CREATE TABLE SHALLOW CLONE is not supported in Unity Catalog

[mohamad_atieh]

Hi,

I would like to clone the structure (schema only) of delta table without the content using SHALLOW CLONE command, as recommended in databricks documentation, but it doesn't work. I get an error message that this command is not supported in Unity Catalog. However, DEEP CLONE does work well.

Please find below my code and he error message:

CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE facility_silver SHALLOW CLONE facility_bronze;
 
 
Error in SQL statement: AnalysisException: [UC_COMMAND_NOT_SUPPORTED] CREATE TABLE SHALLOW CLONE is not supported in Unity Catalog.;

Anything wrong with my code?

How to clone delta table schema without its content?

Thanks,

[Ajay-Pandey]

Hi @Mohamad Atieh​ I think UC doesn't not support SHALLOW CLONE yet.

[mohamad_atieh]

Thank you for sharing your thinking. I'm for an explanation. Why it's not supported while Deep clone is supported?

[Jfoxyyc]

I agree. I'd love to know why/when we can get shallow clone back. I WAS running a dbt slim ci setup where on pull request we'd shallow clone the schema and run state:modified+ against the clone, reporting back success/fail to the PR. Can't really do this with UC.​

[RicaWage_64393]

I'm having the same. We use shallow clones in our development cycle, but with UC that's not possible which is a blocker

[33799]

Can you please let us know if SHALLOW CLONE is on the roadmap for UC?

We use shallow clones to update tables and not affect running workflows...

[WAHID]

You can shallow clone the table to an external location after sync the result of the shallow clone to unity catalog.

Here is an example https://medium.com/@wahidatoui/sync-delta-tables-stored-in-dbfs-managed-or-external-to-unity-catalog...