public static List<String> getPartitionColumnNames(Configuration conf) {
    String colNames = conf.get(serdeConstants.LIST_PARTITION_COLUMNS);
    if (colNames != null) {
      return splitColNames(new ArrayList<>(), colNames);
    } else {
      return Collections.emptyList();
    }
  }
Returns a list with partition column names present in the configuration,
or empty if there is no such information available.
ql/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hive/ql/exec/Utilities.java