generating new table with 3 records
    'John', 80,        # record_1
    'Bill', 61         # record_2
    'Martha', 101      # record_3
    ) 
) s;

Which does not require the hack with using an already exiting table.

answered Mar 04 '15 at 15:34

Habdank

183
1
5

1

Why do you need to add an select statement on the outside of select stack, is that necessary? – ryan May 24 '18 at 06:11

score 8 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 11 '14 at 07:09

You can use below approach. With this, You don't need to create temp table OR txt/csv file for further select and load respectively.

INSERT INTO TABLE tablename SELECT value1,value2 FROM tempTable_with_atleast_one_records LIMIT 1.

Where tempTable_with_atleast_one_records is any table with atleast one record.

But problem with this approach is that If you have INSERT statement which inserts multiple rows like below one.

INSERT INTO yourTable values (1 , 'value1') , (2 , 'value2') , (3 , 'value3') ;

Then, You need to have separate INSERT hive statement for each rows. See below.

INSERT INTO TABLE yourTable SELECT 1 , 'value1' FROM tempTable_with_atleast_one_records LIMIT 1;
INSERT INTO TABLE yourTable SELECT 2 , 'value2' FROM tempTable_with_atleast_one_records LIMIT 1;
INSERT INTO TABLE yourTable SELECT 3 , 'value3' FROM tempTable_with_atleast_one_records LIMIT 1;

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 02 '13 at 12:48

6

No. This INSERT INTO tablename VALUES (x,y,z) syntax is currently not supported in Hive.

answered Jul 02 '13 at 12:48

Lukas Vermeer

5,920
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is there a way around so that I can append data in my table as we do in SQL. – Y0gesh Gupta Jul 02 '13 at 12:57
1

`INSERT INTO tablename SELECT ...` is supported, so you could put the new data in a temporary table and then insert by selecting from there. – Lukas Vermeer Jul 02 '13 at 13:21
I want to append data in hive through java client, will it work if I create a temporary data table in java and write an insert and select query in my java client only? – Y0gesh Gupta Jul 02 '13 at 14:48
If you're using Java, why not append to the file in HDFS directly? Hive is not really suitable for this kind of thing. – Lukas Vermeer Jul 03 '13 at 08:37

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 14:52

You could definitely append data into an existing table. (But it is actually not an append at the HDFS level). It's just that whenever you do a LOAD or INSERT operation on an existing Hive table without OVERWRITE clause the new data will be put without replacing the old data. A new file will be created for this newly inserted data inside the directory corresponding to that table. For example :

I have a file named demo.txt which has 2 lines :

ABC
XYZ

Create a table and load this file into it

hive> create table demo(foo string);
hive> load data inpath '/demo.txt' into table demo;

Now,if I do a SELECT on this table it'll give me :

hive> select * from demo;                        
OK    
ABC    
XYZ

Suppose, I have one more file named demo2.txt which has :

PQR

And I do a LOAD again on this table without using overwrite,

hive> load data inpath '/demo2.txt' into table demo;

Now, if I do a SELECT now, it'll give me,

hive> select * from demo;                       
OK
ABC
XYZ
PQR

HTH

score 6 · Answer 7 · edited Oct 18 '21 at 01:47

Ways to insert data into Hive table: for demonstration, I am using table name as table1 and table2

create table table2 as select * from table1 where 1=1; or create table table2 as select * from table1;
insert overwrite table table2 select * from table1; --it will insert data from one to another. Note: It will refresh the target.
insert into table table2 select * from table1; --it will insert data from one to another. Note: It will append into the target.
load data local inpath 'local_path' overwrite into table table1; --it will load data from local into the target table and also refresh the target table.
load data inpath 'hdfs_path' overwrite into table table1; --it will load data from hdfs location iand also refresh the target table. or

create table table2( col1 string, col2 string, col3 string) row format delimited fields terminated by ',' location 'hdfs_location';
load data local inpath 'local_path' into table table1; --it will load data from local and also append into the target table.
load data inpath 'hdfs_path' into table table1; --it will load data from hdfs location and also append into the target table.
insert into table2 values('aa','bb','cc'); --Lets say table2 have 3 columns only.
Multiple insertion into hive table

score 3 · Answer 8 · edited Mar 04 '14 at 11:30

Yes you can insert but not as similar to SQL.

In SQL we can insert the row level data, but here you can insert by fields (columns).

During this you have to make sure target table and the query should have same datatype and same number of columns.

eg:

CREATE TABLE test(stu_name STRING,stu_id INT,stu_marks INT)
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
STORED AS TEXTFILE;

INSERT OVERWRITE TABLE test SELECT lang_name, lang_id, lang_legacy_id FROM export_table;

score 3 · Answer 9 · edited Jul 12 '17 at 13:16

3

To insert entire data of table2 in table1. Below is a query:

INSERT INTO TABLE table1 SELECT * FROM table2;

edited Jul 12 '17 at 13:16

answered Jul 12 '17 at 09:40

Ramesh babu M

51
2

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 06:11

2

You can't do insert into to insert single record. It's not supported by Hive. You may place all new records that you want to insert in a file and load that file into a temp table in Hive. Then using insert overwrite..select command insert those rows into a new partition of your main Hive table. The constraint here is your main table will have to be pre partitioned. If you don't use partition then your whole table will be replaced with these new records.

answered Jul 03 '13 at 06:11

Arijit Banerjee

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1
7

1

Not entirely correct. "INSERT INTO will append to the table or partition keeping the existing data in tact. (Note: INSERT INTO syntax is only available starting in version 0.8)" https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/LanguageManual+DML#LanguageManualDML-InsertingdataintoHiveTablesfromqueries – Lukas Vermeer Jul 03 '13 at 08:35

score 2 · Answer 11 · edited Nov 22 '17 at 16:03

2

Enter the following command to insert data into the testlog table with some condition:

INSERT INTO TABLE testlog SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE some condition;

edited Nov 22 '17 at 16:03

Isma

14,604
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answered Nov 22 '17 at 14:29

Don

21
1

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 12:50

I think in such scenarios you should be using HBASE which facilitates such kind of insertion but it does not provide any SQL kind of query language. You need you use Java API of HBASE like the put method to do such kind of insertion. Moreover HBASE is column oriented no-sql database.

score 0 · Answer 13 · edited Oct 18 '21 at 01:44

0

Yes we can use Insert query in Hive.

hive> create table test (id int, name string);

INSERT: INSERT...VALUES is available starting in version 0.14.

hive> insert into table test values (1,'mytest');

This is going to work for insert. We have to use values keyword.

Note: User cannot insert data into a complex datatype column (array, map, struct, union) using the INSERT INTO...VALUES clause.

edited Oct 18 '21 at 01:44

Simeon Leyzerzon

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answered Mar 12 '18 at 07:20

Viraj Wadate

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 27 '19 at 08:15

0

You still can insert into complex type in Hive - it works (id is int, colleagues array)

insert into emp (id,colleagues) select 11, array('Alex','Jian') from (select '1')

answered Jul 27 '19 at 08:15

Hemant

1

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered May 14 '20 at 07:56

you can add values to specific columns as well, just specify the column names in which you like to add corresponding values:

Insert into Table (Col1, Col2, Col4,col5,Col7) Values ('Va11','Va2','Val4','Val5','Val7');

Make sure the columns you skip dont have not null value type.

score 0 · Answer 16 · edited Aug 13 '20 at 23:57

There are few properties to set to make a Hive table support ACID properties and to insert the values into tables as like in SQL .

Conditions to create a ACID table in Hive.

The table should be stored as ORC file. Only ORC format can support ACID prpoperties for now.
The table must be bucketed

Properties to set to create ACID table:

set hive.support.concurrency =true;
set hive.enforce.bucketing =true;
set hive.exec.dynamic.partition.mode =nonstrict
set hive.compactor.initiator.on = true;
set hive.compactor.worker.threads= 1;
set hive.txn.manager = org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.lockmgr.DbTxnManager;

set the property hive.in.test to true in hive.site.xml

After setting all these properties , the table should be created with tblproperty 'transactional' ='true'. The table should be bucketed and saved as orc

CREATE TABLE table_name (col1 int,col2 string, col3 int) CLUSTERED BY col1 INTO 4 

BUCKETS STORED AS orc tblproperties('transactional' ='true');

Now its possible to inserte values into the table like SQL query.

INSERT INTO TABLE table_name VALUES (1,'a',100),(2,'b',200),(3,'c',300);

Hive insert query like SQL

16 Answers16

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