1. A computer implemented method for query-level access by a database engine to an external distributed file system, the method comprising: identifying a query against external data, the external data being queried as a table; identifying one or more external locations for the external data, wherein the one or more external locations are on the external distributed file system; identifying metadata that specifies code to execute operational directives to operate against the external data in the external distributed file system; operating against the external data in external files that are in the external distributed file system, wherein one or more results files are generated from operating against the external data; and retrieving data from the one or more results files from the external distributed file system without copying the data from the one or more results files to one or more table files on the database engine by: streaming the data to one or more parallel query engines, wherein the one or more parallel query engines process the data, and outputting the data from the one or more parallel query engines to a user application.