How to undo ALTER TABLE ... ADD PARTITION without deleting data

Question

Let's suppose I have two hive tables, table_1 and table_2. I use:

ALTER TABLE table_2 ADD PARTITION (col=val) LOCATION [table_1_location]

Now, table_2 will have the data in table_1 at the partition where col = val.

What I want to do is reverse this process. I want table_2 not to have the partition at col=val, and I want table_1 to keep its original data.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Make your table EXTERNAL first:

ALTER TABLE table_2 SET TBLPROPERTIES('EXTERNAL'='TRUE');

Then drop partition, the data will remain, only table_2 partition metadata will be deleted:

ALTER TABLE table_2 DROP PARTITION (col=val)

table_1 partition data will remain as is.