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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-23890?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel
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Apache Spark reassigned SPARK-23890:
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    Assignee: Apache Spark

> Hive ALTER TABLE CHANGE COLUMN for struct type no longer works
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: SPARK-23890
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-23890
>             Project: Spark
>          Issue Type: Bug
>          Components: SQL
>    Affects Versions: 2.0.0
>            Reporter: Andrew Otto
>            Assignee: Apache Spark
>            Priority: Major
>
> As part of SPARK-14118, Spark SQL removed support for sending ALTER TABLE 
> CHANGE COLUMN commands to Hive.  This restriction was loosened in 
> [https://github.com/apache/spark/pull/12714] to allow for those commands if 
> they only change the column comment.
> Wikimedia has been evolving Parquet backed Hive tables with data originally 
> from JSON events by adding newly found columns to the Hive table schema, via 
> a Spark job we call 'Refine'.  We do this by recursively merging an input 
> DataFrame schema with a Hive table DataFrame schema, finding new fields, and 
> then issuing an ALTER TABLE statement to add the columns.  However, because 
> we allow for nested data types in the incoming JSON data, we make extensive 
> use of struct type fields.  In order to add newly detected fields in a nested 
> data type, we must alter the struct column and append the nested struct 
> field.  This requires CHANGE COLUMN that alters the column type.  In reality, 
> the 'type' of the column is not changing, it just just a new field being 
> added to the struct, but to SQL, this looks like a type change.
> We were about to upgrade to Spark 2 but this new restriction in SQL DDL that 
> can be sent to Hive will block us.  I believe this is fixable by adding an 
> exception in 
> [command/ddl.scala|https://github.com/apache/spark/blob/v2.3.0/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/execution/command/ddl.scala#L294-L325]
>  to allow ALTER TABLE CHANGE COLUMN with a new type, if the original type and 
> destination type are both struct types, and the destination type only adds 
> new fields.
>  
>  



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