Hi Huadong, If the table location is not provided then the table will automatically be placed under the database (namespace) location, but if the location is provided then it could point to anywhere and the table should work. The default directory structure could help with organizing you data, but at the end is up to the user to decide.
All that said, I do not know extensive tests around this so if you encounter issues, feel free to open a ticket. Thanks, Peter > On Apr 28, 2021, at 02:52, Huadong Liu <huadong...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 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
