set hive.support.quoted.identifiers=column; set hive.mapred.supports.subdirectories=true; set hive.optimize.skewjoin.compiletime = true; CREATE TABLE T1(`!@#$%^&*()_q` string, `y&y` string) SKEWED BY (`!@#$%^&*()_q`) ON ((2)) STORED AS TEXTFILE ; LOAD DATA LOCAL INPATH '../../data/files/T1.txt' INTO TABLE T1; CREATE TABLE T2(`!@#$%^&*()_q` string, `y&y` string) SKEWED BY (`!@#$%^&*()_q`) ON ((2)) STORED AS TEXTFILE ; LOAD DATA LOCAL INPATH '../../data/files/T1.txt' INTO TABLE T2; -- a simple join query with skew on both the tables on the join key -- adding a order by at the end to make the results deterministic EXPLAIN SELECT a.*, b.* FROM T1 a JOIN T2 b ON a. `!@#$%^&*()_q` = b. `!@#$%^&*()_q` ;