Showing partitions

In this recipe, you will learn how to list all the partitions in Hive.

Getting ready

This command lists all the partitions for a table. The general syntax for showing partitions is as follows:

SHOW PARTITIONS [db_name.]table_name [PARTITION(partition_spec)];

Where:

• [db_name.]: Is an optional clause. This is used to list partitions of the table from a given database.

• [PARTITION(partition_spec)]: Is an optional clause. This is used to list a specific partition of a table.

How to do it…

Use the following commands to show partitions in Hive:

• The following command will list all the partitions present in the Sales table:

  Show partitions Sales;
  

• The following command will list a specific partition of the Sales table:

  Show partitions Sales partition(dop='2015-01-01');
  

• The following command will list a specific partition of the Sales table from the Hive_learning database:

  Show partitions Hive_learning. Sales partition(dop='2015-01-01');