
 
To delete a table or change its settings, you need to first disable the table using the disable command. You can re-enable it using the enable command.
Given below is the syntax to disable a table:
disable ‘emp’
Given below is an example that shows how to disable a table.
hbase(main):025:0> disable 'emp' 0 row(s) in 1.2760 seconds
After disabling the table, you can still sense its existence through list and exists commands. You cannot scan it. It will give you the following error.
hbase(main):028:0> scan 'emp' ROW COLUMN + CELL ERROR: emp is disabled.
This command is used to find whether a table is disabled. Its syntax is as follows.
hbase> is_disabled 'table name'
The following example verifies whether the table named emp is disabled. If it is disabled, it will return true and if not, it will return false.
hbase(main):031:0> is_disabled 'emp' true 0 row(s) in 0.0440 seconds
This command is used to disable all the tables matching the given regex. The syntax for disable_all command is given below.
hbase> disable_all 'r.*'
Suppose there are 5 tables in HBase, namely raja, rajani, rajendra, rajesh, and raju. The following code will disable all the tables starting with raj.
hbase(main):002:07> disable_all 'raj.*' raja rajani rajendra rajesh raju Disable the above 5 tables (y/n)? y 5 tables successfully disabled
To verify whether a table is disabled, isTableDisabled() method is used and to disable a table, disableTable() method is used. These methods belong to the HBaseAdmin class. Follow the steps given below to disable a table.
Instantiate HBaseAdmin class as shown below.
// Creating configuration object Configuration conf = HBaseConfiguration.create(); // Creating HBaseAdmin object HBaseAdmin admin = new HBaseAdmin(conf);
Verify whether the table is disabled using isTableDisabled() method as shown below.
Boolean b = admin.isTableDisabled("emp");
If the table is not disabled, disable it as shown below.
if(!b){
   admin.disableTable("emp");
   System.out.println("Table disabled");
}
Given below is the complete program to verify whether the table is disabled; if not, how to disable it.
import java.io.IOException;
import org.apache.hadoop.conf.Configuration;
import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HBaseConfiguration;
import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.MasterNotRunningException;
import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.HBaseAdmin;
public class DisableTable{
   public static void main(String args[]) throws MasterNotRunningException, IOException{
      // Instantiating configuration class
      Configuration conf = HBaseConfiguration.create();
 
      // Instantiating HBaseAdmin class
      HBaseAdmin admin = new HBaseAdmin(conf);
      // Verifying weather the table is disabled
      Boolean bool = admin.isTableDisabled("emp");
      System.out.println(bool);
      // Disabling the table using HBaseAdmin object
      if(!bool){
         admin.disableTable("emp");
         System.out.println("Table disabled");
      }
   }
}
Compile and execute the above program as shown below.
$javac DisableTable.java $java DsiableTable
The following should be the output:
false Table disabled