Hi Iceberg Dev, Iceberg tables with hive catalog are created under hive.metastore.warehouse.dir/<db> by default. Different table locations <https://iceberg.apache.org/javadoc/0.11.1/org/apache/iceberg/BaseMetastoreCatalog.html#createTable-org.apache.iceberg.catalog.TableIdentifier-org.apache.iceberg.Schema-org.apache.iceberg.PartitionSpec-java.lang.String-java.util.Map-> are picked than the default hive.metastore.warehouse.dir for various reasons (e.g. ownership separation and improved performance). The catalog namespace <https://iceberg.apache.org/javadoc/0.11.1/org/apache/iceberg/hive/HiveCatalog.html#createNamespace-org.apache.iceberg.catalog.Namespace-java.util.Map-> has to be created under hive.metastore.warehouse.dir though. It's effectively an empty directory if tables are created in other locations.
Is there any concern on creating tables outside hive.metastore.warehouse.dir? -- Huadong
