THIS IS ACTUALLY AN ARTICLE, NOT A QUESTION I want to show you the power of some built-in Hive functions to transform JSON data, which is 'normalized' (optimized for transport) into a denormalized format which is much more suitable for data analysis. This demo has been tested on HDP-3.0.1.0 with, Hive 3.1.0 but should be portable to lower Hive versions. Suppose we have this inbound data, which might represent some inbound experiment test data: { "data" : { "receipt_time" : "2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z", "site" : "Los Angeles", "measures" : [ { "test_id" : "C23_PV", "metrics" : [ { "val1" : [ 0.76, 0.75, 0.71 ], "temp" : [ 0, 2, 5 ], "TS" : [ 1538128801336, 1538128810408, 1538128818420 ] } ] }, { "test_id" : "HBI2_XX", "metrics" : [ { "val1" : [ 0.65, 0.71 ], "temp" : [ 1, -7], "TS" : [ 1538128828433, 1538128834541 ] } ] }] } } There are 3 nested arrays in this 1 JSON record. It is pretty printed above to get a feel for the data structure, but remember we need to feed it to Hive as 1 line per JSON only: {"data":{"receipt_time":"2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z","site":"LosAngeles","measures":[{"test_id":"C23_PV","metrics":[{"val1":[0.76,0.75,0.71],"temp":[0,2,5],"TS":[1538128801336,1538128810408,1538128818420]}]},{"test_id":"HBI2_XX","metrics":[{"val1":[0.65,0.71],"temp":[1,-7],"TS":[1538128828433,1538128834541]}]}]}} The goal of the Hive transformations is to get to the layout as below receipt_time | site | test_id | val1 | temp | TS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | Los Angeles | C23_PV | 0.76 | 0 | 1538128801336 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | Los Angeles | C23_PV | 0.75 | 2 | 1538128810408 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | Los Angeles | C23_PV | 0.71 | 5 | 1538128818420 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | Los Angeles | HBI2_XX | 0.65 | 1 | 1538128828433 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | Los Angeles | HBI2_XX | 0.71 | -7 | 1538128834541 Note that 1 JSON record has been exploded into 5 rows (the sum of sizes of the 'metrics' array in the 'measures' array) and keys of the inner most JSON keys (val1, temp, TS) have been transposed to top level columns. So how do we go about this? First we need a Hive table overlay that understands the JSON structure: CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ds.json_serde( data struct< receipt_time: STRING, site: STRING, measures: ARRAY< struct< test_id: STRING, metrics: ARRAY< struct< val1: array<DOUBLE>, temp: array<SMALLINT>, TS: array<BIGINT> > > > > > ) ROW FORMAT SERDE 'org.apache.hive.hcatalog.data.JsonSerDe' LOCATION '/user/hive/external/json_serde' TBLPROPERTIES ("transactional"="false"); It is a Hive EXTERNAL table since then it is much easier to hand it (insert) some file containing the JSON strings. To do that we create a local file that contains just the JSON one liner (without line endings, copy it from above) Upload that file ('/home/cloudbreak/hive_json/source.json' in my case) to the folder for the external table we just created: hdfs dfs -mkdir -p /user/hive/external/json_serde hdfs dfs -put /home/cloudbreak/hive_json/source.json /user/hive/external/json_serde Test the Hive table; hive> select data.site, data.measures[0].metrics[0].temp from ds.json_serde; It should return: INFO : OK +-------------+----------+ | site | temp | +-------------+----------+ | LosAngeles | [0,2,5] | +-------------+----------+ 1 row selected (0.826 seconds) 0: jdbc:hive2://spark1-e0.zmq0bv3frkfuhfsbkcz> Now we begin transforming the data SELECT b.*, a.data.receipt_time, a.data.site from ds.json_serde a LATERAL VIEW OUTER inline(a.data.measures) b; The inline function will do 2 things here: 1.Explode the json into as many rows as there are array members in a.data.measures, 2 rows in this case 2.Create a new column for each JSON key that exists on the top level of the array members, in this case 'test_id' and 'metrics' of the 'measures' array objects *You can also try to exchange 'inline(a.data.measures)' for 'explode(a.data.measures)' in the statement above to see the difference. The output should look like this: INFO : OK +------------+----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+-------------+ | b.test_id | b.metrics | receipt_time | site | +------------+----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+-------------+ | C23_PV | [{"val1":[0.76,0.75,0.71],"temp":[0,2,5],"ts":[1538128801336,1538128810408,1538128818420]}] | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | | HBI2_XX | [{"val1":[0.65,0.71],"temp":[1,-7],"ts":[1538128828433,1538128834541]}] | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | +------------+----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------+-------------+ 2 rows selected (0.594 seconds) 0: jdbc:hive2://spark1-e0.zmq0bv3frkfuhfsbkcz> Note that the 'receipt_time' and 'site' fields have been propagated (or denormalized) onto every row. That is something we wanted. Because of the nested arrays we need to take this 1 step further: SELECT c.receipt_time, c.site, c.test_id, d.* FROM (SELECT b.*, a.data.receipt_time, a.data.site from ds.json_serde a LATERAL VIEW OUTER inline(a.data.measures) b) c LATERAL VIEW OUTER inline(c.metrics) d This statement might look daunting, but if you look carefully I am just doing the very same thing but on a nested table which is exactly the same as the previous query. *You could also materialize the result of the first LATERAL query in a Hive table with a CTAS statement The result should look like this now: INFO : OK +---------------------------+-------------+------------+-------------------+----------+----------------------------------------------+ | c.receipt_time | c.site | c.test_id | d.val1 | d.temp | d.ts | +---------------------------+-------------+------------+-------------------+----------+----------------------------------------------+ | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | C23_PV | [0.76,0.75,0.71] | [0,2,5] | [1538128801336,1538128810408,1538128818420] | | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | HBI2_XX | [0.65,0.71] | [1,-7] | [1538128828433,1538128834541] | +---------------------------+-------------+------------+-------------------+----------+----------------------------------------------+ 2 rows selected (0.785 seconds) 0: jdbc:hive2://spark1-e0.zmq0bv3frkfuhfsbkcz> It is beginning to look a lot better, but there is 1 last problem to solve; the arrays of 'metrics' are always of equal size but we want the first member of the 'val1' array to be connected/merged with the first member of the 'temp' array etc. There is a creative way to do this: For readability I will now materialize the second query statement into a intermediary table named 'ds.json_serde_II': CREATE TABLE ds.json_serde_II AS SELECT c.receipt_time, c.site, c.test_id, d.* FROM (SELECT b.*, a.data.receipt_time, a.data.site from ds.json_serde a LATERAL VIEW OUTER inline(a.data.measures) b) c LATERAL VIEW OUTER inline(c.metrics) d * Make sure you get the same result by running 'select * from ds.json_serde_II;' From here it takes only 1 step to get to the desired end result: SELECT a.receipt_time, a.site, a.test_id, a.temp[b.pos] as temp, a.TS[b.pos] as TS, b.* from ds.json_serde_II a LATERAL VIEW OUTER posexplode(a.val1) b; It will result in: INFO : OK +---------------------------+-------------+------------+-------+----------------+--------+--------+ | a.receipt_time | a.site | a.test_id | temp | ts | b.pos | b.val | +---------------------------+-------------+------------+-------+----------------+--------+--------+ | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | C23_PV | 0 | 1538128801336 | 0 | 0.76 | | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | C23_PV | 2 | 1538128810408 | 1 | 0.75 | | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | C23_PV | 5 | 1538128818420 | 2 | 0.71 | | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | HBI2_XX | 1 | 1538128828433 | 0 | 0.65 | | 2018-09-28T10:00:00.000Z | LosAngeles | HBI2_XX | -7 | 1538128834541 | 1 | 0.71 | +---------------------------+-------------+------------+-------+----------------+--------+--------+ 5 rows selected (1.716 seconds) 0: jdbc:hive2://spark1-e0.zmq0bv3frkfuhfsbkcz> This needs some explaining: The function posexplode does the same thing as explode (creating as many rows as there are members in the array argument) but it also yields a positional number which is the zero-based index number of the array member. We can use this positional index to link to the corresponding index members of the other arrays 'temp' and 'TS' (all first members together on 1 row, all second members on next row etc. etc.). The clause a.temp[b.pos] is just walking the JSON/Hive path to the corresponding value in the other arrays. The value of b.pos is apparently known and resolved correctly because Hive will first take care of the exploding and then join the results back to the main query where b.pos is needed. Happy data processing! ... View more