question Problems moving data between csv and avro tables in Archives of Support Questions (Read Only)

Problems moving data between csv and avro tables

dnewberger — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 13:55:47 GMT

Hello All,

I've just recently started working with Impala and I'm running into an issue. If I run the following code in either the impala-shell or hue:

INSERT INTO orderdataagg_dav SELECT * FROM orderdataagg_dav_csv2;

I get this error:

Writing to table format AVRO is not supported. Use query option ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_FORMATS to override.

What I'm trying to accomplish is moving data from a table that's Stored as Textfile to a different table that's Stored As Avro. From the Googleing I've done it looks like this is do able. So I'm wondering what I'm missing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Problems moving data between csv and avro tables

alex.behm — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 05:50:52 GMT

I'm afraid that Impala currently does not support writing Avro data. Even though you can enable experimental support, we strongly advise against that, and instead recomment using another tool such as Hive or Kite to do the conversion. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Re: Problems moving data between csv and avro tables

dnewberger — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 10:58:55 GMT

That's what I was suspecting would be the answer after talking with a coworker, re-reading a Cloudera blog post, and experimentation Hive. I'll have to check into kite.