src/docs/user/create-hive-table-purpose.txt

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The +create-hive-table+ tool populates a Hive metastore with a
definition for a table based on a database table previously imported
to HDFS, or one planned to be imported. This effectively performs the
"+\--hive-import+" step of +sqoop-import+ without running the
preceeding import.

If data was already loaded to HDFS, you can use this tool to finish
the pipeline of importing the data to Hive. You can also create Hive tables
with this tool; data then can be imported and populated into
the target after a preprocessing step run by the user.