Reserved & Non-Reserved Keywords

Below is a list of reserved and non-reserved keywords in Hive. By listing these keywords. This list of keywords provides a comprehensive overview of the terms essential for effective query execution and optimization in Hive.

For more information, check the Hive Documentation.

Non-reserved Keywords

	Non-reserved Keywords
A	ABORT, ADD, ADMIN, AFTER, ANALYZE, ARCHIVE, ASC, AUTOCOMMIT
B	BEFORE, BUCKET, BUCKETS
C	CASCADE, CHANGE, CLUSTER, CLUSTERED, CLUSTERSTATUS, COLLECTION, COLUMNS, COMMENT, COMPACT, COMPACTIONS, COMPUTE, CONCATENATE, CONTINUE
D	DATA, DATABASES, DATETIME, DAY, DAYS, DBPROPERTIES, DEFERRED, DEFINED, DELIMITED, DEPENDENCY, DESC, DETAIL, DIRECTORIES, DIRECTORY, DISABLE, DISTRIBUTE, DOW
E	ELEM_TYPE, ENABLE, ESCAPED, EXCLUSIVE, EXPLAIN, EXPORT, EXPRESSION
F	FIELDS, FILE, FILEFORMAT, FIRST, FORMAT, FORMATTED, FUNCTIONS
H	HOLD_DDLTIME, HOUR, HOURS
I	IDXPROPERTIES, IGNORE, INDEX, INDEXES, INPATH, INPUTDRIVER, INPUTFORMAT, ISOLATION, ITEMS
J	JAR
K	KEY, KEYS, KEY_TYPE
L	LAST, LEVEL, LIMIT, LINES, LOAD, LOCATION, LOCK, LOCKS, LOGICAL, LONG
M	MAPJOIN, MATERIALIZED, METADATA, MINUS, MINUTE, MINUTES, MONTH, MONTHS, MSCK
N	NORELY, NOSCAN, NOVALIDATE, NO_DROP, NULLS
O	OFFLINE, OFFSET, OPERATOR, OPTION, OUTPUTDRIVER, OUTPUTFORMAT, OVERWRITE, OWNER
P	PARTITIONED, PARTITIONS, PLUS, PRETTY, PRINCIPALS, PROTECTION, PURGE
Q	QUARTER
R	READ, READONLY, REBUILD, RECORDREADER, RECORDWRITER, RELOAD, RELY, RENAME, REPAIR, REPLACE, REPLICATION, RESTRICT, REWRITE, ROLE, ROLES
S	SCHEMA, SCHEMAS, SECOND, SECONDS, SEMI, SERDE, SERDEPROPERTIES, SERVER, SETS, SHARED, SHOW, SHOW_DATABASE, SKEWED, SNAPSHOT, SORT, SORTED, SSL, STATISTICS, STORED, STREAMTABLE, STRING, STRUCT, SUMMARY
T	TABLES, TBLPROPERTIES, TEMPORARY, TERMINATED, TIMESTAMPTZ, TINYINT, TOUCH, TRANSACTION, TRANSACTIONS
U	UNARCHIVE, UNDO, UNIONTYPE, UNLOCK, UNSET, UNSIGNED, URI, USE, UTC, UTCTIMESTAMP
V	VALIDATE, VALUE_TYPE, VECTORIZATION, VIEW
W	WEEK, WEEKS, WHILE, WORK, WRITE
Y	YEAR, YEARS
Z	ZONE

Reserved Keywords

	Reserved Keywords
A	ALL, ALTER, AND, ARRAY, AS, AUTHORIZATION
B	BETWEEN, BIGINT, BINARY, BOOLEAN, BOTH, BY
C	CACHE, CASE, CAST, CHAR, COLUMN, COMMIT, CONF, CONSTRAINT, CREATE, CROSS, CUBE, CURRENT, CURRENT_DATE, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, CURSOR
D	DATABASE, DATE, DAYOFWEEK, DECIMAL, DELETE, DESCRIBE, DISTINCT, DOUBLE, DROP
E	ELSE, END, EXCHANGE, EXISTS, EXTENDED, EXTERNAL, EXTRACT
F	FALSE, FETCH, FLOAT, FLOOR, FOLLOWING, FOR, FOREIGN, FROM, FULL, FUNCTION
G	GRANT, GROUP, GROUPING
H	HAVING
I	IF, IMPORT, IN, INNER, INSERT, INT, INTEGER, INTERSECT, INTERVAL, INTO, IS
J	JOIN
L	LATERAL, LEFT, LESS, LIKE, LOCAL
M	MACRO, MAP, MORE
N	NONE, NOT, NULL, NUMERIC
O	OF, ON, ONLY, OR, ORDER, OUT, OUTER, OVER
P	PARTIALSCAN, PARTITION, PERCENT, PRECEDING, PRESERVE, PRECISION, PRIMARY, PROCEDURE
R	RANGE, READS, REDUCE, REFERENCES, REGEXP, RLIKE, ROLLBACK
S	STARTREVOKE, RIGHT, ROLLUP, ROW, ROWS, SELECT, SET, SMALLINT, SYNC
T	TABLE, TABLESAMPLE, THEN, TIME, TIMESTAMP, TO, TRANSFORM, TRIGGER, TRUE, TRUNCATE
U	UNBOUNDED, UNION, UNIQUEJOIN, UPDATE, USER, USING, UTC_TMESTAMP
V	VALUES, VARCHAR, VIEWS
W	WHEN, WHERE, WINDOW, WITH

Known Issues

1. Supporting Quoted Identifiers

Reserved keywords can be used as identifiers if they are appropriately quoted or enclosed. The next code is valid in Hive:

SELECT `select` FROM your_table;

2. Disable reserved keywords

The Hive configuration setting hive.support.sql11.reserved.keywords controls the handling of SQL-2011 reserved keywords within Hive queries. When set to false, as in the case of set hive.support.sql11.reserved.keywords=false;, it signifies that Hive will not treat SQL-2011 reserved keywords strictly. In practical terms, this means that these reserved keywords can be used as identifiers without the need for explicit quoting.