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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-226?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel
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Carl Steinbach reopened HIVE-226:
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> SerDe should support "null" column values
> -----------------------------------------
>
> Key: HIVE-226
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-226
> Project: Hive
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Components: Serializers/Deserializers
> Reporter: Josh Ferguson
>
> Currently if you attempt to load data that has null values it will work but
> selecting data back out of the table will fail due to a null pointer
> exception during deserialization.
> Suppose we have a generic users table with ^A separated fields.
> CREATE TABLE users
> (id STRING, properties MAP<STRING, STRING>)
> ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
> COLLECTION ITEMS TERMINATED BY '44'
> MAP KEYS TERMINATED BY '58'
> STORED AS TEXTFILE;
> we might insert this data (where spaces are ^A characters)
> 1 key:value
> 2
> 3 key:value
> Then the following queries will fail
> SELECT id FROM users;
> SELECT id, properties FROM users;
> SELECT properties FROM users;
> But they should not fail.
> Anytime the field delimiter is encountered twice in a row or the field
> delimiter is encountered followed immediately by the line delimiter a
> non-existent value should be assumed for the appropriate column.
> To circumvent this in my application I have been substituting my own
> "reserved" world NULL and the key/value pair NULL:NULL to indicate to my
> application that particular fields currently have no value.
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