[HBASE-484] Store HRegionInfo in META and ROOT as multiple cells instead of a binary field

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Trivial
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Component/s: master, regionserver
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Bryan Duxbury
• Created: 01/Mar/08 22:05
• Updated: 22/Aug/08 21:35
• Resolved: 17/Jul/08 01:09

Description

Right now we keep our HRegionInfos stored as a stream of bytes in a single column in the META and ROOT tables. This is convenient to build and write in code under normal circumstances, and we've made the shell deserialize the binary into human readable data for display purposes.

However, we really don't have much flexibility to edit the info through the shell since it's binary. This means that when we need some latitude to reach in and tweak some stuff because of bugs or just for experimental purposes, we have to go and write custom tools in Java to achieve anything.

One way to mitigate this problem would be to stop storing HRIs as binary data and start putting each field into separate first-class columns in META and ROOT. This would let us do whatever we want in terms of single-row operations in the shell. We wouldn't have to make a special case for reading the data in those circumstances then, either.

Issue Links

• is blocked by: HBASE-451 Remove HTableDescriptor from HRegionInfo