public static boolean getHiveDefaultNullsLast(Map<String, String> hiveConfs) {
    if (hiveConfs == null ||
        hiveConfs.get(JdbcConnectionParams.HIVE_DEFAULT_NULLS_LAST_KEY) == null) {
      try {
        return Boolean.parseBoolean(ConfVars.HIVE_DEFAULT_NULLS_LAST.getDefaultValue());
      } catch(java.lang.NoSuchFieldError e) {
        return true;
      }
    }
    return Boolean.parseBoolean(hiveConfs.get(JdbcConnectionParams.HIVE_DEFAULT_NULLS_LAST_KEY));
  }
This returns Hive configuration for HIVE_DEFAULT_NULLS_LAST.

@param hiveConfs
@return
jdbc/src/java/org/apache/hive/jdbc/HiveDatabaseMetaData.java