private Properties createPropertiesForValueStruct() {
    Properties tbl = new Properties();
    tbl.setProperty("cola.struct.serialization.type", "struct");
    tbl.setProperty("cola.struct.test.value", "test value");
    tbl.setProperty(HBaseSerDe.HBASE_STRUCT_SERIALIZER_CLASS,
        "org.apache.hadoop.hive.hbase.HBaseTestStructSerializer");
    tbl.setProperty(serdeConstants.LIST_COLUMNS, "key,astring");
    tbl.setProperty(serdeConstants.LIST_COLUMN_TYPES,
        "struct<col1:string,col2:string,col3:string>,struct<col1:string,col2:string,col3:string>");
    tbl.setProperty(HBaseSerDe.HBASE_COLUMNS_MAPPING, ":key,cola:struct");
    tbl.setProperty(HBaseSerDe.HBASE_COMPOSITE_KEY_CLASS,
        "org.apache.hadoop.hive.hbase.HBaseTestCompositeKey");
    return tbl;
  }
Since there are assertions in the code, when running this test it throws an assertion error
and not the error in a production setup. The Properties.java object that is passed to the serDe
initializer, is passed with empty value "" for "columns.comments" key for hbase backed tables.
hbase-handler/src/test/org/apache/hadoop/hive/hbase/TestHBaseSerDe.java