Sort behavior in SHOW COLUMNS

Learn about the change in sorting behavior when you run the SHOW COLUMNS statement. The resulting output is not sorted unless explicitly specified.

Before upgrade to CDP 7.1.5

Previously, the default behavior of the SHOW COLUMNS statement displayed the output in a sorted manner.

Example:

CREATE TABLE foo (c INT, a INT, b INT);
SHOW COLUMNS in foo;

Output:
a
b
c

Expected output:
c
a
b

After upgrade to CDP 7.1.5

The default behavior of the SHOW COLUMNS statement was changed to display the columns as is without sorting. If you want the output to be sorted, you must provide the optional keyword 'SORTED'.

Example: For the table created in the above example, here is the modified SHOW COLUMNS behavior:

SHOW COLUMNS in foo;

Output:
c
a
b

SHOW SORTED COLUMNS in foo;

Output:
a
b
c

For more information, see HIVE-24282.