How to Access Hive via Python

Question

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/HiveClient#HiveClient-Python appears to be outdated.

When I add this to /etc/profile:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/lib/hive/lib/py

I can then do the imports as listed in the link, with the exception of from hive import ThriftHivewhich actually need to be:

from hive_service import ThriftHive

Next the port in the example was 10000, which when I tried caused the program to hang. The default Hive Thrift port is 9083, which stopped the hanging.

So I set it up like so:

from thrift import Thrift
from thrift.transport import TSocket
from thrift.transport import TTransport
from thrift.protocol import TBinaryProtocol
try:
    transport = TSocket.TSocket('<node-with-metastore>', 9083)
    transport = TTransport.TBufferedTransport(transport)
    protocol = TBinaryProtocol.TBinaryProtocol(transport)
    client = ThriftHive.Client(protocol)
    transport.open()
    client.execute("CREATE TABLE test(c1 int)")

    transport.close()
except Thrift.TException, tx:
    print '%s' % (tx.message)

I received the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/usr/lib/hive/lib/py/hive_service/ThriftHive.py", line 68, in execute
self.recv_execute()
File "/usr/lib/hive/lib/py/hive_service/ThriftHive.py", line 84, in recv_execute
raise x
thrift.Thrift.TApplicationException: Invalid method name: 'execute'

But inspecting the ThriftHive.py file reveals the method execute within the Client class.

How may I use Python to access Hive?

Answer 1

The easiest way is to use PyHive.

To install you'll need these libraries:

pip install sasl
pip install thrift
pip install thrift-sasl
pip install PyHive

After installation, you can connect to Hive like this:

from pyhive import hive
conn = hive.Connection(host="YOUR_HIVE_HOST", port=PORT, username="YOU")

Now that you have the hive connection, you have options how to use it. You can just straight-up query:

cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT cool_stuff FROM hive_table")
for result in cursor.fetchall():
  use_result(result)

...or to use the connection to make a Pandas dataframe:

import pandas as pd
df = pd.read_sql("SELECT cool_stuff FROM hive_table", conn)

Hope this is helpful!

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Thanks!

Comments

I followed the steps mentioned by OmKar, yet I am getting
"Could not start SASL, ERROR in SASL_CLIENT_START"

I am using this code on windows. Kindly help.

---

You need to set this property in your hive-site.xml file.

<property>
   <name>hive.server2.authentication</name>
   <value>NOSASL</value>
</property>