Issue with Liquid Clustering on Partitioned Table in Databricks

Akshay_Petkar — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 10:26:44 GMT

I recently tried applying Liquid Clustering to a partitioned table in Databricks and encountered the following

error: [DELTA_ALTER_TABLE_CLUSTER_BY_ON_PARTITIONED_TABLE_NOT_ALLOWED] ALTER TABLE CLUSTER BY cannot be applied to a partitioned table.

I understand that Z-Ordering works fine on non-partitioned columns, and I have successfully used.

However, I specifically want to use Liquid Clustering instead of Z-Ordering. Since ALTER TABLE <TABLE NAME> CLUSTER BY (COLUMNS) is not supported on partitioned tables, has anyone found a workaround or an alternative approach to achieve similar clustering benefits?

Re: Issue with Liquid Clustering on Partitioned Table in Databricks

koji_kawamura — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 02:18:58 GMT

Hi @Akshay_Petkar

Since we cannot use Liquid Clustering with a partitioned table, the only way I can think of is migrating from partitioning to Liquid Clustering. The same partitioning key columns and the additional columns you wanted to add can be the clustering keys up to four keys.

topic Re: Issue with Liquid Clustering on Partitioned Table in Databricks in Data Engineering

Issue with Liquid Clustering on Partitioned Table in Databricks

Re: Issue with Liquid Clustering on Partitioned Table in Databricks