ALTER VIEW

Description

The ALTER VIEW statement can alter metadata associated with the view. It can change the definition of the view, change the name of a view to a different name, set and unset the metadata of the view by setting TBLPROPERTIES.

RENAME View

Renames the existing view. If the new view name already exists in the source database, a TableAlreadyExistsException is thrown. This operation does not support moving the views across databases.

If the view is cached, the command clears cached data of the view and all its dependents that refer to it. View’s cache will be lazily filled when the next time the view is accessed. The command leaves view’s dependents as uncached.

Syntax

ALTER VIEW view_identifier RENAME TO view_identifier

Parameters

SET View Properties

Set one or more properties of an existing view. The properties are the key value pairs. If the properties’ keys exist, the values are replaced with the new values. If the properties’ keys do not exist, the key value pairs are added into the properties.

Syntax

ALTER VIEW view_identifier SET TBLPROPERTIES ( property_key = property_val [ , ... ] )

Parameters

UNSET View Properties

Drop one or more properties of an existing view. If the specified keys do not exist, an exception is thrown. Use IF EXISTS to avoid the exception.

Syntax

ALTER VIEW view_identifier UNSET TBLPROPERTIES [ IF EXISTS ]  ( property_key [ , ... ] )

Parameters

ALTER View AS SELECT

ALTER VIEW view_identifier AS SELECT statement changes the definition of a view. The SELECT statement must be valid, and the view_identifier must exist.

Syntax

ALTER VIEW view_identifier AS select_statement

Note that ALTER VIEW statement does not support SET SERDE or SET SERDEPROPERTIES properties.

Parameters

Examples

-- Rename only changes the view name.
-- The source and target databases of the view have to be the same.
-- Use qualified or unqualified name for the source and target view.
ALTER VIEW tempdb1.v1 RENAME TO tempdb1.v2;

-- Verify that the new view is created.
DESCRIBE TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2;
+----------------------------+----------+-------+
|                    col_name|data_type |comment|
+----------------------------+----------+-------+
|                          c1|       int|   null|
|                          c2|    string|   null|
|                            |          |       |
|# Detailed Table Information|          |       |
|                    Database|   tempdb1|       |
|                       Table|        v2|       |
+----------------------------+----------+-------+

-- Before ALTER VIEW SET TBLPROPERTIES
DESC TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2;
+----------------------------+----------+-------+
|                    col_name| data_type|comment|
+----------------------------+----------+-------+
|                          c1|       int|   null|
|                          c2|    string|   null|
|                            |          |       |
|# Detailed Table Information|          |       |
|                    Database|   tempdb1|       |
|                       Table|        v2|       |
|            Table Properties|    [....]|       |
+----------------------------+----------+-------+

-- Set properties in TBLPROPERTIES
ALTER VIEW tempdb1.v2 SET TBLPROPERTIES ('created.by.user' = "John", 'created.date' = '01-01-2001' );

-- Use `DESCRIBE TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2` to verify
DESC TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2;
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+-------+
|                    col_name|                                            data_type|comment|
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+-------+
|                          c1|                                                  int|   null|
|                          c2|                                               string|   null|
|                            |                                                     |       |
|# Detailed Table Information|                                                     |       |
|                    Database|                                              tempdb1|       |
|                       Table|                                                   v2|       |
|            Table Properties|[created.by.user=John, created.date=01-01-2001, ....]|       |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------+-------+

-- Remove the key `created.by.user` and `created.date` from `TBLPROPERTIES`
ALTER VIEW tempdb1.v2 UNSET TBLPROPERTIES ('created.by.user', 'created.date');

--Use `DESC TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2` to verify the changes
DESC TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2;
+----------------------------+----------+-------+
|                    col_name| data_type|comment|
+----------------------------+----------+-------+
|                          c1|       int|   null|
|                          c2|    string|   null|
|                            |          |       |
|# Detailed Table Information|          |       |
|                    Database|   tempdb1|       |
|                       Table|        v2|       |
|            Table Properties|    [....]|       |
+----------------------------+----------+-------+

-- Change the view definition
ALTER VIEW tempdb1.v2 AS SELECT * FROM tempdb1.v1;

-- Use `DESC TABLE EXTENDED` to verify
DESC TABLE EXTENDED tempdb1.v2;
+----------------------------+---------------------------+-------+
|                    col_name|                  data_type|comment|
+----------------------------+---------------------------+-------+
|                          c1|                        int|   null|
|                          c2|                     string|   null|
|                            |                           |       |
|# Detailed Table Information|                           |       |
|                    Database|                    tempdb1|       |
|                       Table|                         v2|       |
|                        Type|                       VIEW|       |
|                   View Text|   select * from tempdb1.v1|       |
|          View Original Text|   select * from tempdb1.v1|       |
+----------------------------+---------------------------+-------+