public boolean isNeedSkipHeaderFooters() {
    boolean rtn = false;
    if (tableMetadata != null && tableMetadata.getTTable() != null
        && TextInputFormat.class
        .isAssignableFrom(tableMetadata.getInputFormatClass())) {
      Map<String, String> params = tableMetadata.getTTable().getParameters();
      if (params != null) {
        String skipHVal = params.get(serdeConstants.HEADER_COUNT);
        int hcount = skipHVal == null? 0 : Integer.parseInt(skipHVal);
        String skipFVal = params.get(serdeConstants.FOOTER_COUNT);
        int fcount = skipFVal == null? 0 : Integer.parseInt(skipFVal);
        rtn = (hcount != 0 || fcount !=0 );
      }
    }
    return rtn;
  }
A boolean variable set to true by the semantic analyzer only in case of the analyze command.
ql/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hive/ql/plan/TableScanDesc.java