"show table extended like table partition(xxx) " will show the result of the whole table if the partition does not exist

hive> show table extended like member_count;
OK
tableName:member_count
owner:null
location:/user/hive/member_count
inputformat:org.apache.hadoop.mapred.SequenceFileInputFormat
outputformat:org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.HiveSequenceFileOutputFormat
columns:struct columns { string count}
partitioned:true
partitionColumns:struct partition_columns { string ds}
totalNumberFiles:233933
totalFileSize:32802665
maxFileSize:257
minFileSize:140
lastAccessTime:1264017438860
lastUpdateTime:1263949909703

Time taken: 125.104 seconds

hive> show table extended like member_count partition(ds = '2009-10-11');
OK
tableName:member_count
owner:null
location:/user/hive/member_count
inputformat:org.apache.hadoop.mapred.SequenceFileInputFormat
outputformat:org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.HiveSequenceFileOutputFormat
columns:struct columns { string count}
partitioned:true
partitionColumns:struct partition_columns { string ds}
totalNumberFiles:233933
totalFileSize:32802665
maxFileSize:257
minFileSize:140
lastAccessTime:1264017438860
lastUpdateTime:1263949909703

Time taken: 24.618 seconds

hive> show table extended like member_count partition(ds = '2009-12-11');
OK
tableName:member_count
owner:null
location:/user/hive/member_count
inputformat:org.apache.hadoop.mapred.SequenceFileInputFormat
outputformat:org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.HiveSequenceFileOutputFormat
columns:struct columns { string count}
partitioned:true
partitionColumns:struct partition_columns { string ds}
totalNumberFiles:3495
totalFileSize:489417
maxFileSize:257
minFileSize:140
lastAccessTime:1262676533852
lastUpdateTime:1263949909703

Time taken: 0.549 seconds