Describe table metadata feature

You can use certain Hive and Impala show and describe commands to get information about table metadata. You can also query metadata tables.

The following table lists SHOW and DESCRIBE commands supported by Hive and Impala.


Command Syntax	Description	SQL Engine Support
`SHOW CREATE TABLE table_name`	Reveals the schema that created the table.	Hive and Impala
`SHOW FILES IN table_name`	Lists the files related to the table.	Impala
`SHOW PARTITIONS table_name`	Returns the Iceberg partition spec, just the column information, not actual partitions or files.	Impala
`DESCRIBE [EXTENDED] table_name`	The optional EXTENDED shows all the metadata for the table in Thrift serialized form, which is useful for debugging.	Hive and Impala
`DESCRIBE [FORMATTED] table_name`	The optional FORMATTED shows the metadata in tabular format.	Hive
`DESCRIBE HISTORY table_name [BETWEEN timestamp1 AND timestamp2]`	Optionally limits the output history to a period of time.	Impala

Hive example

DESCRIBE t;

Hive output includes the following information:


col_name	data_type	comment
x	int
y	int
	NULL	NULL
# Partition Transform Information	NULL	NULL
# col_name	transform_type	NULL
y	IDENTITY	NULL