docs/topics/impala_compression_codec.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<concept rev="2.0.0" id="compression_codec">

  <title>COMPRESSION_CODEC Query Option (<keyword keyref="impala20"/> or higher only)</title>
  <titlealts audience="PDF"><navtitle>COMPRESSION_CODEC</navtitle></titlealts>
  <prolog>
    <metadata>
      <data name="Category" value="Impala"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Impala Query Options"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Compression"/>
      <data name="Category" value="File Formats"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Parquet"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Snappy"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Gzip"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Zstd"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Lz4"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Developers"/>
      <data name="Category" value="Data Analysts"/>
    </metadata>
  </prolog>

  <conbody>

<!-- The initial part of this paragraph is copied straight from the #parquet_compression topic. -->

<!-- Could turn into a conref. -->

    <p rev="2.0.0">
      <indexterm audience="hidden">COMPRESSION_CODEC query option</indexterm>
      When Impala writes Parquet data files using the <codeph>INSERT</codeph> statement, the underlying compression
      is controlled by the <codeph>COMPRESSION_CODEC</codeph> query option.
    </p>

    <note>
      Prior to Impala 2.0, this option was named <codeph>PARQUET_COMPRESSION_CODEC</codeph>. In Impala 2.0 and
      later, the <codeph>PARQUET_COMPRESSION_CODEC</codeph> name is not recognized. Use the more general name
      <codeph>COMPRESSION_CODEC</codeph> for new code.
    </note>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/syntax_blurb"/>

<codeblock>SET COMPRESSION_CODEC=<varname>codec_name</varname>; // Supported for all codecs.
SET COMPRESSION_CODEC=<varname>codec_name</varname>:<varname>compression_level</varname>; // Only supported for ZSTD.
</codeblock>

    <p>
      The allowed values for this query option are <codeph>SNAPPY</codeph> (the default), <codeph>GZIP</codeph>,
      <codeph>ZSTD</codeph>, <codeph>LZ4</codeph>, and <codeph>NONE</codeph>.
    </p>

    <p>
      <codeph>ZSTD</codeph> also supports setting a compression level. The lower the level, the faster the speed at
      the cost of compression ratio. Compression levels from 1 up to 22 are supported for <codeph>ZSTD</codeph>.
      The default compression level 3 is used, if one is not passed using the <codeph>compression_codec</codeph>
      query option.
    </p>

    <note>
      A Parquet file created with <codeph>COMPRESSION_CODEC=NONE</codeph> is still typically smaller than the
      original data, due to encoding schemes such as run-length encoding and dictionary encoding that are applied
      separately from compression.
    </note>

    <p></p>

    <p>
      The option value is not case-sensitive.
    </p>

    <p>
      If the option is set to an unrecognized value, all kinds of queries will fail due to the invalid option
      setting, not just queries involving Parquet tables. (The value <codeph>BZIP2</codeph> is also recognized, but
      is not compatible with Parquet tables.)
    </p>

    <p>
      <b>Type:</b> <codeph>STRING</codeph>
    </p>

    <p>
      <b>Default:</b> <codeph>SNAPPY</codeph>
    </p>


    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/example_blurb"/>

<codeblock>
set compression_codec=lz4;
insert into parquet_table_lz4_compressed select * from t1;

set compression_codec=zstd; // Default compression level 3.
insert into parquet_table_zstd_default_compressed select * from t1;

set compression_codec=zstd:12; // Compression level 12.
insert into parquet_table_zstd_highly_compressed select * from t1;

set compression_codec=gzip;
insert into parquet_table_highly_compressed select * from t1;

set compression_codec=snappy;
insert into parquet_table_compression_plus_fast_queries select * from t1;

set compression_codec=none;
insert into parquet_table_no_compression select * from t1;

set compression_codec=foo;
select * from t1 limit 5;
ERROR: Invalid compression codec: foo
</codeblock>

    <p conref="../shared/impala_common.xml#common/related_info"/>

    <p>
      For information about how compressing Parquet data files affects query performance, see
      <xref href="impala_parquet.xml#parquet_compression"/>.
    </p>
  </conbody>
</concept>