[CASSANDRA-767] Row keys should be byte[]s, not Strings

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Urgent
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 0.7 beta 1
• Labels: abstract_types binary keys partitioners
• Assignee: Stu Hood
• Reporter: Stu Hood

Authors

Stu Hood

• Created: 05/Feb/10 07:50
• Updated: 16/Apr/19 09:33
• Resolved: 14/Apr/10 20:03

Description

This issue has come up numerous times, and we've dealt with a lot of pain because of it: let's get it knocked out.

Keys being Java Strings can make it painful to use Cassandra from other languages, encoding binary data like integers as Strings is very inefficient, and there is a disconnect between our column data types and the plain String treatment we give row keys.

The key design decision that needs discussion is: Should we apply the column AbstractTypes to row keys? If so, how do Partitioners change?

Issue Links

• depends upon: CASSANDRA-389 SSTable Versioning
• is blocked by: CASSANDRA-1235 BytesType and batch mutate causes encoded bytes of non-printable characters to be dropped

Sub-Tasks

• Expose byte[] row keys in client APIs: Resolved
• Expose byte[] keys to Avro API: Resolved