title: Drop Hive external table WITHOUT removing data
body: <p>The goal is to destroy a Hive schema but keep the data underneath.</p>
  
  <p>Given a Hive external table, created for example with script 1, it can be dropped with script 2. This deletes the data (removes the folder <code>/user/me/data/</code>). This folder has to remain for use in other projects.</p>
  
  <p>A long search does not yield anything so far...</p>
  
  <p><strong>Script 1: Create an external table</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE external_hive_table(
      column1 STRING
  )
  ROW FORMAT DELIMITED
  FIELDS TERMINATED BY
      '\t'
  STORED AS TEXTFILE
  LOCATION
     '/user/me/data/'
  TBLPROPERTIES (
      "skip.header.line.count"="1");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Script 2: Drop external table (drop data)</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>ALTER TABLE
      external_hive_table
  SET TBLPROPERTIES (
      'EXTERNAL'='FALSE');
  
  DROP TABLE external_hive_table;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Edit: Script 3: Drop external table (keep data)</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code> DROP TABLE external_hive_table;
  </code></pre>