I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY command

saicharandeepb — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 11:09:32 GMT

I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY command on a Delta table in Databricks.

Re: I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY comm

Yogesh_Verma_ — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 17:08:30 GMT

`DESCRIBE HISTORY` on a Delta table in Databricks does **not support predicate pushdown** in the same way as regular SQL queries on data tables.

This is because `DESCRIBE HISTORY` is a **metadata operation** that reads the Delta log files to return table version history. While you can apply filters like:

```sql
SELECT * FROM (DESCRIBE HISTORY delta.`/path/to/table`) WHERE userName = 'xyz'
```

the filter is applied **after** the metadata is retrieved — not during the log scanning. So there’s **no performance gain** from the filter in terms of pushdown.

If you're dealing with a large number of table versions, it's better to use:

```sql
DESCRIBE HISTORY delta.`/path/to/table` LIMIT 10;
```

to limit how much history is read.

topic I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY command in Data Engineering

I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY command

Re: I'm trying to understand if predicate pushdown is supported when using the DESCRIBE HISTORY comm