MaxCompute Studio is a big data integrated development environment (IDE) tool that is provided by Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute. It is a development plug-in based on the widely adopted integrated development environment IntelliJ IDEA. You can install this plug-in on the clients of developers to facilitate data development. This topic describes the functional interfaces and common application scenarios of MaxCompute Studio.

Basic user interface

MaxCompute Studio is a plug-in on the IntelliJ IDEA platform. It shares basic development interfaces with IntelliJ IDEA. For more information, see Guided Tour around the User Interface.

MaxCompute Studio provides the following features based on IntelliJ IDEA:
  • SQL Editor: provides features such as SQL syntax highlighting, code completion, real-time error prompts, local compilation, and job submission.

    Compiler View displays the prompts and error messages of statements that are locally compiled, and locates the code in the editor.

  • Project Explorer: connects to a MaxCompute project and allows you to browse table schemas, user defined functions (UDFs), and resource files in the project. For more information, see Manage project connections.

    Table Details View displays the details and sample data of tables, views, and other resources.

  • Job Explorer: allows you to browse and search the MaxCompute job history.
    • Job Details View: displays the running details about a job, including the execution plan and details about each execution task. You can view all information about a job in Logview.
    • Job Output View: displays output information for jobs that are running.
    • Job Result View: displays output results for SELECT jobs.
  • MaxCompute Console: integrated with the MaxCompute client. You can enter and run MaxCompute client commands in the MaxCompute console.

Connect to a MaxCompute project

Before you use the features of MaxCompute Studio, you must create a project connection. For more information, see Manage project connections. After you create a project connection, you can view related data structure and resource information in Project Explorer. MaxCompute Studio creates a local metadata backup task for each project. This increases the access frequency to MaxCompute metadata and reduces latency.

You must specify a MaxCompute project connection so that you can use MaxCompute Studio to modify SQL scripts, submit jobs, view job information, open the MaxCompute console, and implement other features. For more information about MaxCompute projects, see Project. For more information about how to manage projects in MaxCompute Studio, see Manage project connections.

Manage data

You can use Project Explorer in MaxCompute Studio to browse table schemas, UDFs, and resource files in projects. You can use the tree view hierarchy to list data tables, columns, partition key columns, virtual views, UDFs, function signatures, resource files, and types of resource files for all project connections. You can also use the tree view hierarchy to locate an object.

You can double-click a data table to open Table Details View to view the metadata, data schema, and sample data of the data table. If you do not have the permissions on the connected project, MaxCompute Studio displays an error message.

MaxCompute Studio is integrated with MaxCompute Tunnel to allow you to upload and download local data. For more information, see Import and export data.

Write SQL scripts

You can write MaxCompute SQL scripts in MaxCompute Studio.

  1. Open MaxCompute Studio and choose File > New > Project or File > New > Module….
  2. Create a MaxCompute Studio project or a MaxCompute Studio module.
  3. Choose File > New > MaxCompute Script or right-click the menu and choose New > MaxCompute Script to create a MaxCompute SQL script file.
    Note When you create a MaxCompute SQL script, MaxCompute Studio prompts you to select a MaxCompute project to associate with. You can also use the Project Selector on the right of the toolbar of the SQL Editor to modify the associated project. The SQL Editor checks the metadata such as table schemas based on the project that is associated with the SQL script and reports errors in the script. When an SQL statement is submitted, the SQL Editor also sends the SQL statement to the associated project to execute. For more information, see Write SQL.

Intelligent error prompts in SQL code

The SQL Editor of MaxCompute Studio intelligently checks the code that you enter. It can display prompts for syntax errors, type matching errors, or warnings of SQL statements and mark code errors in real time.
MaxCompute Studio provides the code completion feature. It can display the project name, table, column, function, type, and code keywords based on context, and complement code based on your selections.

Compile and submit a job

  • Compile a job
    Click the icon on the toolbar of the SQL Editor to locally compile an SQL script. If a syntax or semantic error occurs, the SQL Editor reports it.
  • Submit a job

    Click the icon on the toolbar of the SQL Editor to submit a compiled SQL script to the queue of the project that is specified by MaxCompute.

View job history

Open Job Explorer to view jobs that have been recently run in a specified project.

Note This list only displays jobs that are submitted by the user ID of the current connection.
Double-click a job to view the job details.

If you have the Logview URL of a job, choose MaxCompute > Open Logview from the menu to go to the details page of the job.

Develop MapReduce and UDF programs

MaxCompute Studio allows you to develop MapReduce and Java UDF programs. For more information, see Develop MapReduce and Develop UDFs.

Connect to the MaxCompute client

MaxCompute Studio is integrated with the latest version of the MaxCompute client. You can also specify the path of a locally installed MaxCompute client on the configuration option page of MaxCompute Studio. For more information, see Configure MaxCompute Studio.

On the Project Explorer tool window, right-click a project and select Open in Console. The MaxCompute Console window appears.

What to do next

After you are familiar with the functional interfaces and common application scenarios of MaxCompute Studio, you can proceed to learn how to install MaxCompute Studio. For more information, see Tools Installation and version history.