CREATE TABLE [USING]

Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime

Defines a managed or external table, optionally using a data source.

Syntax

{ { [CREATE OR] REPLACE TABLE | CREATE [EXTERNAL] TABLE [ IF NOT EXISTS ] }
  table_name
  [ table_specification ]
  [ USING data_source ]
  [ table_clauses ]
  [ AS query ] }

table_specification
  ( { column_identifier column_type [ column_properties ] } [, ...]
    [ , table_constraint ] [...] )

column_properties
  { NOT NULL |
    COLLATE collation_name |
    GENERATED ALWAYS AS ( expr ) |
    GENERATED { ALWAYS | BY DEFAULT } AS IDENTITY [ ( [ START WITH start | INCREMENT BY step ] [ ...] ) ] |
    DEFAULT default_expression |
    COMMENT column_comment |
    column_constraint |
    MASK clause } [ ... ]

table_clauses
  { OPTIONS clause |
    PARTITIONED BY clause |
    CLUSTER BY clause |
    clustered_by_clause |
    LOCATION path [ WITH ( CREDENTIAL credential_name ) ] |
    COMMENT table_comment |
    TBLPROPERTIES clause |
    DEFAULT COLLATION default_collation_name |
    WITH { ROW FILTER clause } } [...]

clustered_by_clause
  { CLUSTERED BY ( cluster_column [, ...] )
    [ SORTED BY ( { sort_column [ ASC | DESC ] } [, ...] ) ]
    INTO num_buckets BUCKETS }

Prior to Databricks Runtime 16.1 START WITH must precede INCREMENT BY.

Parameters

• REPLACE

  If specified, replaces the table and its content if it already exists. This clause is only supported for Delta and Apache Iceberg tables.

  REPLACE preserves the table history and granted privileges, row filters, and column masks.

  nota

  Databricks strongly recommends using REPLACE instead of dropping and re-creating tables.

• EXTERNAL

  If specified, creates an external table. When creating an external table you must also provide a LOCATION clause. When an external table is dropped the files at the LOCATION will not be dropped.

• IF NOT EXISTS

  If specified and a table with the same name already exists, the statement is ignored.

  IF NOT EXISTS cannot coexist with REPLACE, which means CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS is not allowed.

• table_name

  The name of the table to be created. The name must not include a temporal specification or options specification. If the name is not qualified the table is created in the current schema.

  Tables created in hive_metastore can only contain alphanumeric ASCII characters and underscores (INVALID_SCHEMA_OR_RELATION_NAME).

  Iceberg tables must be created in Unity Catalog. Creating Iceberg tables in the hive_metastore isn't supported.

• table_specification

  This optional clause defines the list of columns, their types, properties, descriptions, and column constraints.

  If you do not define columns the table schema you must specify either AS query or LOCATION.

  • column_identifier

    A unique name for the column.

    Column identifiers of Delta tables without column mapping property ('delta.columnMapping.mode' = 'name') must not contain spaces or the following characters: , ; { } ( ) \n \t = .

    Column identifiers of AVRO tables must start with an underscore (_) or a Unicode letter (including non-ASCII letters) and be followed by a combination of Unicode letters, digits, and underscores.

    Column identifiers of ICEBERG tables must be unique, case-insensitive, and follow standard SQL identifier rules. Avoid using spaces or special characters, as they might not be supported by all query engines.

  • column_type

    Specifies the data type of the column. Not all data types supported by Databricks are supported by all data sources.

  • NOT NULL

    If specified, the column doesn't accept NULL values. This clause is supported only for Delta and Iceberg tables.

  • COLLATE collation_name

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 16.1 and above

    For STRING column_type optionally names the collation to apply for comparison and sort operations on this column. The default collation is the table default_collation_name.

  • GENERATED ALWAYS AS ( expr )

    When you specify this clause the value of this column is determined by the specified expr.

    The DEFAULT COLLATION of the table must be UTF8_BINARY.

    expr may be composed of literals, column identifiers within the table, and deterministic, built-in SQL functions or operators except:

    • Aggregate functions
    • Analytic window functions
    • Ranking window functions
    • Table valued generator functions
    • Columns with a collation other than UTF8_BINARY

    Also expr must not contain any subquery.

  • GENERATED { ALWAYS | BY DEFAULT } AS IDENTITY [ ( [ START WITH start ] [ INCREMENT BY step ] ) ]

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 10.4 LTS and above

    Defines an identity column. When you write to the table, and do not provide values for the identity column, it will be automatically assigned a unique and statistically increasing (or decreasing if step is negative) value. This clause is only supported for Delta tables. This clause can only be used for columns with BIGINT data type.

    The automatically assigned values start with start and increment by step. Assigned values are unique but are not guaranteed to be contiguous. Both parameters are optional, and the default value is 1. step cannot be 0.

    If the automatically assigned values are beyond the range of the identity column type, the query will fail.

    When ALWAYS is used, you cannot provide your own values for the identity column.

    The following operations are not supported:

    • PARTITIONED BY an identity column
    • UPDATE an identity column
    nota

    Declaring an identity column on a table disables concurrent transactions. Only use identity columns in use cases where concurrent writes to the target table are not required.

  • DEFAULT default_expression

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 11.3 LTS and above

    Defines a DEFAULT value for the column which is used on INSERT, UPDATE, and MERGE ... INSERT when the column is not specified.

    If no default is specified DEFAULT NULL is applied for nullable columns.

    default_expression may be composed of literals, and built-in SQL functions or operators except:

    • Aggregate functions
    • Analytic window functions
    • Ranking window functions
    • Table valued generator functions

    Also default_expression must not contain any subquery.

    DEFAULT is supported for CSV, JSON, PARQUET, and ORC sources.

  • COMMENT column_comment

    A string literal to describe the column.

  • column_constraint

    Adds a primary key or foreign key constraint to the column in a table.

    Constraints are not supported for tables in the hive_metastore catalog.

    To add a check constraint to a table use ALTER TABLE.

  • MASK clause

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 12.2 LTS and above Unity Catalog only

    Adds a column mask function to anonymize sensitive data. All subsequent queries from that column receive the result of evaluating that function over the column in place of the column's original value. This can be useful for fine-grained access control purposes where the function can inspect the identity or group memberships of the invoking user to decide whether to redact the value.

    If you are replacing a table and the new table includes the same column names as the original, any existing column masks are retained, even if they’re not explicitly redefined. This prevents accidental loss of data access policies.

  • table_constraint

    Adds an informational primary key or informational foreign key constraints to the table.

    Key constraints are not supported for tables in the hive_metastore catalog.

    To add a check constraint to a table use ALTER TABLE.

• USING data_source

  data_source can be either a file-format or a federated JDBC data source.

  The file-format must be one of the following:

  • AVRO
  • BINARYFILE
  • CSV
  • DELTA
  • ICEBERG
  • JSON
  • ORC
  • PARQUET
  • TEXT

  For any file-format other than DELTA or ICEBERG, you must also specify a LOCATION, unless the table catalog is hive_metastore.

  The following federated JDBC sources are supported:

  • POSTGRESQL
  • SQLSERVER
  • MYSQL
  • BIGQUERY
  • NETSUITE
  • ORACLE
  • REDSHIFT
  • SNOWFLAKE
  • SQLDW
  • SYNAPSE
  • SALESFORCE
  • SALESFORCE_DATA_CLOUD
  • TERADATA
  • WORKDAY_RAAS
  • MONGODB

  When specifying a federated JDBC source, you must also specify the OPTIONS clause with the necessary connection information. See Query databases using JDBC for more information on querying federated data sources.

  The following additional file formats to use for the table are supported in Databricks Runtime:

  • JDBC
  • LIBSVM
  • a fully-qualified class name of a custom implementation of org.apache.spark.sql.sources.DataSourceRegister.

  If USING is omitted, the default is DELTA.

  The following applies to: Databricks Runtime

  HIVE is supported to create a Hive SerDe table in Databricks Runtime. You can specify the Hive-specific file_format and row_format using the OPTIONS clause, which is a case-insensitive string map. The option_keys are:

  • FILEFORMAT
  • INPUTFORMAT
  • OUTPUTFORMAT
  • SERDE
  • FIELDDELIM
  • ESCAPEDELIM
  • MAPKEYDELIM
  • LINEDELIM

• table_clauses

  Optionally specify location, partitioning, clustering, options, comments, and user defined properties for the new table. Each sub clause may only be specified once.

  • PARTITIONED BY

    An optional clause to partition the table by a subset of columns.

    nota

    For managed Iceberg tables, Databricks doesn't support PARTITIONED BY. Use liquid clustering (CLUSTER BY) to optimize data layout instead. For Delta tables, if you omit the table definition, Databricks places partitioning columns at the end of the table, even if you list them earlier in the column specification.

  • CLUSTER BY

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 13.3 and above

    An optional clause to cluster a Delta or Iceberg table by a subset of columns. See Use liquid clustering for tables. To cluster other tables, use clustered_by_clause.

    For Iceberg tables, you must explicitly disable deletion vectors and row IDs when you use CLUSTER BY.

    Use automatic liquid clustering with CLUSTER BY AUTO, and Databricks intelligently chooses clustering keys to optimize query performance.

    You can't combine liquid clustering with PARTITIONED BY.

  • clustered_by_clause

    Optionally cluster the table or each partition into a fixed number of hash buckets using a subset of the columns.

    This clause isn't supported for Delta or Iceberg tables. Use CLUSTER BY instead.

    • CLUSTERED BY

      Specifies the set of columns by which to cluster each partition, or the table if no partitioning is specified.

      • cluster_column

        An identifier referencing a column_identifier in the table. If you specify more than one column there must be no duplicates. Since a clustering operates on the partition level you must not name a partition column also as a cluster column.

    • SORTED BY

      Optionally maintains a sort order for rows in a bucket.

      • sort_column

        A column to sort the bucket by. The column must not be partition column. Sort columns must be unique.

      • ASC or DESC

        Optionally specifies whether sort_column is sorted in ascending (ASC) or descending (DESC) order. The default values is ASC.

    • INTO num_buckets BUCKETS

      An INTEGER literal specifying the number of buckets into which each partition (or the table if no partitioning is specified) is divided.

  • LOCATION path [ WITH ( CREDENTIAL credential_name ) ]

    An optional path to the directory where table data is stored, which could be a path on distributed storage. path must be a STRING literal. If you specify no location the table is considered a managed table and Databricks creates a default table location.

    Specifying a location makes the table an external table.

    For tables that do not reside in the hive_metastore catalog, the table path must be protected by an external location unless a valid storage credential is specified.

    You cannot create external tables in locations that overlap with the location of managed tables.

    For Delta tables, the table inherits its configuration from the LOCATION if data already exists at that path. As a result, any specified TBLPROPERTIES, table_specification, or PARTITIONED BY clauses must exactly match the existing data at the Delta location.

    For Iceberg tables, the LOCATION clause is not supported. Foreign Iceberg tables are registered automatically when you create a foreign catalog, and you must create managed Iceberg tables without specifying a location.

  • OPTIONS

    Sets or resets one or more user defined table options.

  • COMMENT table_comment

    A string literal to describe the table.

  • TBLPROPERTIES

    Optionally sets one or more user defined properties.

  • DEFAULT COLLATION default_collation_name

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 16.3 and above

    Defines the default collation to use for:

    • STRING columns and fields of the table
    • DEFAULT expression
    • The body of CREATE TABLE AS query

    CHECK constraints and generated column expressions require a default collation of UTF8_BINARY.

    If not specified, the default collation is derived from the schema in which the table is created.

  • WITH ROW FILTER clause

    Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 12.2 LTS and above Unity Catalog only

    Adds a row filter function to the table. All subsequent queries from that table will receive a subset of the rows where the function evaluates to boolean TRUE. This can be useful for fine-grained access control purposes where the function can inspect the identity or group memberships of the invoking user to decide whether to filter certain rows.

    If you are replacing a table, any existing row filters are retained, even if they’re not explicitly redefined. This prevents accidental loss of data access policies.

• AS query

  This optional clause populates the table using the data from query. When you specify a query you must not also specify a table_specification. The table schema is derived from the query.

  Note that Databricks overwrites the underlying data source with the data of the input query, to make sure the table gets created contains exactly the same data as the input query.

Examples

SQL

-- Creates a Delta table
> CREATE TABLE student (id INT, name STRING, age INT);

-- Creates a managed Iceberg table
> CREATE TABLE edu.enrollment.student (id INT, name STRING, age INT) USING ICEBERG;

-- Use data from another table
> CREATE TABLE student_copy AS SELECT * FROM student;

-- Creates a CSV table from an external directory
> CREATE TABLE student USING CSV LOCATION '/path/to/csv_files';

-- Specify table comment and properties
> CREATE TABLE student (id INT, name STRING, age INT)
    COMMENT 'this is a comment'
    TBLPROPERTIES ('foo'='bar');

-- Specify table comment and properties with different clauses order
> CREATE TABLE student (id INT, name STRING, age INT)
    TBLPROPERTIES ('foo'='bar')
    COMMENT 'this is a comment';

-- Create partitioned table
> CREATE TABLE student (id INT, name STRING, age INT)
    PARTITIONED BY (age);

-- Create a table with a generated column
> CREATE TABLE rectangles(a INT, b INT,
                          area INT GENERATED ALWAYS AS (a * b));

-- Create a table with a string column with a case-insensitive collation.
> CREATE TABLE names(name STRING COLLATE UNICODE_CI);

-- Create a table with a default collation and override for a specific column.
> CREATE TABLE names(name STRING, first_name STRING, id STRING COLLATE UTF8_BINARY) DEFAULT COLLATION UNICODE_CI;

-- Create an external table connected to Oracle
> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS ora_tab
  USING ORACLE
  OPTIONS (
    url '<jdbc-url>',
    dbtable '<table-name>',
    user '<username>',
    password '<password>'
);

> SELECT * FROM ora_tab;

Related articles

• ALTER TABLE
• CONSTRAINT
• CLUSTER BY
• CREATE TABLE LIKE
• CREATE TABLE CLONE
• DROP TABLE
• PARTITIONED BY
• Table properties and table options