Split function does not work in Cloudera Impala

Question

I keep getting an AnalysisException that says "split unknown" when I try to use the split function in Cloudera Impala. This seems to be a valid function, listed on the built-in functions page. For reference, I use Hue to interact with Impala. Does anyone know the cause of this problem?

Answer 1

I asked the same question in the Google group and I was able to get an official answer. In principle, this is a typo in the documents. split () is not supported because it returns an array, and complex types are not yet supported by Impala.

Answer 2

The following works in Impala:

split_part(string source, string delimiter, bigint n) 

The documentation is here: https://www.cloudera.com/documentation/enterprise/5-9-x/topics/impala_string_functions.html

Answer 3

Support for split and complex types has just appeared with cdh 5.5 for impala.