I've a very complex table structure in hive, let's say that it's like the following table: create table dirceu ( a struct<b:string,c:string>); Now I do need to add another subcolumn to the a column, and it should have the structure b,c and d, I'm trying to do it with the following alter table: alter table dirceu change column a a struct<b:string,c:string, d:string>; But this throw the following error: Error: Error while processing statement: FAILED: Execution Error, return code 1 from org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.exec.DDLTask. Unable to alter table. The following columns have types incompatible with the existing columns in their respective positions : a (state=08S01,code=1) Is there a way to do this using alter table? I know that I can do it using create table and copy the data, but I would like to know if there is another way to do it. I'm using hive: 2.1.0.2.6.1.0-129 HortonWorks: HDP-2.6.1.0 This question is also in StackOverflow ... View more