impala/docs/topics/impala_views.xml

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<!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<concept rev="1.1" id="views">

  <title>Overview of Impala Views</title>
  <titlealts audience="PDF"><navtitle>Views</navtitle></titlealts>
  <prolog>
    <metadata>
      <data name="Category" value="Impala"/>
      <data name="Category" value="SQL"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Data Analysts"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Developers"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Querying"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Tables"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Schemas"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Views"/>
    </metadata>
  </prolog>

  <conbody>

    <p>
      Views are lightweight logical constructs that act as aliases for queries. You can specify a view name in a
      query (a <codeph>SELECT</codeph> statement or the <codeph>SELECT</codeph> portion of an
      <codeph>INSERT</codeph> statement) where you would usually specify a table name.
    </p>

    <p>
      A view lets you:
    </p>

    <ul>
      <li>
        Issue complicated queries with compact and simple syntax:
<codeblock>-- Take a complicated reporting query, plug it into a CREATE VIEW statement...
create view v1 as select c1, c2, avg(c3) from t1 group by c3 order by c1 desc limit 10;
-- ... and now you can produce the report with 1 line of code.
select * from v1;</codeblock>
      </li>

      <li>
        Reduce maintenance, by avoiding the duplication of complicated queries across multiple applications in
        multiple languages:
<codeblock>create view v2 as select t1.c1, t1.c2, t2.c3 from t1 join t2 on (t1.id = t2.id);
-- This simple query is safer to embed in reporting applications than the longer query above.
-- The view definition can remain stable even if the structure of the underlying tables changes.
select c1, c2, c3 from v2;</codeblock>
      </li>

      <li>
        Build a new, more refined query on top of the original query by adding new clauses, select-list
        expressions, function calls, and so on:
<codeblock>create view average_price_by_category as select category, avg(price) as avg_price from products group by category;
create view expensive_categories as select category, avg_price from average_price_by_category order by avg_price desc limit 10000;
create view top_10_expensive_categories as select category, avg_price from expensive_categories limit 10;</codeblock>
        This technique lets you build up several more or less granular variations of the same query, and switch
        between them when appropriate.
<!-- My original assumption was confirmed correct by Alex: outer ORDER BY not actually needed.
In this case, we put an <codeph>ORDER BY</codeph> clause on the <q>top 10</q> view, even though there was already an <codeph>ORDER BY</codeph>
on the <q>top 10000</q> view, because when a query is executed in parallel and distributed among multiple nodes, the ordering is only
guaranteed if there is an <codeph>ORDER BY</codeph> clause at the outermost level.
-->
      </li>

      <li>
        Set up aliases with intuitive names for tables, columns, result sets from joins, and so on:
<codeblock>-- The original tables might have cryptic names inherited from a legacy system.
create view action_items as select rrptsk as assignee, treq as due_date, dmisc as notes from vxy_t1_br;
-- You can leave original names for compatibility, build new applications using more intuitive ones.
select assignee, due_date, notes from action_items;</codeblock>
      </li>

      <li>
        Swap tables with others that use different file formats, partitioning schemes, and so on without any
        downtime for data copying or conversion:
<codeblock>create table slow (x int, s string) stored as textfile;
create view report as select s from slow where x between 20 and 30;
-- Query is kind of slow due to inefficient table definition, but it works.
select * from report;

create table fast (s string) partitioned by (x int) stored as parquet;
-- ...Copy data from SLOW to FAST. Queries against REPORT view continue to work...

-- After changing the view definition, queries will be faster due to partitioning,
-- binary format, and compression in the new table.
alter view report as select s from fast where x between 20 and 30;
select * from report;</codeblock>
      </li>

      <li>
        Avoid coding lengthy subqueries and repeating the same subquery text in many other queries.
      </li>

      <li rev="2.3.0 collevelauth">
        Set up fine-grained security where a user can query some columns from a table but not other columns.
        Because <keyword keyref="impala23_full"/> and higher support column-level authorization, this technique is no longer
        required. If you formerly implemented column-level security through views, see
        <xref audience="integrated" href="sg_hive_sql.xml#concept_c2q_4qx_p4/col_level_auth_sentry"/><xref audience="standalone" href="https://www.cloudera.com/documentation/enterprise/latest/topics/sg_hive_sql.html" format="html" scope="external"/>
        for details about the
        column-level authorization feature.
        <!-- See <xref href="impala_authorization.xml#security_examples/sec_ex_views"/> for details. -->
      </li>
    </ul>

    <p>
      The SQL statements that configure views are <xref href="impala_create_view.xml#create_view"/>,
      <xref href="impala_alter_view.xml#alter_view"/>, and <xref href="impala_drop_view.xml#drop_view"/>. You can
      specify view names when querying data (<xref href="impala_select.xml#select"/>) and copying data from one
      table to another (<xref href="impala_insert.xml#insert"/>). The <xref href="impala_with.xml#with">WITH</xref>
      clause creates an inline view, that only exists for the duration of a single query.
    </p>

<codeblock>[localhost:21000] &gt; create view trivial as select * from customer;
[localhost:21000] &gt; create view some_columns as select c_first_name, c_last_name, c_login from customer;
[localhost:21000] &gt; select * from some_columns limit 5;
Query finished, fetching results ...
+--------------+-------------+---------+
| c_first_name | c_last_name | c_login |
+--------------+-------------+---------+
| Javier       | Lewis       |         |
| Amy          | Moses       |         |
| Latisha      | Hamilton    |         |
| Michael      | White       |         |
| Robert       | Moran       |         |
+--------------+-------------+---------+
[localhost:21000] &gt; create view ordered_results as select * from some_columns order by c_last_name desc, c_first_name desc limit 1000;
[localhost:21000] &gt; select * from ordered_results limit 5;
Query: select * from ordered_results limit 5
Query finished, fetching results ...
+--------------+-------------+---------+
| c_first_name | c_last_name | c_login |
+--------------+-------------+---------+
| Thomas       | Zuniga      |         |
| Sarah        | Zuniga      |         |
| Norma        | Zuniga      |         |
| Lloyd        | Zuniga      |         |
| Lisa         | Zuniga      |         |
+--------------+-------------+---------+
Returned 5 row(s) in 0.48s</codeblock>

    <p>
      The previous example uses descending order for <codeph>ORDERED_RESULTS</codeph> because in the sample TPCD-H
      data, there are some rows with empty strings for both <codeph>C_FIRST_NAME</codeph> and
      <codeph>C_LAST_NAME</codeph>, making the lowest-ordered names unuseful in a sample query.
    </p>

<codeblock>create view visitors_by_day as select day, count(distinct visitors) as howmany from web_traffic group by day;
create view top_10_days as select day, howmany from visitors_by_day order by howmany limit 10;
select * from top_10_days;</codeblock>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/usage_notes_blurb"/>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/describe_formatted_view"/>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/create_table_like_view"/>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/complex_types_blurb"/>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/complex_types_views"/>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/restrictions_blurb"/>

    <ul>
      <li>
        <p>
          You cannot insert into an Impala view. (In some database systems, this operation is allowed and inserts
          rows into the base table.) You can use a view name on the right-hand side of an <codeph>INSERT</codeph>
          statement, in the <codeph>SELECT</codeph> part.
        </p>
      </li>

      <li>
<!-- This same text is conref'ed in the #views and the #partition_pruning topics. -->
        <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/partitions_and_views"/>
      </li>

      <li rev="1.4.0">
        <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/order_by_view_restriction"/>
      </li>
    </ul>

    <p>
      <b>Related statements:</b> <xref href="impala_create_view.xml#create_view"/>,
      <xref href="impala_alter_view.xml#alter_view"/>, <xref href="impala_drop_view.xml#drop_view"/>
    </p>
  </conbody>
</concept>