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• Inserts can be done to a table or a partition. If the table is partitioned, then one must specify a specific partition of the table by specifying values for all of the partitioning columns. If hive.typecheck.on.insert is set to true, these values are validated, converted and normalized to conform to their column types.
• Multiple insert clauses (also known as Multi Table Insert) can be specified in the same query.
• The output of each of the select statements is written to the chosen table (or partition). Currently the OVERWRITE keyword is mandatory and implies that the contents of the chosen table or partition are replaced with the output of corresponding select statement.
• The output format and serialization class is determined by the table's metadata (as specified via DDL commands on the table).
• As of Hive 0.14, if a table has an OutputFormat that implements AcidOutputFormat and the system is configured to use a transaction manager that implements ACID, then INSERT OVERWRITE will be disabled for that table.  This is to avoid users unintentionally overwriting transaction history.  The same functionality can be achieved by using TRUNCATE TABLE (for non-partitioned tables) or DROP PARTITION followed by INSERT INTO.

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