topic Change default catalog in Get Started Discussions

Change default catalog

gilo12 — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 14:45:52 GMT

It seems that when I am connecting to Databricks Warehouse, it is using the default catalog which is hive_metastore. Is there a way to define unity catalog to be the default?

I know I can run the query

USE CATALOG MAIN

And then the current session will use unity-catalog. But I am looking for a way that it will always be the default. So, if the first query after login we will be

CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS MY_SCHEMA

The schema will be created inside the main catalog.

Re: Change default catalog

Brian2 — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 15:38:18 GMT

You can set this per notebook or workspace or even at the compute level.

spark.databricks.sql.initial.catalog.name mycatalog

If you add this to your cluster's spark config, all tools that run using that cluster will default to that catalog.

Re: Change default catalog

Jon-ton — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 15:58:06 GMT

Thanks Brian2. Is there an equivalent config parameter for a SQL Warehouse?