https://community.cloudera.com/t5/Support-Questions/Sqoop-split-by-on-a-string-varchar-column/m-p/165529#M127891 <P>No, it must be numeric because according to the <A href="https://sqoop.apache.org/docs/1.4.6/SqoopUserGuide.html">specs</A>: "By default sqoop will use query select min(&lt;split-by&gt;), max(&lt;split-by&gt;) from &lt;table name&gt; to find out boundaries for creating splits." The alternative is to use --boundary-query which also requires numeric columns. Otherwise the Sqoop job will fail. If you don't have such a column in your table the only workaround is to use only 1 mapper: "-m 1".</P> Mon, 11 Apr 2016 22:13:17 GMT pminovic 2016-04-11T22:13:17Z