[CASSANDRA-4918] Remove CQL3 arbitrary select limit

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Normal
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 1.2.0 beta 3
• Severity: Normal
• Assignee: Sylvain Lebresne
• Reporter: Sylvain Lebresne

Authors

Sylvain Lebresne

Reviewers

Jonathan Ellis

• Created: 06/Nov/12 08:39
• Updated: 16/Apr/19 09:32
• Resolved: 19/Nov/12 16:57

Description

Let it be clear however that until CASSANDRA-4415 is resolved, it will put us in a situation where it will be easy to write queries that timeout (and potentially OOM the server). That being said, even with the auto-limit it's not too hard to write queries that timeout if you're not at least a bit careful and so far we've always answer that by saying 'you have to be mindful of how much data your query is asking for'. And while I'm all for adding protection against OOMing the server like suggested by Jonathan on CASSANDRA-4304, I think the arbitrary auto-limit is the worst possible solution to this problem.

Note that until CASSANDRA-4415 is resolved I wouldn't be totally opposed to force people to provide a LIMIT to select queries if we're really thing it will avoids lots of surprise, though tbh I do think it would be enough to just continue to be vocal about the fact that 'you have to be mindful of how much data your query is asking for' and its follow-up 'you should use an explicit LIMIT if in doubt about how much data will be returned'.

But I am strongly opposed in keeping the current arbitrary limit because it makes very little sense imo, and the little sense it makes will completely vanish once CASSANDRA-4415 is here, and I don't want to break the API and do a CQL4 to be able to remove that limit later.