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  • Version · 6.0
  • Change Automation Reference

cloneTable

Last updated: August 12, 2026

cloneTable is a Change Type in the Liquibase Secure Databricks extension that clones a table. It is available in the Liquibase Secure Databricks extension 1.0.0 and later.

Uses

You can use this change to create a clone of an existing Databricks table without affecting the original. There are two types of clones:

  • Shallow clones: copies only the source table's metadata to the target table. Shallow clones display the data of the source table. This is useful if you want to create a quick copy of a table without duplicating any data. However, it creates a dependency between the source and target tables.

  • Deep clones: copies both the source table's metadata and row contents to the target table. This is useful if you want to create a fully independent copy of a table without any dependencies. However, it is an expensive operation.

For more information, see Databricks: Clone a table on Databricks and Databricks SQL Reference: CREATE TABLE CLONE.

Also, you can optionally clone a specific instance of the table using either its Databricks commit version or associated timestamp. For more information, see Work with Delta Lake table history.

Run cloneTable

To run this Change Type, follow these steps:

  1. Add the Change Type to your changeset, as shown in the examples on this page.

  2. Specify any required attributes. Use the table on this page to see which ones your database requires.

  3. Deploy your changeset by running the update command:liquibase update

Available attributes

You must specify all top-level attributes marked as required. If you specify an optional attribute, you must also specify any nested attributes that it requires.

Name

Type

Description

Requirement

sourceTableName

String

Name of the table to clone (existing table name)

Required

targetTableName

String

Name of the table to create (new table name)

Required

asOfDate

String

Whenever you modify your table, Databricks captures different states of the table in a "commit," which includes a timestamp. You can use this attribute to specify the timestamp representing the state of your table. For example, you can specify 2025-01-01 or 2022-08-02 00:00:00. For more information, see Work with Delta Lake table history.

Optional

asOfVersion

Integer

Whenever you modify your table, Databricks captures different states of the table in a "commit," which includes a version number. You can use this attribute to specify the version of your table. For example, you can specify 1 or 15. For more information, see Work with Delta Lake table history.

Optional

cloneMode

String

The type of clone to make. Valid values are: SHALLOW, DEEP. If you specify SHALLOW, Databricks copies the source table's definition, but references the source table's files. If you specify DEEP, Databricks makes a complete, independent copy of the source table. Default: DEEP.

Optional

ifNotExists

Boolean

If true, creates the object only if it does not already exist. Appends IF NOT EXISTS syntax to SQL query.

Optional

replaceIfExists

Boolean

If true, Liquibase uses CREATE OR REPLACE syntax when creating the new table. Default: false.

Optional

sourceCatalogName

String

Name of the catalog containing the table to clone

Optional

sourceSchemaName

String

Name of the schema containing the table to clone

Optional

tableLocation

String

File path to the external directory to create the table in, such as an AWS S3 resource location.

Optional

targetCatalogName

String

Name of the catalog containing the table to create

Optional

targetSchemaName

String

Name of the schema containing the table to create

Optional

tblProperties

String

The table properties you want to specify. Specify properties using the format 'key'='value'. Separate multiple properties using commas.

Optional

cloneTable examples

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