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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-7390?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=14080128#comment-14080128
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Lars Francke commented on HIVE-7390:
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You summed it up nicely, thanks.
The original intention of this issue was to make the quote character optional
and configurable so Jim must have had a use-case for that. I can't think of a
good one atm.
I can however think of a good reason for a configurable delimiter. Comma,
semicolon or tab occur relatively frequently in data but some other character
(\001 or "|") might not occur in the data and being able to pick this as the
delimiter allows to make parsing way simpler (just split on delimiter instead
of looking for quoted strings etc.). This is especially interesting when you
then want to mount another table on that data in Hive or post-process in any
other simple way where you don't have access to a full fledged CSV parsing
library.
So: Picking the delimiter is often very helpful in avoiding a whole class of
parsing issues and allows to just split on the delimiter.
I think that we can easily catch most common issues with two changes:
1. Fix current CSV and TSV. As you say: No debate on that
2. Allow delimiter to be specified and keep "normal quoting" mode
That allows everyone who really understands his data to avoid quoting and
everyone else can get properly formatted CSVs for a full CSV parser. In the
same vein I think that {{surroundingSpacesNeedQuotes}} should stay disabled.
But as I said: This is kinda hijacking Jim's original issue...
> Make quote character optional and configurable in BeeLine CSV/TSV output
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: HIVE-7390
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-7390
> Project: Hive
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Components: Clients
> Affects Versions: 0.13.1
> Reporter: Jim Halfpenny
> Assignee: Ferdinand Xu
> Attachments: HIVE-7390.1.patch, HIVE-7390.2.patch, HIVE-7390.3.patch,
> HIVE-7390.4.patch, HIVE-7390.patch
>
>
> Currently when either the CSV or TSV output formats are used in beeline each
> column is wrapped in single quotes. Quote wrapping of columns should be
> optional and the user should be able to choose the character used to wrap the
> columns.
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