New Partition Availability

Question

Let's say that I am executing an INSERT INTO statement in Athena that is writing new partitions.  When are those new partitions available to be queried in a SELECT query?  Is it possible to run a SELECT statement while that INSERT INTO is running on the same Glue Catalog table and get partial data from the new partition - or will that partition become available only after it is fully written?

Answer

new partitions will be visible for SELECTS after the metadata about them is available which will happen either after

```
MSCK REPAIR TABLE
```
or (more lightweight and therefore preferred)

```
ALTER TABLE ... ADD PARTITION
```

You can however add those partitions "in advance" even before any data is added for those, and in this case the data will be available to SELECT queries as soon as some of the files are added to those partitions by INSERT INTO SELECT

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/athena/latest/ug/msck-repair-table.html

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/athena/latest/ug/alter-table-add-partition.html

New Partition Availability

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