Difference Between Hive CLI and Beeline Client – Hive vs Beeline

  • Post author:
  • Post last modified:February 28, 2018
  • Post category:BigData
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Beeline is developed to interact with new server. Hive CLI is an Apache Thrift based client, whereas Beeline is JDBC client, based on SQLLine CLI. In this article, we will check difference between Hive CLI and Beeline client – Hive vs Beeline.

Difference Between Hive CLI and Beeline Client – Hive vs Beeline

Difference Between Hive CLI and Beeline Client – Hive vs Beeline

Below are the some of the difference between Hive CLI and Beeline client. These some of differences will help you in case if you are migrating from old Hive CLI to new Beeline client.

Server Connection

Hive CLI

Hive CLI uses HiveServer1. Hive CLI connects to a remote HiveServer1 instance using the Thrift protocol. To connect to a server, you must specify the host name. The port number is optional.

$hive -h <host_name> -p <port>

Beeline

Beeline connects to a remote HiveServer2 instance using JDBC. The connection parameter includes JDBC URL.

$ beeline -u <url> -n <username> -p <password>

For more information on connection parameters and URL read:

Interactive Mode

Hive CLI

In Hive CLI interactive mode, you can execute any HiveQL query:

hive> show databases;
OK
Default
test_db

You can also execute shell commands from Hive CLI:

hive> !more myfile.txt;
This is a test file.hive>

Beeline

You can execute HiveQL same as Hive CLI:

https://gist.github.com/cb05183a779487cc2a92c7bee02078ec

You can use “!” to execute Beeline commands instead of shell commands.

For examples, !connect is used to connect to database:

https://gist.github.com/913d57c9949d9eedb2680b70866f401d

And !quit is another command that can be used to exit Beeline client.

0: jdbc:hive2://> !q
Closing: 0: jdbc:hive2://
$

Embedded Mode

Embedded mode is one of the convenient and best way to test your code. Both Hive CLI and Beeline support embedded mode.

Hive CLI

To start Hive CLI in embedded mode, you just should type start Hive client without any parameters:

$ hive

Beeline

To start Beeline in embedded mode, a connection URL of jdbc:hive2:// needs to be specified:

$ beeline -u jdbc:hive2://

HiveQL Query Execution

Query execution in both Hive CLI and Beeline is same.

Hive CLI

$ hive -e <query in quotes>$ hive -f <query file name>

Beeline

$ beeline -e <query in quotes>$ beeline -f <query file name>

In both cases, if you miss to provide -e and -f options, client will enter interactive mode.

Variable Substitution

Both Hive CLI and Beeline support variable substitution.

Hive CLI

You can use set command to set variables and pass that as parameter to script:

$ hive --hiveconf var=value -e 'set var; set hiveconf:var; select * from table where col = ${hiveconf:var}'

For more information read:

Beeline

You can use –hivevar variable to pass value to script file:

$ beeline -u jdbc:hive2://hive_server:10000/test_db -n username -p password --hivevar var1=value -f file.sql

For more information read:

Tags: ,