# ORC Input

The ORC Input step reads field data from an [Apache ORC](https://orc.apache.org/) (Optimized Row Columnar) file into the PDI data stream.

### Before you begin

Before using the ORC Input step, you must configure a named connection for your distribution, even if you set your **Location** to `Local`. For more information, see [Connecting to a Hadoop cluster with the PDI client](/pdia-data-integration/extracting-data-into-pdi/connecting-to-a-hadoop-cluster-with-the-pdi-client-article.md).

### General tab

Enter the following information in the ORC Input step fields:

| Field                | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Step name**        | Specify the unique name of the ORC Input step on the canvas. You can customize the name or leave it as the default.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| **Folder/File name** | Specify the fully qualified URL of the source file or folder name for the input fields. Click **Browse** to display the **Open File** window and navigate to the file or folder. For the supported file system types, see [Connecting to Virtual File Systems](/pdia-data-integration/extracting-data-into-pdi/virtual-file-system-browser.md). The Pentaho engine reads a single ORC file as input. |

### Fields tab

The **Fields** section contains the following items:

* **Pass through fields from the previous step**, which lets you read the fields from the input file without redefining any fields.
* A table defining data about the columns to read from the ORC file.

![ORC Input step](/spaces/YwnJ6Fexn4LZwKRHghPK/files/QBwyTXHiJJiOpbS7ZVYD)

The table in the **Fields** section defines the fields to read as input from the ORC file, the associated PDI field name, and the data type.

| Field                   | Description                                                                                                                                |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **ORC path (ORC type)** | Specify the name of the field as it appears in the ORC data file and the ORC data type.                                                    |
| **Name**                | Specify the name of the input field.                                                                                                       |
| **Type**                | Specify the data type of the input field.                                                                                                  |
| **Format**              | Specify the [date format](/pdia-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview/common-formats.md) when **Type** is **Date**. |

You can define the fields manually, or you can provide a path to an ORC data file and click **Get Fields** to populate the fields. When the fields are retrieved, the ORC type is converted to a PDI type.

You can preview the data in the ORC file by clicking **Preview**. You can change the PDI type by using the **Type** drop-down list or by entering the type manually.

#### ORC to PDI type mapping

The ORC to PDI data type mappings are shown in the following table:

| ORC type  | PDI type  |
| --------- | --------- |
| String    | String    |
| TimeStamp | TimeStamp |
| Binary    | Binary    |
| Decimal   | BigNumber |
| Boolean   | Boolean   |
| Date      | Date      |
| Integer   | Integer   |
| Double    | Number    |

### Metadata injection support

All fields of this step support metadata injection. You can use this step with [ETL metadata injection](/pdia-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview/etl-metadata-injection.md) to pass metadata to your transformation at runtime.


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