HBase Table Info Guide: Describe Command

1 year ago
Isabella Edwards
1 minute

To view detailed information about an HBase table, you can use the `describe` command provided by HBase Shell. Follow the steps below:

  1. Using the HBase shell
  2. Explain the ‘table_name’.
  3. name of the table
  4. The HBase Shell will provide detailed information about the table, including its name, column family name, column descriptors, and coprocessors.

“For example:”

hbase(main):001:0> describe 'my_table'
Table my_table is ENABLED
my_table
COLUMN FAMILIES DESCRIPTION
{NAME => 'cf1', DATA_BLOCK_ENCODING => 'NONE', BLOOMFILTER => 'ROW', REPLICATION_SCOPE => '0', VERSIONS => '1', COMPRESSION => 'NONE', MIN_VERSIONS => '0', TTL => 'FOREVER', KEEP_DELETED_CELLS => 'FALSE', BLOCKSIZE => '65536', IN_MEMORY => 'false', BLOCKCACHE => 'true'}
1 row(s) in 0.0410 seconds

In the example above, my_table is the name of the table, cf1 is the column family name, and the column descriptor contains detailed information about the column family, such as data block encoding, Bloom filters, replication scope, versioning, etc.

Please note that you must have read access to the table in order to execute the describe command.

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