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Overview

The EXPORT command exports the data of a table or partition, along with the metadata, into a specified output location. This output location can then be moved over to a different Hadoop or Hive instance and imported from there with the IMPORT command.

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The EXPORT and IMPORT commands work independently of the source and target metastore DBMS used; for example, they can be used between Derby and MySQL databases.

IMPORT will create target table/partition if it does not exist.  All the table properties/parameters will be that of table that was used in EXPORT to generate the archive.  If target exists, checks are performed that it has appropriate schema, Input/OutputFormat, etc.  If target table exists and is not partitioned, it must be empty.  If target table exists and is partitioned, partitions being imported must not exist in the table.  

Export Syntax

EXPORT TABLE tablename [PARTITION (part_column="value"[, ...])] 
  TO 'export_target_path' [ FOR replication('eventid') ]

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