APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) — Question 341

A data engineer is attempting to drop a Spark SQL table my_table and runs the following command:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS my_table;

After running this command, the engineer notices that the data files and metadata files have been deleted from the file system.

Which of the following describes why all of these files were deleted?

Answer options

• A. The table was managed
• B. The table's data was smaller than 10 GB
• C. The table's data was larger than 10 GB
• D. The table was external
• E. The table did not have a location

Correct answer: A

Explanation

The correct answer is A because managed tables in Spark SQL have their data and metadata managed by Spark, meaning that when the table is dropped, both the data and metadata files are deleted. Options B, C, D, and E are incorrect as they do not pertain to the management type of the table and its impact upon deletion.