@Test
  public void testEmptyColumnComment() throws SerDeException {
    HBaseSerDe serDe = new HBaseSerDe();
    Properties tbl = createPropertiesForValueStruct();
    tbl.setProperty("columns.comments", "");
    serDe.initialize(new Configuration(), tbl, null);
  }
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