POST_START

Creating, Inspecting, and Managing Schemas in Unity Catalog

I recently needed to set up a new schema in Unity Catalog for a sales team to store their data. I started by creating the schema if it didn’t already exist, using the CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS command.

CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS training.sales;

I saw a representative result like this:

I checked to make sure the schema was created by listing all schemas in the training catalog. I used the SHOW SCHEMAS IN training command to confirm the new schema was present.

SHOW SCHEMAS IN training;

I saw a representative result like this:

databaseName
default
sales
finance

I then wanted to inspect the schema details to verify its properties. I used the DESCRIBE SCHEMA training.sales command to get more information about the schema.

DESCRIBE SCHEMA training.sales;

I saw a representative result like this:

info_name	info_value
Database Name	sales
Catalog Name	production
Owner	data_engineers

I decided to switch to the training catalog to make it easier to work with the schema. I used the USE CATALOG training command to set the current catalog.

USE CATALOG training;

I saw a representative result like this:

Next, I switched to the sales schema within the training catalog using the USE SCHEMA sales command.

USE SCHEMA sales;

I saw a representative result like this:

I wanted to verify the current schema context to ensure I was working in the correct environment. I ran the SELECT current_schema() command to check the current schema.

SELECT current_schema();

I saw a representative result like this:

customer_id	customer_name	region	status
1001	Maria Keller	EU	ACTIVE
1002	Daniel Smith	US	ACTIVE
1003	Sofia Rossi	EU	INACTIVE

Later, I needed to change the owner of the schema. I used the ALTER SCHEMA training.sales SET OWNER TO `data_engineers` command to update the owner.

ALTER SCHEMA training.sales SET OWNER TO `data_engineers`;

I saw a representative result like this:

Finally, I decided to clean up by dropping the schema if it was no longer needed. I used the DROP SCHEMA IF EXISTS training.sales command to remove it.

DROP SCHEMA IF EXISTS training.sales;

I saw a representative result like this: