I have created a table in hive, I would like to know which directory my table is created in?

I have created a table in hive, I would like to know which directory my table is created in? I would like to know the path...

DESCRIBE FORMATTED my_table;

or

DESCRIBE FORMATTED 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>;

DESCRIBE FORMATTED <tablename>

or

DESCRIBE EXTENDED <tablename>

I prefer formatted because it is more human readable format

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;

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.

Further to pensz answer you can get more info using:

DESCRIBE EXTENDED my_table;

or

DESCRIBE EXTENDED my_table PARTITION (my_column='my_value');

All HIVE managed tables are stored in the below HDFS location.

hadoop fs -ls /user/hive/warehouse/databasename.db/tablename

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.

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.