Hive error when declaring hivevar

Question

Trying to declare a variable in Hive using Hue online. Using the following code:

SET hivevar:TABLE1=location.tablename;

I am getting the following error message:

Error while compiling statement: FAILED: ParseException line 1:12 missing KW_ROLE at 'hivevar' near 'hivevar' line 1:19 missing EOF at ':' near 'hivevar'.

Can anyone tell me what this error message means or even what the KW_ROLE statement means?

Answer 1

Do you by any chance have a comment above that instruction ? Are you running that line and that line only ?

For example, the following will raise a similar Exception :

--This is a comment
SET hivevar:TABLE1=location.tablename;

But it works fine without the comment.