viewing managed delta table files

smpa01 — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 18:46:20 GMT

I am getting an error when I am trying to view the underlying files of the managed delta table in unity catalog

such as

from pyspark.sql.functions import * table_directory = "workspace.db_bronze.test_01" data = [{"x": 1, "y": 2}] df = spark.createDataFrame(data) ( df.write.format('delta') .mode("overwrite") .saveAsTable(table_directory) ) details = spark.sql(f"""DESCRIBE DETAIL workspace.db_bronze.test_01""") display(details) # showing some columns below; location is blank

format	id	name	description	location
delta	some_value	workspace.db_bronze.test_01	null

Also, the following generates an error

df = spark.table("workspace.db_bronze.test_01") input_files = df.inputFiles() # print("Table files:") for file_path in input_files: print(f" {file_path}") # Extract if input_files: import os table_directory = os.path.dirname(input_files[0]) # Simple directory listing - no recursion files = dbutils.fs.ls(table_directory) print(files) # Error - Input path url 's3://url' overlaps with managed storage within 'ListFiles' call. .

Do I understand that, paths for managed tables (Unity Catalog creates a new directory in the Unity Catalog-configured storage location associated with the containing schema) are not accessible? Databricks Manged Paths

Re: viewing managed delta table files

mnorland — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:19:23 GMT

That is correct. Users cannot directly see the content in the managed paths for the underlying data files of a managed table in Unity Catalog. (_unitystorage subdirectory and below)

topic Re: viewing managed delta table files in Data Engineering

viewing managed delta table files

Re: viewing managed delta table files