Apache Hive : FileFormats

File Formats and Compression

File Formats

Hive supports several file formats:

• Text File
• SequenceFile
• RCFile
• Avro Files
• ORC Files
• Parquet
• Custom INPUTFORMAT and OUTPUTFORMAT

The hive.default.fileformat configuration parameter determines the format to use if it is not specified in a CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement.  Text file is the parameter’s default value.

For more information, see the sections Storage Formats and Row Formats & SerDe on the DDL page.

File Compression

• Compressed Data Storage
• LZO Compression