What does "WITH SERDEPROPERTIES ( 'paths' = 'key1, key2, key3') " really do in Hive DDL json serde?

Question

Much appreciated if anyone can provide a reference to this clause. I have been searching online with little luck.

Answer 1

It does nothing. There is nothing in the code of the serde that reads the path property – and as far as I can tell there has never been. This is probably documentation that has been handed down generation by generation from the earliest Hive examples.

Answer 2

I contacted Amazon with this:

There is some documentation that says: with serdeproperties ( 'paths'='requestBeginTime, adId, impressionId, referrer, userAgent, userCookie, ip' ) This stackoverflow: What does "WITH SERDEPROPERTIES ( 'paths' = 'key1, key2, key3') " really do in Hive DDL json serde? Seems to say that is not needed. Can you remove it or explain it?

and they replied:

Thanks for your feedback. I confirmed that the WITH SERDEPROPERTIES line is not required for the example documented. We’ll get the line removed. Thanks once again for your help in improving the Athena documentation.