Choosing few columns in external table

Question

I have a scenario wherein, I have a file(resides in ADLS) which contains 30 columns , but when i am creating external table.. i wanted to pick only 5 columns.

My question is : is it possible to selectively choose the columns while creating external table.

Right now creating external table works.. but when i do select query on top of that ext table.. it throws an exception

HadoopExecutionException: Too many columns in the line

Thanks in advance.

Create a view over your external table with just the columns you want. — wBob, Dec 20 '18 at 10:10

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 19 '18 at 07:13

Unfortunately, according to CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE (Transact-SQL), column selection when creating external tables is not supported:

The column definitions, including the data types and number of columns, must match the data in the external files. If there is a mismatch, the file rows will be rejected when querying the actual data.

Hope it helps!

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 23 '21 at 14:16

1

Create a view that contains 5 columns instead of 30. This view can be used as a source for external tables.

answered Nov 23 '21 at 14:16

lukaszFD

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Choosing few columns in external table

2 Answers2