[HBASE-1837] Fix results contract (If row has no results, return null, if Result has no results return null or empty Sets and Arrays?)

• Type: Task
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Incomplete
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Michael Stack
• Created: 14/Sep/09 17:53
• Updated: 11/Jun/22 21:02
• Resolved: 11/Apr/15 00:37

Description

Make sure we are consistent regards results contract. As jgray says:

17:47 < jgray> decisions are things like, if the result is empty do we return nulls or do we return empty 
               lists/0-length arrays
17:47 < jgray> if result is empty, do we return null for row?
17:47 < jgray> and if row is the null row, we then return zero-length byte[0]
17:48 < St^Ack_> So, if row is empty, we return null (I believe)
17:48 < jgray> yes
17:49 < St^Ack_> If you have a result, up to this, if empty, it would not return null stuff.
17:49 < jgray> no it did return null stuff
17:49 < jgray> at least many of them did
17:49 < St^Ack_> oh.. ok.
17:49 < jgray> but then my result delayed deserialization broke that on one case
17:49 < St^Ack_> I thought I'd added it w/ 1836?
17:49 < jgray> yeah u fixed what i broke, i think
17:50 < jgray> but we should nail down the contract, specify what it is in javadoc, and add unit tests to verify such
...

Issue Links

• relates to: HBASE-176 [hbase] getRow returns empty Map if no-such row.. should return null
• relates to: HBASE-1028 If key does not exist, return null in getRow rather than an empty RowResult
• relates to: HBASE-1301 HTable.getRow() returns null if the row does no exist