In commit727f68e0f5we added the ability to SELECT: * Individual elements of a map: `SELECT map_col[key]`. * Individual elements of a set: `SELECT set_col[key]` returns key if the key exists in the set, or null if it doesn't, allowing to check if the element exists in the set. * Individual pieces of a UDT: `SELECT udt_col.field`. But at the time, we didn't provide any way to retrieve the **meta-data** for this value, namely its timestamp and TTL. We did not support `SELECT TIMESTAMP(collection[key])`, or `SELECT TIMESTAMP(udt.field)`. Users requested to support such SELECTs in the past (see issue #15427), and Cassandra 5.0 added support for this feature - for both maps and sets and udts - so we also need this feature for compatibility. This feature was also requested recently by vector-search developers, who wanted to read Alternator columns - stored as map elements, not individual columns - with their WRITETIME information. The first four patches in this series adds the feature (in four smaller patches instead one big one), the fifth and sixth patches add tests (cqlpy and boost tests, respectively). The seventh patch adds documentation. All the new tests pass on Cassandra 5, failed on Scylla before the present fix, and pass with it. The fix was surprisingly difficult. Our existing implementation (from727f68e0f5building on earlier machinery) doesn't just "read" `map_col[key]` and allow us to return just its timestamp. Rather, the implementation reads the entire map, serializes it in some temporary format that does **not** include the timestamps and ttls, and then takes the subscript key, at which point we no longer have the timestamp or ttl of the element. So the fix had to cross all these layers of the implementation. While adding support for UDT fields in a pre-existing grammar nonterminal "subscriptExpr", we unintentionally added support for UDT fields also in LWT expressions (which used this nonterminal). LWT missing support for UDT fields was a long-time known compatibility issue (#13624) so we unintentionally fixed it :-) Actually, to completely fix it we needed another small change in the expression implementation, so the eighth patch in this series does this. Fixes #15427 Fixes #13624 Closes scylladb/scylladb#29134 * github.com:scylladb/scylladb: cql3: support UDT fields in LWT expressions cql3: document WRITETIME() and TTL() for elements of map, set or UDT test/boost: test WRITETIME() and TTL() on map collection elements test/cqlpy: test WRITETIME() and TTL() on element of map, set or UDT cql3: prepare and evaluate WRITETIME/TTL on collection elements and UDT fields cql3: parse per-element timestamps/TTLs in the selection layer cql3: add extended wire format for per-element timestamps and TTLs cql3: extend WRITETIME/TTL grammar to accept collection and UDT elements
Scylla
What is Scylla?
Scylla is the real-time big data database that is API-compatible with Apache Cassandra and Amazon DynamoDB. Scylla embraces a shared-nothing approach that increases throughput and storage capacity to realize order-of-magnitude performance improvements and reduce hardware costs.
For more information, please see the ScyllaDB web site.
Build Prerequisites
Scylla is fairly fussy about its build environment, requiring very recent versions of the C++23 compiler and of many libraries to build. The document HACKING.md includes detailed information on building and developing Scylla, but to get Scylla building quickly on (almost) any build machine, Scylla offers a frozen toolchain. This is a pre-configured Docker image which includes recent versions of all the required compilers, libraries and build tools. Using the frozen toolchain allows you to avoid changing anything in your build machine to meet Scylla's requirements - you just need to meet the frozen toolchain's prerequisites (mostly, Docker or Podman being available).
Building Scylla
Building Scylla with the frozen toolchain dbuild is as easy as:
$ git submodule update --init --force --recursive
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ./configure.py
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ninja build/release/scylla
For further information, please see:
- Developer documentation for more information on building Scylla.
- Build documentation on how to build Scylla binaries, tests, and packages.
- Docker image build documentation for information on how to build Docker images.
Running Scylla
To start Scylla server, run:
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ./build/release/scylla --workdir tmp --smp 1 --developer-mode 1
This will start a Scylla node with one CPU core allocated to it and data files stored in the tmp directory.
The --developer-mode is needed to disable the various checks Scylla performs at startup to ensure the machine is configured for maximum performance (not relevant on development workstations).
Please note that you need to run Scylla with dbuild if you built it with the frozen toolchain.
For more run options, run:
$ ./tools/toolchain/dbuild ./build/release/scylla --help
Testing
See test.py manual.
Scylla APIs and compatibility
By default, Scylla is compatible with Apache Cassandra and its API - CQL. There is also support for the API of Amazon DynamoDB™, which needs to be enabled and configured in order to be used. For more information on how to enable the DynamoDB™ API in Scylla, and the current compatibility of this feature as well as Scylla-specific extensions, see Alternator and Getting started with Alternator.
Documentation
Documentation can be found here. Seastar documentation can be found here. User documentation can be found here.
Training
Training material and online courses can be found at Scylla University. The courses are free, self-paced and include hands-on examples. They cover a variety of topics including Scylla data modeling, administration, architecture, basic NoSQL concepts, using drivers for application development, Scylla setup, failover, compactions, multi-datacenters and how Scylla integrates with third-party applications.
Contributing to Scylla
If you want to report a bug or submit a pull request or a patch, please read the contribution guidelines.
If you are a developer working on Scylla, please read the developer guidelines.
Contact
- The community forum and Slack channel are for users to discuss configuration, management, and operations of ScyllaDB.
- The developers mailing list is for developers and people interested in following the development of ScyllaDB to discuss technical topics.