CQL for Cassandra 2.0 & 2.

1
Documentation
December 29, 2015

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Contents

Contents
Introduction to Cassandra Query Language................................................................ 5
CQL data modeling..........................................................................................................6
Data Modeling Concepts..................................................................................................................... 6
Data modeling example...................................................................................................................... 9
Example of a music service..................................................................................................... 9
Compound keys and clustering.............................................................................................. 11
Collection columns..................................................................................................................11
Adding a collection to a table.................................................................................................12
Updating a collection.............................................................................................................. 12
Indexing a collection............................................................................................................... 13
Filtering data in a collection................................................................................................... 14
When to use a collection........................................................................................................14
Indexing............................................................................................................................................. 15
When to use an index............................................................................................................ 15
Using an index........................................................................................................................16
Using multiple indexes............................................................................................................16
Building and maintaining indexes..................................................................................................... 16
Working with legacy applications...................................................................................................... 17
Using a CQL query................................................................................................................ 17

Using CQL...................................................................................................................... 18
Starting cqlsh.....................................................................................................................................18
Starting cqlsh on Linux...........................................................................................................18
Starting cqlsh on Windows.....................................................................................................18
Using tab completion.........................................................................................................................19
Creating and updating a keyspace................................................................................................... 19
Example of creating a keyspace............................................................................................ 20
Updating the replication factor............................................................................................... 20
Creating a table.................................................................................................................................20
Using a compound primary key............................................................................................. 21
Inserting data into a table...................................................................................................... 21
Using a user-defined type................................................................................................................. 21
Querying a system table................................................................................................................... 23
Keyspace, table, and column information.............................................................................. 24
Cluster information..................................................................................................................25
Retrieving and sorting results........................................................................................................... 25
Retrieval using the IN keyword......................................................................................................... 27
Slicing over partition rows................................................................................................................. 28
Batching conditional updates to a static column...............................................................................29
Using and misusing batches............................................................................................................. 30
Using the keyspace qualifier............................................................................................................. 31
Adding columns to a table................................................................................................................ 31
Expiring data......................................................................................................................................31
Expiring data example............................................................................................................ 32
Determining time-to-live for a column.................................................................................... 32
Removing a keyspace, schema, or data.......................................................................................... 33
Dropping a table or keyspace................................................................................................ 33

Contents

Deleting columns and rows.................................................................................................... 33

Determining the date/time of a write.................................................................................................34
Altering the data type of a column................................................................................................... 35
Using collections................................................................................................................................35
Using the set type.................................................................................................................. 35
Using the list type...................................................................................................................36
Using the map type................................................................................................................ 38
Indexing a column............................................................................................................................. 39
Using lightweight transactions...........................................................................................................39
Paging through unordered partitioner results....................................................................................40
Using a counter................................................................................................................................. 40
Tracing consistency changes............................................................................................................ 41
Setup to trace consistency changes...................................................................................... 42
Trace reads at different consistency levels............................................................................42
How consistency affects performance....................................................................................48

CQL reference................................................................................................................ 48
Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 48
CQL lexical structure......................................................................................................................... 48
Uppercase and lowercase...................................................................................................... 49
Escaping characters............................................................................................................... 50
Valid literals............................................................................................................................ 50
Exponential notation............................................................................................................... 50
CQL code comments..............................................................................................................51
CQL Keywords........................................................................................................................51
CQL data types................................................................................................................................. 54
Blob type.................................................................................................................................56
Collection type........................................................................................................................ 57
Counter type........................................................................................................................... 57
UUID and timeuuid types....................................................................................................... 57
uuid and Timeuuid functions.................................................................................................. 58
Timestamp type...................................................................................................................... 58
Tuple type............................................................................................................................... 59
User-defined type................................................................................................................... 60
CQL keyspace and table properties................................................................................................. 60
Table properties......................................................................................................................61
Compaction subproperties...................................................................................................... 65
Compression subproperties.................................................................................................... 68
Functions........................................................................................................................................... 69
CQL limits.......................................................................................................................................... 69
cqlsh commands................................................................................................................................70
cqlsh........................................................................................................................................ 70
CAPTURE............................................................................................................................... 73
CONSISTENCY...................................................................................................................... 73
COPY...................................................................................................................................... 74
DESCRIBE.............................................................................................................................. 78
EXPAND................................................................................................................................. 79
EXIT........................................................................................................................................ 80
PAGING.................................................................................................................................. 80
SHOW..................................................................................................................................... 81
SOURCE................................................................................................................................. 82
TRACING................................................................................................................................ 83
CQL commands.................................................................................................................................87
ALTER KEYSPACE................................................................................................................ 87
ALTER TABLE........................................................................................................................88

Contents

ALTER TYPE..........................................................................................................................91
ALTER USER......................................................................................................................... 92
BATCH.................................................................................................................................... 93
CREATE INDEX..................................................................................................................... 95
CREATE KEYSPACE............................................................................................................. 98
CREATE TABLE................................................................................................................... 101
CREATE TRIGGER.............................................................................................................. 107
CREATE TYPE..................................................................................................................... 108
CREATE USER.................................................................................................................... 109
DELETE................................................................................................................................ 110
DESCRIBE............................................................................................................................ 112
DROP INDEX....................................................................................................................... 113
DROP KEYSPACE............................................................................................................... 114
DROP TABLE....................................................................................................................... 115
DROP TRIGGER.................................................................................................................. 115
DROP TYPE......................................................................................................................... 116
DROP USER........................................................................................................................ 116
GRANT..................................................................................................................................117
INSERT................................................................................................................................. 118
LIST PERMISSIONS............................................................................................................ 121
LIST USERS.........................................................................................................................123
REVOKE............................................................................................................................... 124
SELECT................................................................................................................................ 125
TRUNCATE...........................................................................................................................132
UPDATE................................................................................................................................133
USE....................................................................................................................................... 136

Using the docs.............................................................................................................137

Introduction to Cassandra Query Language

Introduction to Cassandra Query Language

Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a query language for the Cassandra database.

The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is the primary language for communicating with the Cassandra
database. The most basic way to interact with Cassandra is using the CQL shell, cqlsh. Using cqlsh,
you can create keyspaces and tables, insert and query tables, plus much more. If you prefer a graphical
tool, you can use DataStax DevCenter. For production, DataStax supplies a number drivers so that CQL
statements can be passed from client to cluster and back. Other administrative tasks can be accomplished
using OpsCenter.
Important: This document assumes you are familiar with either the Cassandra 2.1 or Cassandra 2.0
documentation.

Cassandra 2.1 features

Cassandra 2.1 new CQL features include:

Nested user-defined types

Improved counter columns that maintain the correct count when Cassandra replays the commit log
Configurable counter cache
Support for indexes on collections, including using map keys to filter query results
Timestamps precise to the millisecond
The new tuple type that holds fixed-length sets of typed positional fields

The cqlsh utility also has been improved:

Capability to accept and execute a CQL statement from the operating system command line
Support for describing types using the DESCRIBE command

DataStax Java Driver 2.0.0 supports Cassandra 2.1 with limitations. This version of the driver is
incompatible with the new features.
Other notable changes:

Cassandra rejects USING TIMESTAMP or USING TTL in the command to update a counter column,
and now generates an error message when you attempt such an operation.
In Cassandra 2.1, the CQL table property index_interval is replaced by min_index_interval and
max_index_interval. The max_index_interval is 2048 by default. The default would be reached only
when SSTables are infrequently-read and the index summary memory pool is full. When upgrading
from earlier releases, Cassandra uses the old index_interval value for the min_index_interval.

Cassandra 2.0.x features

Cassandra 2.0.x key features are:

Lightweight transactions using the IF keyword in INSERT and UPDATE statements.

Prevention of application errors by performing conditional tests for the existence of a table, keyspace, or
index.
Simply include IF EXISTS or IF NOT EXISTS in DROP or CREATE statements, such as DROP
KEYSPACE or CREATE TABLE.
Initial support for triggers that fire events executed in or out of a database cluster.
The ALTER TABLE DROP command, which had been removed in the earlier release.
Column aliases, similar to aliases in RDBMS SQL, in a SELECT statement.
Indexing of the part, partition key or clustering columns, portion of a compound primary key.

DataStax drivers support Cassandra 2.0.

CQL data modeling

CQL for Cassandra 2.0 deprecated super columns. Cassandra continues to support apps that query super
columns, translating super columns on the fly into CQL constructs and results.
Some changes were made to the cqlsh commands in CQL Cassandra 2.0:

The ASSUME command has been removed.

Use the blobAsType and typeAsBlob conversion functions instead of ASSUME.

The COPY command now supports for collections.

Several CQL table attributes were added in CQL included with Cassandra 2.0:

default_time_to_live
memtable_flush_period_in_ms
populate_io_cache_on_flush
speculative_retry

CQL data modeling

Data modeling topics.

Note: DataStax Academy provides a course in Cassandra data modeling. This course presents
techniques using the Chebotko method for translating a real-world domain model into a running Cassandra
schema.

Data Modeling Concepts

How data modeling should be approached for Cassandra. A music service example is used throughout the CQL document.

For a very basic explanation of CQL, see the Data model distilled in Cassandra & DataStax Enterprise
Essentials.
Note: DataStax Academy provides a course in Cassandra data modeling. This course presents
techniques using the Chebotko method for translating a real-world domain model into a running Cassandra
schema.
Data modeling is a process that involves identifying the entities, or items to be stored, and the relationships
between entities. In addition, data modeling involves the identification of the patterns of data access and
the queries that will be performed. These two ideas inform the organization and structure of how storing the
data, and the design and creation of the database's tables. In some cases, indexing the data improves the
performance, so judicious choices about secondary indexing must be considered.
Data modeling in Cassandra uses a query-driven approach, in which specific queries are the key to
organizing the data. Cassandra's database design is based on the requirement for fast reads and writes,
so the better the schema design, the faster data is written and retrieved. Queries are the result of selecting
data from a table; schema is the definition of how data in the table is arranged.
Cassandra's data model is a partitioned row store with tunable consistency. Rows are organized into
tables; the first component of a table's primary key is the partition key; within a partition, rows are clustered
by the remaining columns of the key. Other columns can be indexed separately from the primary key.
Because Cassandra is a distributed database, efficiency is gained for reads and writes when data is
grouped together on nodes by partition. The fewer partitions that must be queried to get an answer to a
question, the faster the response. Tuning the consistency level is another factor in latency, but is not part of
the data modeling process.
For this reason, Cassandra data modeling focuses on the queries. Throughout this topic, the music service
example demonstrates the schema that results from modeling the Cassandra tables for specific queries.

CQL data modeling

One basic query for a music service is a listing of songs, including the title, album, and artist. To uniquely
identify a song in the table, an additional column id is added. For a simple query to list all songs, a table
that includes all the columns identified and a partition key (K) of id is created.

CQL data modeling

A related query searches for all songs by a particular artist. For Cassandra, this query is more efficient
if a table is created that groups all songs by artist. All the same columns of title, album, and artist are
required, but now the primary key of the table includes the artist as the partition key (K) and groups within
the partition by the id (C). This ensures that unique records for each song are created.

CQL data modeling

Notice that the key to designing the table is not the relationship of the table to other tables, as it is in
relational database modeling. Data in Cassandra is often arranged as one query per table, and data is
repeated amongst many tables, a process known as denormalization. The relationship of the entities is
important, because the order in which data is stored in Cassandra can greatly affect the ease and speed of
data retrieval.

Data modeling example

The music service example shows the how to use compound keys, clustering columns, and collections to model Cassandra data.

Cassandra's data model is a partitioned row store with tunable consistency. Rows are organized into
tables; the first component of a table's primary key is the partition key; within a partition, rows are clustered
by the remaining columns of the key. Other columns can be indexed separately from the primary key.
Tables can be created, dropped, and altered at runtime without blocking updates and queries.
The example of a music service shows the how to use compound keys, clustering columns, and collections
to model Cassandra data.
Note: DataStax Academy provides a course in Cassandra data modeling. This course presents
techniques using the Chebotko method for translating a real-world domain model into a running Cassandra
schema.

Example of a music service

The social music service example uses a UUID as a primary key.

This example of a social music service requires a songs table having a title, album, and artist column, plus
a column (called data) for the actual audio file itself. The table uses a UUID as a primary key.
CREATE TABLE songs (
id uuid PRIMARY KEY,
title text,
album text,
artist text,
data blob

CQL data modeling

);
In a relational database, you would create a playlists table with a foreign key to the songs, but in
Cassandra, you denormalize the data because joins are not performant in a distributed system. Later, this
document covers how to use a collection to accomplish the same goal as joining the tables to tag songs.
To represent the playlist data, you can create a table like this:
CREATE TABLE playlists (
id uuid,
song_order int,
song_id uuid,
title text,
album text,
artist text,
PRIMARY KEY (id, song_order ) );
The combination of the id and song_order in the playlists table uniquely identifies a row in the playlists
table. You can have more than one row with the same id as long as the rows contain different song_order
values.
Note: The UUID is handy for sequencing the data or automatically incrementing synchronization across
multiple machines. For simplicity, an int song_order is used in this example.
Here's an example of inserting a single record into the playlist: inserting the example data into playlists
INSERT INTO playlists (id, song_order, song_id, title, artist, album)
VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 4,
7db1a490-5878-11e2-bcfd-0800200c9a66,
'Ojo Rojo', 'Fu Manchu', 'No One Rides for Free');
After inserting the remaining records, use the following SELECT query to display the table's data:
SELECT * FROM playlists;

The example below illustrates how to create a query that uses the artist as a filter:
SELECT album, title FROM playlists WHERE artist = 'Fu Manchu';
Cassandra will reject this query because the query requires a sequential scan across the entire playlists
dataset, because artist is not a partition key or clustering column. By creating an on artist, Cassandra can
now pull out the records.
CREATE INDEX ON playlists( artist );
Now, you can query the playlists for songs by Fu Manchu. The output looks like this:

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CQL data modeling

Compound keys and clustering

A compound primary key includes the partition key, which determines which node stores the data, and includes one or more additional columns that can be used to sort data within the partition.

A compound primary key consists of the partition key and one or more additional columns that determine
clustering. The partition key determines which node stores the data. It is responsible for data distribution
across the nodes. The additional columns determine per-partition clustering. Clustering is a storage engine
process that sorts data within the partition.
In a simple primary key, Cassandra uses the first column name as the partition key. (Note that Cassandra
can use multiple columns in the definition of a partition key.) In the music service's playlists table, id is the
partition key. The remaining columns can be defined as clustering columns. In the playlists table below, the
song_order is defined as the clustering column column:
PRIMARYKEY (id, song_order));
The data for each partition is clustered by the remaining column or columns of the primary key definition.
On a physical node, when rows for a partition key are stored in order based on the clustering columns,
retrieval of rows is very efficient. For example, because the id in the playlists table is the partition key, all
the songs for a playlist are clustered in the order of the remaining song_order column. The others columns
are displayed in alphabetical order by Cassandra.
Insertion, update, and deletion operations on rows sharing the same partition key for a table are performed
atomically and in isolation.
You can query a single sequential set of data on disk to get the songs for a playlist.
SELECT * FROM playlists WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
ORDER BY song_order DESC LIMIT 50;
The output looks something like this:

Cassandra stores an entire row of data on a node by partition key. If you have too much data in a partition
and want to spread the data over multiple nodes, use a composite partition key.

Collection columns
CQL contains several collection types.

CQL contains these collection types:

set
list
map

In a relational database, to allow users to have multiple email addresses, you create an email_addresses
table having a many-to-one (joined) relationship to a users table. CQL handles the classic multiple email

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CQL data modeling

addresses use case, and other use cases, by defining columns as collections. Using the set collection type
to solve the multiple email addresses problem is convenient and intuitive.
Another use of a collection type can be demonstrated using the music service example. Also see Using
frozen in a collection.

Adding a collection to a table

The music service example includes the capability to tag the songs.

The music service example includes the capability to tag the songs. From a relational standpoint, you can
think of storage engine rows as partitions, within which (object) rows are clustered. To tag songs, use a
collection set. Declare the collection set using the CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statements. Because
the playlists table already exists from the earlier example, just alter that table to add a collection set, tags:
ALTER TABLE playlists ADD tags set<text>;

Updating a collection
Updating the playlists table to insert the tags data.

Update the playlists table to insert the tags data:

UPDATE playlists SET tags = tags + {'2007'}
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
UPDATE playlists SET tags = tags + {'covers'}
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
UPDATE playlists SET tags = tags + {'1973'}
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
UPDATE playlists SET tags = tags + {'blues'}
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
UPDATE playlists SET tags = tags + {'rock'}
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204

AND song_order = 2;
AND song_order = 2;
AND song_order = 1;
AND song_order = 1;
AND song_order = 4;

A music reviews list and a schedule (map collection) of live appearances can be added to the table:
ALTER TABLE playlists ADD reviews list<text>;
ALTER TABLE playlists ADD venue map<timestamp, text>;
Each element of a set, list, or map is internally stored as one Cassandra column. To update a set, use
the UPDATE command and the addition (+) operator to add an element or the subtraction (-) operator to
remove an element. For example, to update a set:
UPDATE playlists
SET tags = tags + {'punk rock'}
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204 AND song_order = 4;
To update a list, a similar syntax using square brackets instead of curly brackets is used.
UPDATE playlists
SET reviews = reviews + [ 'best lyrics' ]
WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204 and song_order = 4;
To update a map, use INSERT to specify the data in a map collection.
INSERT INTO playlists (id, song_order, venue)
VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 4,
{ '2013-9-22 22:00' : 'The Fillmore',
'2013-10-1 21:00' : 'The Apple Barrel'});
INSERT INTO playlists (id, song_order, venue)
VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 3,
{ '2014-1-22 22:00' : 'Cactus Cafe',

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CQL data modeling

'2014-01-12 20:00' : 'Mohawk'});

Inserting data into the map replaces the entire map.
Selecting all the data from the playlists table at this point gives you output something like this:

Indexing a collection
You can index collections and query the database to find a collection containing a particular value.

In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can index collections and query the database to find a collection containing
a particular value. Continuing with the music service example, suppose you want to find songs tagged
blues and that debuted at the Fillmore. Index the tags set and venue map. Query for values in the tags set
and the venue map, as shown in the next section.
CREATE INDEX ON playlists (tags);
CREATE INDEX mymapvalues ON playlists (venue);
Specifying a name for the index, such as mymapindex, is optional.

Indexing collection map keys

The last example created the index on the venue collection values by using the venue map column name
to create the index. You can also create an index on map collection keys. A map key is the literal to the left
of the colon in the JSON-style array. A map value is the literal to the right of the colon.
{ literal : literal, literal : literal ... }
For example, the collection keys in the venue map are the timestamps. The collection values in the venue
map are 'The Fillmore' and 'Apple Barrel'.

Indexes on the keys and values of a map cannot co-exist. For example, if you created mymapindex, you
would need to drop it to create an index on the map keys using the KEYS keyword and map name in
nested parentheses:
DROP INDEX mymapvalues;
CREATE INDEX mymapkeys ON playlists (KEYS(venue));

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CQL data modeling

Filtering data in a collection

Different ways to filter a collection.

After adding data to the tags set collection, selecting the tags set returns the set of tags:
SELECT album, tags FROM playlists;

Assuming you indexed the collection, to filter data using a set collection value, include the name of the
collection column in the select expression. For example, find the row containing a particular tag, say
"blues", using the CONTAINS condition in the WHERE clause.
SELECT album, tags FROM playlists WHERE tags CONTAINS 'blues';
The output is the row from the playlists table containing the blues tag.

Filtering by map value or map key

You can create two types of map collection indexes: an index of map values and an index of map keys.
The two types cannot co-exist on the same collection. Assuming an index on map values is created,
filter the data using a value in the venue map using the CONTAINS condition in the WHERE clause. The
statement is the same one you use to filtering the data in a set or list:
SELECT artist, venue FROM playlists WHERE venue CONTAINS 'The Fillmore';
The output is the requested data for the song that debuted at The Fillmore.
Assuming an index on map keys is created, filter the data using a key in the venue map:
SELECT album, venue FROM playlists WHERE venue CONTAINS KEY '2013-09-22
22:00:00-0700';

When to use a collection

Use collections when you want to store or denormalize a small amount of data.

Use collections when you want to store or denormalize a small amount of data. Values of items in
collections are limited to 64K. Other limitations also apply. Collections work well for storing data such as
the phone numbers of a user and labels applied to an email. If the data you need to store has unbounded
growth potential, such as all the messages sent by a user or events registered by a sensor, do not use
collections. Instead, use a table having a compound primary key and store data in the clustering columns.

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CQL data modeling

Indexing
An index provides a means to access data in Cassandra using attributes other than the partition key for fast, efficient lookup of data matching a given condition.

An index provides a means to access data in Cassandra using attributes other than the partition key. The
benefit is fast, efficient lookup of data matching a given condition. The index indexes column values in a
separate, hidden table from the one that contains the values being indexed. Cassandra has a number of
techniques for guarding against the undesirable scenario where a data might be incorrectly retrieved during
a query involving indexes on the basis of stale values in the index.
As mentioned earlier, in Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can index collection columns.

When to use an index

When and when not to use an index.

Cassandra's built-in indexes are best on a table having many rows that contain the indexed value. The
more unique values that exist in a particular column, the more overhead you will have, on average, to
query and maintain the index. For example, suppose you had a playlists table with a billion songs and
wanted to look up songs by the artist. Many songs will share the same column value for artist. The artist
column is a good candidate for an index.

When not to use an index

Do not use an index in these situations:

On high-cardinality columns because you then query a huge volume of records for a small number of
results. See Problems using a high-cardinality column index below.
In tables that use a counter column
On a frequently updated or deleted column. See Problems using an index on a frequently updated or
deleted column below.
To look for a row in a large partition unless narrowly queried. See Problems using an index to look for a
row in a large partition unless narrowly queried below.

Problems using a high-cardinality column index

If you create an index on a high-cardinality column, which has many distinct values, a query between the
fields will incur many seeks for very few results. In the table with a billion songs, looking up songs by writer
(a value that is typically unique for each song) instead of by their artist, is likely to be very inefficient. It
would probably be more efficient to manually maintain the table as a form of an index instead of using
the Cassandra built-in index. For columns containing unique data, it is sometimes fine performance-wise
to use an index for convenience, as long as the query volume to the table having an indexed column is
moderate and not under constant load.
Conversely, creating an index on an extremely low-cardinality column, such as a boolean column, does not
make sense. Each value in the index becomes a single row in the index, resulting in a huge row for all the
false values, for example. Indexing a multitude of indexed columns having foo = true and foo = false is not
useful.
Problems using an index on a frequently updated or deleted column
Cassandra stores tombstones in the index until the tombstone limit reaches 100K cells. After exceeding the
tombstone limit, the query that uses the indexed value will fail.
Problems using an index to look for a row in a large partition unless narrowly queried
A query on an indexed column in a large cluster typically requires collating responses from multiple data
partitions. The query response slows down as more machines are added to the cluster. You can avoid a
performance hit when looking for a row in a large partition by narrowing the search, as shown in the next
section.

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CQL data modeling

Using an index
Using CQL to create an index on a column after defining a table.

Using CQL, you can create an index on a column after defining a table. In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you
can index a collection column. The music service example shows how to create an index on the artists
column of playlist, and then query Cassandra for songs by a particular artist:
CREATE INDEX artist_names ON playlists( artist );
An index name is optional. If you do not provide a name, Cassandra assigns a name such as artist_idx. If
you provide a name, such as artist_names, the name must be unique within the keyspace. After creating
an index for the artist column and inserting values into the playlists table, greater efficiency is achieved
when you query Cassandra directly for artist by name, such as Fu Manchu:
SELECT * FROM playlists WHERE artist = 'Fu Manchu';
As mentioned earlier, when looking for a row in a large partition, narrow the search. This query, although a
contrived example using so little data, narrows the search to a single id.
SELECT * FROM playlists WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204 AND
artist = 'Fu Manchu';
The output is:

Using multiple indexes

About using multiple indexes.

For example, you can create multiple indexes, such as on album and title columns of the playlists table,
and use multiple conditions in the WHERE clause to filter the results. In a real-world situation, these
columns might not be good choices, depending on their cardinality as described later:
CREATE INDEX album_name ON playlists ( album );
CREATE INDEX title_name ON playlists ( title );
SELECT * FROM playlists
WHERE album = 'Roll Away' AND title = 'Outside Woman Blues'
ALLOW FILTERING ;
When multiple occurrences of data match a condition in a WHERE clause, Cassandra selects the leastfrequent occurrence of a condition for processing first for efficiency. For example, suppose data for Blind
Joe Reynolds and Cream's versions of "Outside Woman Blues" were inserted into the playlists table.
Cassandra queries on the album name first if there are fewer albums named Roll Away than there are
songs called "Outside Woman Blues" in the database. When you attempt a potentially expensive query,
such as searching a range of rows, Cassandra requires the ALLOW FILTERING directive.

Building and maintaining indexes

Indexes provide operational ease for populating and maintaining the index.

An advantage of indexes is the operational ease of populating and maintaining the index. Indexes are built
in the background automatically, without blocking reads or writes. Client-maintained tables as indexes

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CQL data modeling

must be created manually; for example, if the artists column had been indexed by creating a table such as
songs_by_artist, your client application would have to populate the table with data from the songs table.
To perform a hot rebuild of an index, use the nodetool rebuild_index command.

Working with legacy applications

Internally, CQL does not change the row and column mapping from the Thrift API mapping. CQL and Thrift use the same storage engine.

Internally, CQL does not change the row and column mapping from the Thrift API mapping. CQL and
Thrift use the same storage engine. CQL supports the same query-driven, denormalized data modeling
principles as Thrift. Existing applications do not have to be upgraded to CQL. The CQL abstraction layer
makes CQL easier to use for new applications. For an in-depth comparison of Thrift and CQL, see "A Thrift
to CQL Upgrade Guide" and CQL for Cassandra experts.

Creating a legacy table

You can create legacy (Thrift/CLI-compatible) tables in CQL using the COMPACT STORAGE directive.
The compact storage directive used with the CREATE TABLE command provides backward compatibility
with older Cassandra applications; new applications should generally avoid it.
Compact storage stores an entire row in a single column on disk instead of storing each non-primary key
column in a column that corresponds to one column on disk. Using compact storage prevents you from
adding new columns that are not part of the PRIMARY KEY.

Using a CQL query

Using CQL to query a legacy table.

Using CQL, you can query a legacy table. A legacy table managed in CQL includes an implicit WITH
COMPACT STORAGE directive. When you use CQL to query legacy tables with no column names defined
for data within a partition, Cassandra generates the names (column1 and value1) for the data. Using the
RENAME clause, you can change the default column name to a more meaningful name.
ALTER TABLE users RENAME userid to user_id;
CQL supports dynamic tables created in the Thrift API, CLI, and earlier CQL versions. For example, a
dynamic table is represented and queried like this:
CREATE TABLE clicks (
userid uuid,
url text,
timestamp date
PRIMARY KEY (userid, url ) ) WITH COMPACT STORAGE;
SELECT url, timestamp
FROM clicks
WHERE userid = 148e9150-1dd2-11b2-0000-242d50cf1fff;
SELECT timestamp
FROM clicks
WHERE userid = 148e9150-1dd2-11b2-0000-242d50cf1fff
AND url = 'http://google.com';
In these queries, only equality conditions are valid.

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Using CQL

Using CQL
CQL provides an API to Cassandra that is simpler than the Thrift API for new applications.

CQL provides an API to Cassandra that is simpler than the Thrift API for new applications. The Thrift API
and legacy versions of CQL expose the internal storage structure of Cassandra. CQL adds an abstraction
layer that hides implementation details of this structure and provides native syntaxes for collections and
other common encodings.

Accessing CQL
Common ways to access CQL are:

Start cqlsh, the Python-based command-line client, on the command line of a Cassandra node.
Use DataStax DevCenter, a graphical user interface.
For developing applications, you can use one of the official DataStax C#, Java, or Python open-source
drivers.
Use the set_cql_version Thrift method for programmatic access.

This document presents examples using cqlsh.

Starting cqlsh
How to start cqlsh.

Starting cqlsh on Linux

A brief description on starting cqlsh on Linux.

This procedure briefly describes how to start cqlsh on Linux. The cqlsh command is covered in detail later.

Procedure
1. Navigate to the Cassandra installation directory.
2. Start cqlsh on the Mac OSX, for example.
bin/cqlsh
If you use security features, provide a user name and password.
3. Optionally, specify the IP address and port to start cqlsh on a different node.
bin/cqlsh 1.2.3.4 9042

Starting cqlsh on Windows

A brief description on starting cqlsh on Windows.

This procedure briefly describes how to start cqlsh on Windows. The cqlsh command is covered in detail
later.

Procedure
1. Open Command Prompt.
2. Navigate to the Cassandra bin directory.

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Using CQL

3. Type the command to start cqlsh.

python cqlsh
Optionally, specify the IP address and port to start cqlsh on a different node.
python cqlsh 1.2.3.4 9042

Using tab completion

You can use tab completion to see hints about how to complete a cqlsh command.

You can use tab completion to see hints about how to complete a cqlsh command. Some platforms, such
as Mac OSX, do not ship with tab completion installed. You can use easy_install to install tab completion
capabilities on Mac OSX:
easy_install readline

Creating and updating a keyspace

Creating a keyspace is the CQL counterpart to creating an SQL database.

Creating a keyspace is the CQL counterpart to creating an SQL database, but a little different. The
Cassandra keyspace is a namespace that defines how data is replicated on nodes. Typically, a cluster has
one keyspace per application. Replication is controlled on a per-keyspace basis, so data that has different
replication requirements typically resides in different keyspaces. Keyspaces are not designed to be used
as a significant map layer within the data model. Keyspaces are designed to control data replication for a
set of tables.
When you create a keyspace, specify a strategy class for replicating keyspaces. Using the SimpleStrategy
class is fine for evaluating Cassandra. For production use or for use with mixed workloads, use the
NetworkTopologyStrategy class.
To use NetworkTopologyStrategy for evaluation purposes using, for example, a single node cluster, specify
the default data center name. To determine the default data center name, use the nodetool status
command. On Linux, for example, in the installation directory:
$ bin/nodetool status
The output is:
Datacenter: datacenter1
=======================
Status=Up/Down
|/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
-- Address
Load
Tokens Owns (effective)
UN 127.0.0.1 41.62 KB
256
100.0%

Host ID
75dcca8f...

Rack
rack1

To use NetworkTopologyStrategy for production use, you need to change the default snitch, SimpleSnitch,
to a network-aware snitch, define one or more data center names in the snitch properties file, and use the
data center name(s) to define the keyspace; otherwise, Cassandra will fail to complete any write request,
such as inserting data into a table, and log this error message:
Unable to complete request: one or more nodes were unavailable.
You cannot insert data into a table in keyspace that uses NetworkTopologyStrategy unless you define the
data center names in the snitch properties file or you use a single data center named datacenter1.

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Using CQL

Example of creating a keyspace

A simple example of querying Cassandra by creating a keyspace and then using it.

To query Cassandra, create and use a keyspace. Choose an arbitrary data center name and register the
name in the properties file of the snitch. Alternatively, in a cluster in a single data center, use the default
data center name, for example, datacenter1, and skip registering the name in the properties file.

Procedure
1. Create a keyspace.
cqlsh> CREATE KEYSPACE demodb WITH REPLICATION = { 'class' :
'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 3 };
2. Use the keyspace.
USE demodb;

Updating the replication factor

Increasing the replication factor increases the total number of copies of keyspace data stored in a Cassandra cluster.

Increasing the replication factor increases the total number of copies of keyspace data stored in a
Cassandra cluster. If you are using security features, it is particularly important to increase the replication
factor of the system_auth keyspace from the default (1) because you will not be able to log into the
cluster if the node with the lone replica goes down. It is recommended to set the replication factor for the
system_auth keyspace equal to the number of nodes in each data center.

Procedure
1. Update a keyspace in the cluster and change its replication strategy options.
ALTER KEYSPACE system_auth WITH REPLICATION =
{'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'dc1' : 3, 'dc2' : 2};
Or if using SimpleStrategy:
ALTER KEYSPACE "Excalibur" WITH REPLICATION =
{ 'class' : 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor' : 3 };
2. On each affected node, run the nodetool repair command.
3. Wait until repair completes on a node, then move to the next node.

Creating a table
Steps for creating a table with a single primary key.

Tables can have single and compound primary keys. To create a table having a single primary key, use the
PRIMARY KEY keywords followed by the name of the key, enclosed in parentheses.

Procedure
1. Create and use the keyspace in the last example if you haven't already done so.

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Using CQL

2. Create this users table in the demodb keyspace, making the user name the primary key.
CREATE TABLE users (
user_name varchar,
password varchar,
gender varchar,
session_token varchar,
state varchar,
birth_year bigint,
PRIMARY KEY (user_name));

Using a compound primary key

Use a compound primary key to create columns that you can query to return sorted results.

Use a compound primary key to create columns that you can query to return sorted results.

Procedure
To create a table having a compound primary key, use two or more columns as the primary key.
CREATE TABLE emp (
empID int,
deptID int,
first_name varchar,
last_name varchar,
PRIMARY KEY (empID, deptID));
The compound primary key is made up of the empID and deptID columns in this example. The empID
acts as a partition key for distributing data in the table among the various nodes that comprise the
cluster. The remaining component of the primary key, the deptID, acts as a clustering mechanism and
ensures that the data is stored in ascending order on disk (much like a clustered index in Microsoft SQL
Server).

Inserting data into a table

Inserting data with the INSERT command for testing queries.

In a production database, inserting columns and column values programmatically is more practical than
using cqlsh, but often, being able to test queries using this SQL-like shell is very convenient.

Procedure
To insert employee data for Jane Smith, use the INSERT command.
INSERT INTO emp (empID, deptID, first_name, last_name)
VALUES (104, 15, 'jane', 'smith');

Using a user-defined type

An example of creating a user-defined type to attach multiple data fields to a column.

In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can create a user-defined type to attach multiple data fields to a column.
This example shows how to accomplish these tasks:

Create the user-defined types address and fullname.

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Using CQL

Create a table that defines map and set collection columns of the address and fullname types,
respectively.
Include a name column, also of the fullname type, in the table.
Insert the street, city, and postal code in the addresses column.
Insert the first and last name of a person in the name column.
Filter data on a column of a user-defined type.
Insert a names of direct reports in the set collection.

Procedure
1. Create a keyspace.
CREATE KEYSPACE mykeyspace WITH REPLICATION = { 'class' :
'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 1 };
2. Create a user-defined type named address.
CREATE TYPE mykeyspace.address (
street text,
city text,
zip_code int,
phones set<text>
);
3. Create a user-defined type for the name of a user.
CREATE TYPE mykeyspace.fullname (
firstname text,
lastname text
);
4. Create a table for storing user data in columns of type fullname and address. Use the frozen keyword in
the definition of the user-defined type column.
CREATE TABLE mykeyspace.users (
id uuid PRIMARY KEY,
name frozen <fullname>,
direct_reports set<frozen <fullname>>,
addresses map<text, frozen <address>>
);

// a collection set
// a collection map

5. Insert a user's name into the fullname column.

INSERT INTO mykeyspace.users (id, name) VALUES
(62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, {firstname: 'Marie-Claude',
lastname: 'Josset'});
6. Insert an address labeled home into the table.
UPDATE mykeyspace.users SET addresses = addresses + {'home': { street:
'191 Rue St. Charles', city: 'Paris', zip_code: 75015, phones: {'33 6 78
90 12 34'}}} WHERE id=62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204;
7. Retrieve the full name of a user.
SELECT name FROM mykeyspace.users WHERE
id=62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204;

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Using CQL

Using the column name of a user-defined type retrieves all fields: firstname and lastname.
name
------------------------------------------------{firstname: 'Marie-Claude', lastname: 'Josset'}
Using dot notation, you can retrieve a component of the user-defined type column, for example just the
last name.
SELECT name.lastname FROM mykeyspace.users WHERE
id=62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204;
name.lastname
--------------Josset
8. Filter data on a column of a user-defined type. Create an index and then run a conditional query. In
Cassandra 2.1.x, you need to list all components of the name column in the WHERE clause.
CREATE INDEX on mykeyspace.users (name);
SELECT id FROM mykeyspace.users WHERE name = {firstname: 'Marie-Claude',
lastname: 'Josset'};
Output is:
id
-------------------------------------62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
9. Insert names of people who report to Marie-Claude. Use the UPDATE command. Insert the name of a
person who reports to another manager using the INSERT command.
When using the frozen keyword, you cannot update parts of a user-defined type value. The entire value
must be overwritten. Cassandra treats the value of a frozen, user-defined type like a blob.
UPDATE mykeyspace.users SET direct_reports = { ( 'Naoko', 'Murai'),
( 'Sompom', 'Peh') } WHERE id=62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204;
INSERT INTO mykeyspace.users (id, direct_reports) VALUES
( 7db1a490-5878-11e2-bcfd-0800200c9a66, { ('Jeiranan',
'Thongnopneua') } );
10.Query the table for the direct reports to Marie-Claude.
SELECT direct_reports FROM mykeyspace.users;
direct_reports
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------{{firstname: 'Jeiranan', lastname:
'Thongnopneua'}}
{{firstname: 'Naoko', lastname: 'Murai'}, {firstname: 'Sompom', lastname:
'Peh'}}

Querying a system table

Details about Cassandra database objects and cluster configuration in the system keyspace tables.

The system keyspace includes a number of tables that contain details about your Cassandra database
objects and cluster configuration.

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Using CQL

Cassandra populates these tables and others in the system keyspace.

Table: Columns in System Tables
Table name

Column name

Comment

schema_keyspaces keyspace_name, durable_writes,

strategy_class, strategy_options

None

local

"key", bootstrapped,
cluster_name, cql_version,
data_center, gossip_generation,
native_protocol_version,partitioner,
rack, release_version, ring_id,
schema_version, thrift_version, tokens
set, truncated at map

Information a node has about itself and a

superset of gossip.

peers

peer, data_center, rack, release_version, Each node records what other nodes tell
ring_id, rpc_address, schema_version,
it about themselves over the gossip.
tokens set

schema_columns

keyspace_name, columnfamily_name,
column_name, component_index,
index_name, index_options, index_type,
validator

schema_columnfamilies
See comment.

Used internally with compound primary

keys.

Inspect schema_columnfamilies to
get detailed information about specific
tables.

Keyspace, table, and column information

Querying system.schema_keyspaces directly.

An alternative to the Thrift API describe_keyspaces function is querying system.schema_keyspaces

directly. You can also retrieve information about tables by querying system.schema_columnfamilies and
about column metadata by querying system.schema_columns.

Procedure
Query the defined keyspaces using the SELECT statement.
SELECT * from system.schema_keyspaces;
The cqlsh output includes information about defined keyspaces.
keyspace | durable_writes | name
| strategy_class | strategy_options
----------+----------------+---------+---------------+---------------------------history |
True | history | SimpleStrategy |
{"replication_factor":"1"}
ks_info |
True | ks_info | SimpleStrategy |
{"replication_factor":"1"}
(2 rows)

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Using CQL

Cluster information
Querying system tables to get cluster topology information.

You can query system tables to get cluster topology information. You can get the IP address of peer
nodes, data center and rack names, token values, and other information. "The Data Dictionary" article
describes querying system tables in detail.

Procedure
After setting up a 3-node cluster using ccm on the Mac OSX, query the peers and local tables.
USE system;
SELECT * FROM peers;
Output from querying the peers table looks something like this:
peer
| data_center | host_id
| preferred_ip | rack |
release_version | rpc_address | schema_version | tokens
-----------+-------------+-------------+--------------+------+-----------------+-------------+----------------+----------127.0.0.3 | datacenter1 | edda8d72... |
null | rack1 |
2.1.0 | 127.0.0.3
| 59adb24e-f3... | {3074...
127.0.0.2 | datacenter1 | ef863afa... |
null | rack1 |
2.1.0 | 127.0.0.2
| 3d19cd8f-c9... | {-3074...}
(2 rows)

Retrieving and sorting results

Using the SELECT command.

Querying tables to select data is the reason data is stored in databases. Similar to SQL, CQL can SELECT
data using simple or complex qualifiers. At its simplest, a query selects all data in a table. At its most
complex, a query delineates which data to retrieve and display.

Procedure

The example below illustrates how to create a query that uses first_name and last_name as a filter.
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM users_by_name WHERE first_name = 'jane';
Note that Cassandra will reject this query if first_nameand last_name are not part of the primary key,
either a partition key or clustering column. Queries require a sequential retrieval across the entire users
table. In a distributed database like Cassandra, this is a crucial concept to grasp; scanning all data
across all nodes is prohibitively slow and thus blocked from execution. The use of partition key and
clustering columns in a WHERE clause must result in the selection of a contiguous set of rows.

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Using CQL

You can also pick the columns to display instead of choosing all data.
cqlsh> SELECT first_name, age FROM users_by_name WHERE first_name =
'jane';

For a large table, limit the number of rows retrieved using LIMIT. The default limit is 10,000 rows. To
sample data, pick a smaller number. To retrieve more than 10,000 rows set LIMIT to a large value.
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10;

You can fine-tune the display order using the ORDER BY clause, either descending or ascending. The
partition key must be defined in the WHERE clause and the ORDER BY clause defines the clustering
column to use for ordering.
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM users WHERE userID IN (102,104) ORDER BY age ASC;

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Using CQL

Retrieval using the IN keyword

The IN keyword can define a set of clustering columns to fetch together, supporting a "multi-get" of CQL rows.

Similar to a SQL query, in CQL queries the IN keyword can define a set of clustering columns to fetch
together, supporting a "multi-get" of CQL rows. A single clustering column can be defined if all preceding
columns are defined for either equality or group inclusion. Alternatively, several clustering columns may
be defined to collect several rows, as long as all preceding columns are queried for equality or group
inclusion. The defined clustering columns can also be queried for inequality.
Note that using both IN and ORDER BY will require turning off paging with the PAGING OFF command in
cqlsh.

Procedure

Turn off paging

cqlsh> PAGING OFF

Retrieve and sort results in descending order.

cqlsh> SELECT * FROM users WHERE userID IN (100,102,104) ORDER BY age
DESC;

Retrieve rows using multiple clustering columns event_start_date and event_end_date. This example
searches the partition key event_ids for several events, but the partition key can also be composed as
an equality for one value.
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE event_id IN (100, 101, 102) AND
(event_start_date, event_end_date) IN (('2015-05-09','2015-05-31'),
('2015-05-06', '2015-05-31'));

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Using CQL

Retrieve rows using multiple clustering columns event_start_date and event_end_date and inequality.
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM calendar WHERE event_id IN (100, 101, 102) AND
(event_start_date, event_end_date) >= ('2015-05-09','2015-05-24');

Slicing over partition rows

Slicing over rows of a partition when the table has more than one clustering column and comparing groups of clustering keys to certain values.

In Cassandra 2.0.6 and later, you can use a new syntax for slicing over rows of a partition when the table
has more than one clustering column. Using a conditional operator, you can compare groups of clustering
keys to certain values. For example:
CREATE TABLE timeline (
day text,
hour int,
min int,
sec int,
value text,
PRIMARY KEY (day, hour, min, sec)
);
INSERT
VALUES
INSERT
VALUES
INSERT
VALUES
INSERT
VALUES
INSERT
VALUES

INTO
('12
INTO
('12
INTO
('12
INTO
('12
INTO
('12

timeline (day, hour, min, sec, value)

Jan 2014', 3, 43, 12, 'event1');
timeline (day, hour, min, sec, value)
Jan 2014', 3, 52, 58, 'event2');
timeline (day, hour, min, sec, value)
Jan 2014', 4, 37, 01, 'event3');
timeline (day, hour, min, sec, value)
Jan 2014', 4, 37, 41, 'event3');
timeline (day, hour, min, sec, value)
Jan 2014', 6, 00, 34, 'event4');

SELECT * FROM timeline;

day
| hour | min | sec | value
-------------+------+-----+-----+-------12 Jan 2014 |
3 | 43 | 12 | event1
12 Jan 2014 |
3 | 52 | 58 | event2
12 Jan 2014 |
4 | 37 |
1 | event3
12 Jan 2014 |
4 | 37 | 41 | event3
12 Jan 2014 |
6 |
0 | 34 | event4
To retrieve events for the 12th of January 2014 between 3:50:00 and 4:37:30, use the new syntax as
follows:
SELECT * FROM timeline WHERE day='12 Jan 2014'
AND (hour, min) >= (3, 50)
AND (hour, min, sec) <= (4, 37, 30);
day
| hour | min | sec | value
-------------+------+-----+-----+-------12 Jan 2014 |
3 | 52 | 58 | event2

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Using CQL

12 Jan 2014 |

4 |

37 |

1 | event3

The new syntax, in this example, uses a conditional operator to compare groups of clustering keys, such
as hour, min, and sec, to certain values.
In the WHERE clause, you need to use sequential clustering columns. The sequence must match the
sequence of the columns in the table definition. For example:
CREATE TABLE no_column_skipping
(a int, b int, c int, d int, e int,
PRIMARY KEY (a, b, c, d))
This WHERE clause does not work:
SELECT ... WHERE a=0 AND (b, d) > (1, 2)
This WHERE clause works:
SELECT ... WHERE a=0 AND (b, c) > (1, 2)

Batching conditional updates to a static column

An example of batching conditional updates combined with static columns.

As explained in the BATCH statement reference, in Cassandra 2.0.6 and later, you can batch conditional
updates. This example shows batching conditional updates combined with using static columns, also
introduced in Cassandra 2.0.6. The example stores records about each purchase by user and includes the
running balance of all a user's purchases.
CREATE TABLE purchases (
user text,
balance int static,
expense_id int,
amount int,
description text,
paid boolean,
PRIMARY KEY (user, expense_id)
);
Because the balance is static, all purchase records for a user have the same running balance.
The statements for inserting values into purchase records use the IF conditional clause.
BEGIN BATCH
INSERT INTO purchases (user, balance) VALUES ('user1', -8) IF NOT EXISTS;
INSERT INTO purchases (user, expense_id, amount, description, paid)
VALUES ('user1', 1, 8, 'burrito', false);
APPLY BATCH;
BEGIN BATCH
UPDATE purchases SET balance = -208 WHERE user='user1' IF balance = -8;
INSERT INTO purchases (user, expense_id, amount, description, paid)
VALUES ('user1', 2, 200, 'hotel room', false);
APPLY BATCH;
Because the column is static, you can provide only the partition key when updating the data. To update
a non-static column, you would also have to provide a clustering key. Using batched conditional updates,
you can maintain a running balance. If the balance were stored in a separate table, maintaining a running

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Using CQL

balance would not be posssible because a batch having conditional updates cannot span multiple
partitions.
SELECT * FROM purchases;
At this point, the output is:
user | expense_id | balance | amount | description | paid
-------+------------+---------+--------+-------------+------user1 |
1 |
-208 |
8 |
burrito | False
user1 |
2 |
-208 |
200 | hotel room | False
You could then use a conditional batch to update records to clear the balance.
BEGIN BATCH
UPDATE purchases SET balance=-200 WHERE user='user1' IF balance=-208;
UPDATE purchases SET paid=true WHERE user='user1' AND expense_id=1 IF
paid=false;
APPLY BATCH;
SELECT * FROM purchases;
user | expense_id | balance | amount | description | paid
-------+------------+---------+--------+-------------+------user1 |
1 |
-200 |
8 |
burrito | True
user1 |
2 |
-208 |
200 | hotel room | False

Using and misusing batches

When to use batches.

Batches are often mistakenly used in an attempt to optimize performance. Unlogged batches require the
coordinator to manage inserts, which can place a heavy load on the coordinator node. If other nodes own
partition keys, the coordinator node needs to deal with a network hop, resulting in inefficient delivery. Use
unlogged batches when making updates to the same partition key.
Using a primary key of (date, timestamp) for example, this unlogged batch resolves to only one write
internally, regardless of the number of writes, assuming all have the same date value.
BEGIN UNLOGGED BATCH;
INSERT INTO sensor_readings (date, time, reading) values
(20140910,'2014-09-10T11:00:00.00+0000', 6335.2);
INSERT INTO sensor_readings (date, time, reading) values
(20140910,'2014-09-10T11:00:15.00+0000', 5222.2);
APPLY BATCH;
The coordinator node might also need to work hard to process a logged batch while maintaining
consistency between tables. For example, upon receiving a batch, the coordinator node sends batch logs
to two other nodes. In the event of a coordinator failure, the other nodes retry the batch. The entire cluster
is affected. Use a logged batch to synchronize tables, as shown in this example:
BEGIN BATCH;
UPDATE users
SET state = 'TX'
WHERE user_uuid = 8a172618-b121-4136-bb10-f665cfc469eb;
UPDATE users_by_ssn
SET state = 'TX'
WHERE ssn = '888-99-3987';
APPLY BATCH;

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Using CQL

For information about the fastest way to load data, see "Cassandra: Batch loading without the Batch
keyword."

Using the keyspace qualifier

To simplify tracking multiple keyspaces, use the keyspace qualifier instead of the USE statement.

Sometimes issuing a USE statement to select a keyspace is inconvenient. If you use connection pooling,
for example, you have multiple keyspaces to juggle. To simplify tracking multiple keyspaces, use the
keyspace qualifier instead of the USE statement. You can specify the keyspace using the keyspace
qualifier in these statements:

ALTER TABLE
CREATE TABLE
DELETE
INSERT
SELECT
TRUNCATE
UPDATE

Procedure
To specify a table when you are not in the keyspace containing the table, use the name of the keyspace
followed by a period, then the table name. For example, Music.playlists.

INSERT INTO Music.playlists (id, title, artist, album)

VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 'La Grange', 'ZZ Top',
'Tres Hombres');

Adding columns to a table

Adding columns to a table with the ALTER TABLE command.

The ALTER TABLE command adds new columns to a table.

Procedure
Add a coupon_code column with the varchar data type to the users table.
cqlsh:demodb> ALTER TABLE users ADD coupon_code varchar;
This creates the column metadata and adds the column to the table schema, but does not update any
existing rows.

Expiring data
Data in a column, other than a counter column, can have an optional expiration period called TTL (time to live).

Data in a column, other than a counter column, can have an optional expiration period called TTL (time to
live). The client request specifies a TTL value, defined in seconds, for the data. TTL data is marked with
a tombstone after the requested amount of time has expired. A tombstone exists for gc_grace_seconds.
After data is marked with a tombstone, the data is automatically removed during the normal compaction
and repair processes.

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Using CQL

Use CQL to set the TTL for data.

If you want to change the TTL of expiring data, you have to re-insert the data with a new TTL. In
Cassandra, the insertion of data is actually an insertion or update operation, depending on whether or not a
previous version of the data exists.
TTL data has a precision of one second, as calculated on the server. Therefore, a very small TTL probably
does not make much sense. Moreover, the clocks on the servers should be synchronized; otherwise
reduced precision could be observed because the expiration time is computed on the primary host that
receives the initial insertion but is then interpreted by other hosts on the cluster.
Expiring data has an additional overhead of 8 bytes in memory and on disk (to record the TTL and
expiration time) compared to standard data.

Expiring data example

Using the INSERT and UPDATE commands for setting the expire time for data in a column.

Both the INSERT and UPDATE commands support setting a time for data in a column to expire. The
expiration time (TTL) is set using CQL.

Procedure
1. Use the INSERT command to set a password column in the users table to expire in 86400 seconds, or
one day.

cqlsh:demodb> INSERT INTO users

(user_name, password)
VALUES ('cbrown', 'ch@ngem4a') USING TTL 86400;
2. Extend the expiration period to five days by using the UPDATE command/

cqlsh:demodb> UPDATE users USING TTL 432000 SET password = 'ch@ngem4a'

WHERE user_name = 'cbrown';

Determining time-to-live for a column

Steps for creating a table, inserting data into two columns, and calling the TTL function to retrieve the date/time of the writes to the columns.

This procedure creates a table, inserts data into two columns, and calls the TTL function to retrieve the
date/time of the writes to the columns.

Procedure
1. Create a users table named clicks in the excelsior keyspace.
CREATE TABLE excelsior.clicks (
userid uuid,
url text,
date timestamp, //unrelated to WRITETIME discussed in the next section
name text,
PRIMARY KEY (userid, url)
);
2. Insert data into the table, including a date in yyyy-mm-dd format, and set that data to expire in a day
(86400 seconds). Use the USING TTL clause to set the expiration period.
INSERT INTO excelsior.clicks (

32

Using CQL

userid, url, date, name)

VALUES (
3715e600-2eb0-11e2-81c1-0800200c9a66,
'http://apache.org',
'2013-10-09', 'Mary')
USING TTL 86400;
3. Wait for a while and then issue a SELECT statement to determine how much longer the data entered in
step 2 has to live.
SELECT TTL (name) from excelsior.clicks
WHERE url = 'http://apache.org' ALLOW FILTERING;
Output is, for example, 85908 seconds:
ttl(name)
----------85908
(1 rows)

Removing a keyspace, schema, or data

Using the DROP and DELETE commands.

To remove data, you can set column values for automatic removal using the TTL (time-to-expire) table
attribute. You can also drop a table or keyspace, and delete keyspace column metadata.

Dropping a table or keyspace

Steps for dropping table or keyspace using the DROP command.

You drop a table or keyspace using the DROP command.

Procedure
1. Drop the users table.
cqlsh:demodb> DROP TABLE users;
2. Drop the demodb keyspace.
cqlsh:demodb> DROP KEYSPACE demodb;

Deleting columns and rows

Using the DELETE command to delete a column or row.

CQL provides the DELETE command to delete a column or row. Deleted values are removed completely
by the first compaction following deletion.

Procedure
1. Deletes user jsmith's session token column.
cqlsh:demodb> DELETE session_token FROM users where pk = 'jsmith';

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Using CQL

2. Delete jsmith's entire row.

cqlsh:demodb> DELETE FROM users where pk = 'jsmith';

Determining the date/time of a write

Using the WRITETIME function in a SELECT statement to determine when the date/time that the column was written to the database.

A table contains a timestamp representing the date/time that a write occurred to a column. Using the
WRITETIME function in a SELECT statement returns the date/time that the column was written to the
database. The output of the function is microseconds except in the case of Cassandra 2.1 counter
columns. Counter column writetime is milliseconds. This procedure continues the example from the
previous procedure and calls the WRITETIME function to retrieve the date/time of the writes to the
columns.

Procedure
1. Insert more data into the table.
INSERT INTO excelsior.clicks (
userid, url, date, name)
VALUES (
cfd66ccc-d857-4e90-b1e5-df98a3d40cd6,
'http://google.com',
'2013-10-11', 'Bob'
);
2. Retrieve the date/time that the value Mary was written to the name column of the apache.org data. Use
the WRITETIME function in a SELECT statement, followed by the name of a column in parentheses:
SELECT WRITETIME (name) FROM excelsior.clicks
WHERE url = 'http://apache.org' ALLOW FILTERING;
The writetime output in microseconds converts to Sun, 14 Jul 2013 21:57:58 GMT or to 2:57 pm Pacific
time.
writetime(name)
-----------------1373839078327001
3. Retrieve the date/time of the last write to the date column for google.com data.
SELECT WRITETIME (date) FROM excelsior.clicks
WHERE url = 'http://google.com' ALLOW FILTERING;
The writetime output in microseconds converts to Sun, 14 Jul 2013 22:03:15 GMT or 3:03 pm Pacific
time.
writetime(date)
-----------------1373839395324001

34

Using CQL

Altering the data type of a column

Changing the data type of a column after it is defined or added to a table using ALTER TABLE.

Using ALTER TABLE, you can change the data type of a column after it is defined or added to a table.

Procedure
Change the coupon_code column to store coupon codes as integers instead of text by changing the
data type of the column.
cqlsh:demodb> ALTER TABLE users ALTER coupon_code TYPE int;
Only newly inserted values, not existing coupon codes are validated against the new type.

Using collections
Collection types provide an improved way of handling tasks, such as building multiple email address capability into tables.

Cassandra includes collection types that provide an improved way of handling tasks, such as building
multiple email address capability into tables. Observe the following limitations of collections:

The maximum size of an item in a collection is 64K or 2B, depending on the native protocol version.
Keep collections small to prevent delays during querying because Cassandra reads a collection in its
entirety. The collection is not paged internally.
As discussed earlier, collections are designed to store only a small amount of data.
Never insert more than 64K items in a collection.
If you insert more than 64K items into a collection, only 64K of them will be queryable, resulting in data
loss.

Note: For detailed limits on collections, see CQL limits.

You can expire each element of a collection by setting an individual time-to-live (TTL) property.

Using the set type

Using the set data type, you can solve the multiple email problem in an intuitive way that does not require a read before adding a new email address.

A set stores a group of elements that are returned in sorted order when queried. A column of type set
consists of unordered unique values. Using the set data type, you can solve the multiple email problem in
an intuitive way that does not require a read before adding a new email address.

Procedure
1. Define a set, emails, in the users table to accommodate multiple email address.
CREATE TABLE users (
user_id text PRIMARY KEY,
first_name text,
last_name text,
emails set<text>
);
2. Insert data into the set, enclosing values in curly brackets.
Set values must be unique.
INSERT INTO users (user_id, first_name, last_name, emails)

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Using CQL

VALUES('frodo', 'Frodo', 'Baggins', {'[email protected]',

'[email protected]'});
3. Add an element to a set using the UPDATE command and the addition (+) operator.
UPDATE users
SET emails = emails + {'[email protected]'} WHERE user_id =
'frodo';
4. Retrieve email addresses for frodo from the set.
SELECT user_id, emails FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
When you query a table containing a collection, Cassandra retrieves the collection in its entirety;
consequently, keep collections small enough to be manageable, or construct a data model to replace
collections that can accommodate large amounts of data.
Cassandra returns results in an order based on the type of the elements in the collection. For example,
a set of text elements is returned in alphabetical order. If you want elements of the collection returned in
insertion order, use a list.
user_id | emails
--------+------------------------------------------------------------------frodo
|
{"[email protected]","[email protected]","[email protected]"}
5. Remove an element from a set using the subtraction (-) operator.
UPDATE users
SET emails = emails - {'[email protected]'} WHERE user_id =
'frodo';
6. Remove all elements from a set by using the UPDATE or DELETE statement.
A set, list, or map needs to have at least one element; otherwise, Cassandra cannot distinguish the set
from a null value.
UPDATE users SET emails = {} WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
DELETE emails FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
A query for the emails returns null.
SELECT user_id, emails FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
user_id | emails
---------+--------frodo
| null

Using the list type

Use a list when the order of elements matter or when you need to store same value multiple times.

When the order of elements matters, which may not be the natural order dictated by the type of the
elements, use a list. Also, use a list when you need to store same value multiple times. List values are
returned according to their index value in the list, whereas set values are returned in alphabetical order,
assuming the values are text.

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Using CQL

Using the list type you can add a list of preferred places for each user in a users table, and then query the
database for the top x places for a user.

Procedure
1. Add a list declaration to a table by adding a column top_places of the list type to the users table.
ALTER TABLE users ADD top_places list<text>;
2. Use the UPDATE command to insert values into the list.

UPDATE users
SET top_places = [ 'rivendell', 'rohan' ] WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
3. Prepend an element to the list by enclosing it in square brackets, and using the addition (+) operator.

UPDATE users
SET top_places = [ 'the shire' ] + top_places WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
4. Append an element to the list by switching the order of the new element data and the list name in the
UPDATE command.

UPDATE users
SET top_places = top_places + [ 'mordor' ] WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
These update operations are implemented internally without any read-before-write. Appending and
prepending a new element to the list writes only the new element.
5. Add an element at a particular position using the list index position in square brackets
UPDATE users SET top_places[2] = 'riddermark' WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
When you add an element at a particular position, Cassandra reads the entire list, and then writes only
the updated element. Consequently, adding an element at a particular position results in greater latency
than appending or prefixing an element to a list.
6. Remove an element from a list using the DELETE command and the list index position in square
brackets. For example, remove mordor, leaving the shire, rivendell, and riddermark.
DELETE top_places[3] FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
7. Remove all elements having a particular value using the UPDATE command, the subtraction operator
(-), and the list value in square brackets. For example, remove riddermark.
UPDATE users
SET top_places = top_places - ['riddermark'] WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
The former, indexed method of removing elements from a list requires a read internally. Using the
UPDATE command as shown here is recommended over emulating the operation client-side by reading
the whole list, finding the indexes that contain the value to remove, and then removing those indexes.
This emulation would not be thread-safe. If another thread/client prefixes elements to the list between
the read and the write, the wrong elements are removed. Using the UPDATE command as shown here
does not suffer from that problem.
8. Query the database for a list of top places.
SELECT user_id, top_places FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';

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Using CQL

Results show:
user_id | top_places
---------+---------------------------frodo | ['the shire', 'rivendell']

Using the map type

Using the map type, you can store timestamp-related information in user profiles. A map is a name and a pair of typed values that maps one thing to another.

As its name implies, a map maps one thing to another. A map is a name and a pair of typed values. Using
the map type, you can store timestamp-related information in user profiles. Each element of the map is
internally stored as one Cassandra column that you can modify, replace, delete, and query. Each element
can have an individual time-to-live and expire when the TTL ends.

Procedure
1. Add a todo list to every user profile in an existing users table using the CREATE TABLE or ALTER
statement, specifying the map collection and enclosing the pair of data types in angle brackets.
ALTER TABLE users ADD todo map<timestamp, text>;
2. Set or replace map data, using the INSERT or UPDATE command, and enclosing the timestamp and
text values in a map collection: curly brackets, separated by a colon.
UPDATE users
SET todo =
{ '2012-9-24' : 'enter mordor',
'2014-10-2 12:00' : 'throw ring into mount doom' }
WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
3. Set a specific element using the UPDATE command, enclosing the timestamp of the element in square
brackets, and using the equals operator to map the value to that timestamp.
UPDATE users SET todo['2014-10-2 12:00'] = 'throw my precious into mount
doom'
WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
4. Use INSERT to specify data in a map collection.
INSERT INTO users (user_id, todo) VALUES ('frodo', { '2013-9-22 12:01' :
'birthday wishes to Bilbo', '2013-10-1 18:00': 'Check into Inn of Pracing
Pony'}) ;
In Cassandra 2.1.1 and later, you can add map elements using this syntax:
UPDATE users SET todo = todo + { '2013-9-22 12:01' : 'birthday wishes
to Bilbo', '2013-10-1 18:00': 'Check into Inn of Pracing Pony'} WHERE
user_id='frodo';
Inserting this data into the map replaces the entire map.
5. Delete an element from the map using the DELETE command and enclosing the timestamp of the
element in square brackets:
DELETE todo['2013-9-22 12:01'] FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';

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Using CQL

In Cassandra 2.1.1 and later, you can delete multiple map elements using this syntax:
UPDATE users SET todo=todo - {'2013-9-22 12:01','2013-10-01
18:00:00-0700'} WHERE user_id='frodo';
6. Retrieve the todo map.
SELECT user_id, todo FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
The order of the map output depends on the type of the map.
7. Compute the TTL to use to expire todo list elements on the day of the timestamp, and set the elements
to expire.
UPDATE users USING TTL <computed_ttl>
SET todo['2012-10-1'] = 'find water' WHERE user_id = 'frodo';

Indexing a column
Using cqlsh to create an index on column values.

You can use cqlsh to create an index on column values. In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can index
collection columns. Indexing can impact performance greatly. Before creating an index, be aware of when
and when not to create an index.

Procedure
1. Creates an index on the state and birth_year columns in the users table.
cqlsh:demodb> CREATE INDEX state_key ON users (state);
cqlsh:demodb> CREATE INDEX birth_year_key ON users (birth_year);
2. Query the columns that are now indexed.
cqlsh:demodb> SELECT * FROM users
WHERE gender = 'f' AND
state = 'TX' AND
birth_year > 1968
ALLOW FILTERING;

Using lightweight transactions

INSERT and UPDATE statements that use the IF clause support lightweight transactions, also known as Compare and Set (CAS).

INSERT and UPDATE statements using the IF clause, support lightweight transactions, also known as
Compare and Set (CAS).

Procedure
1. Register a new user.
INSERT INTO users (login, email, name, login_count)
VALUES ('jdoe', '[email protected]', 'Jane Doe', 1)
IF NOT EXISTS;

39

Using CQL

2. Perform a CAS operation against a row that does exist by adding the predicate for the operation at the
end of the query. For example, reset Jane Doe's password.
UPDATE users
SET email = [email protected]
WHERE login = 'jdoe'
IF email = [email protected];

Paging through unordered partitioner results

Using CQL to page through rows.

When using the RandomPartitioner or Murmur3Partitioner, Cassandra rows are ordered by the hash of
their value and hence the order of rows is not meaningful. Using CQL, you can page through rows even
when using the random partitioner or the murmur3 partitioner using the token function as shown in this
example:
SELECT * FROM test WHERE token(k) > token(42);
The ByteOrdered partitioner arranges tokens the same way as key values, but the RandomPartitioner
and Murmur3Partitioner distribute tokens in a completely unordered manner. The token function makes
it possible to page through these unordered partitioner results. Using the token function actually queries
results directly using tokens. Underneath, the token function makes token-based comparisons and does
not convert keys to tokens (not k > 42).
You can use the TOKEN function to express a conditional relation on a partition key column. In this case,
the query returns rows based on the token of the partition key rather than on the value.

Using a counter
A counter is a special column for storing a number that is changed in increments.

A counter is a special column used to store a number that is changed in increments. For example, you
might use a counter column to count the number of times a page is viewed.
Cassandra 2.1 counter column improves the implementation of counters and provides a number
of configuration options to tune counters. In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can configure how long
the coordinator can wait for counter writes to complete, the size of the counter cache in memory,
how long Cassandra waits before saving counter cache keys, the number of keys to save, and
concurrent_counter_writes. You set the options in the cassandra.yaml file. The replicate_on_write table
property used by the Cassandra 2.0.x counter implementation has been removed from Cassandra 2.1.
Define a counter in a dedicated table only and use the counter data type. You cannot index, delete, or readd a counter column. All non-counter columns in the table must be defined as part of the primary key.
To load data into a counter column, or to increase or decrease the value of the counter, use the UPDATE
command. Cassandra rejects USING TIMESTAMP or USING TTL in the command to update a counter
column.

Procedure
1. Create a keyspace. For example, on Linux create a keyspace for use in a single data center having
a replication factor of 3. Use the default data center name from the output of the nodetool status
command, for example datacenter1.
CREATE KEYSPACE counterks WITH REPLICATION =
{ 'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 3 };

40

Using CQL

2. Create a table for the counter column.

CREATE TABLE counterks.page_view_counts

(counter_value counter,
url_name varchar,
page_name varchar,
PRIMARY KEY (url_name, page_name)
);
3. Load data into the counter column.
UPDATE counterks.page_view_counts
SET counter_value = counter_value + 1
WHERE url_name='www.datastax.com' AND page_name='home';
4. Take a look at the counter value.
SELECT * FROM counterks.page_view_counts;
Output is:
url_name
| page_name | counter_value
------------------+-----------+--------------www.datastax.com |
home |
1
5. Increase the value of the counter.
UPDATE counterks.page_view_counts
SET counter_value = counter_value + 2
WHERE url_name='www.datastax.com' AND page_name='home';
6. Take a look at the counter value.
url_name
| page_name | counter_value
------------------+-----------+--------------www.datastax.com |
home |
3

Tracing consistency changes

This tutorial shows the difference between these consistency levels and the number of replicas that participate to satisfy a request.

In a distributed system such as Cassandra, the most recent value of data is not necessarily on every node
all the time. The client application configures the consistency level per request to manage response time
versus data accuracy. By tracing activity on a five-node cluster, this tutorial shows the difference between
these consistency levels and the number of replicas that participate to satisfy a request:

ONE

Returns data from the nearest replica.

QUORUM

Returns the most recent data from the majority of replicas.

ALL
Returns the most recent data from all replicas.

Follow instructions to setup five nodes on your local computer, trace reads at different consistency levels,
and then compare the results.

41

Using CQL

Setup to trace consistency changes

Steps for tracing consistency changes.

To setup five nodes on your local computer, trace reads at different consistency levels, and then compare
the results.

Procedure
1. Get the ccm library of scripts from github.
You will use this library in subsequent steps to perform the following actions:

Download Apache Cassandra source code.

Create and launch an Apache Cassandra cluster on a single computer.

Refer to the ccm README for prerequisites.

2. Set up loopback aliases. For example, enter the following commands on the command line to set up the
alias on the Mac. On some platforms, you can probably skip this step.
$ sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.2 up
$ sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.3 up
$ sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.4 up
$ sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.5 up
3. Download Apache Cassandra source code, version 2.1.0 for example, into the /.ccm/repository, and
start the ccm cluster named trace_consistency.
$ ccm create trace_consistency -v 2.1.0
Downloading http://archive.apache.org/dist/cassandra/2.1.0/
apache-cassandra-2.1.0-src.tar.gz to /var/folders/9k/
ywsprd8n14s7hzb5qnztgb5h0000gq/T/ccm-d7fGAN.tar.gz (15.750MB)
16514874 [100.00%]
Extracting /var/folders/9k/ywsprd8n14s7hzb5qnztgb5h0000gq/T/ccmd7fGAN.tar.gz as version 2.1.0 ...
Compiling Cassandra 2.1.0 ...
Current cluster is now: trace_consistency
4. Use the following commands to populate and check the cluster:
$ ccm populate -n 5
$ ccm start
5. Check that the cluster is up:
$ ccm node1 ring
The output shows the status of all five nodes.
Related information
Cassandra 2.0 cassandra.yaml
Cassandra 2.1 cassandra.yaml

Trace reads at different consistency levels

Running and tracing queries that read data at different consistency levels.

After performing the setup steps, run and trace queries that read data at different consistency levels. The
tracing output shows that using three replicas on a five-node cluster, a consistency level of ONE processes
responses from one of three replicas, QUORUM from two of three replicas, and ALL from three of three
replicas.

42

Using CQL

Procedure
1. Connect cqlsh to the first node in the ring.
$ ccm node1 cqlsh
2. On the cqlsh command line, create a keyspace that specifies using three replica for data distribution in
the cluster.
cqlsh> CREATE KEYSPACE demo_cl WITH replication =
{'class':'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor':3};
3. In the three-replica keyspace, create a table, and insert some values:
cqlsh> USE demo_cl;
cqlsh:demo_cl> CREATE TABLE demo_table ( id int PRIMARY KEY, col1 int,
col2 int );
cqlsh:demo_cl> INSERT INTO demo_table (id, col1, col2) VALUES (0, 0, 0);
4. Turn on tracing and use the CONSISTENCY command to check that the consistency level is ONE, the
default.
cqlsh:demo_cl> TRACING on;
cqlsh:demo_cl> CONSISTENCY;
The output should be:
Current consistency level is 1.
5. Query the table to read the value of the primary key.
cqlsh:demo_cl> SELECT * FROM demo_table WHERE id = 0;
The output includes tracing information:
id | col1 | col2
----+------+-----0 |
0 |
0
(1 rows)
Tracing session: 0f5058d0-6761-11e4-96a3-fd07420471ed
activity

| timestamp
| source
|
source_elapsed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+-----------+---------------Execute CQL3 query | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.437000 | 127.0.0.1 |
0
Parsing SELECT * FROM demo_table WHERE id = 0 LIMIT 10000;
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.438000 | 127.0.0.1 |
820
Preparing statement
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.438000 | 127.0.0.1 |
1637
Sending message
to /127.0.0.3 [WRITE-/127.0.0.3] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.439000 | 127.0.0.1
|
2211

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Using CQL

Sending message
to /127.0.0.4 [WRITE-/127.0.0.4] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.439000 | 127.0.0.1
|
2237
Message received
from /127.0.0.1 [Thread-10] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.441000 | 127.0.0.3 |
75
Executing single-partition query on demo_table
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.441000 | 127.0.0.4 |
818
Acquiring sstable references
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.441000 | 127.0.0.4 |
861
Merging memtable tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.441000 | 127.0.0.4 |
915
Skipped 0/0 non-slice-intersecting sstables, included 0 due to tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442000 | 127.0.0.4 |
999
Merging data from memtables and 0 sstables
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442000 | 127.0.0.4 |
1018
Merging memtable tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442000 | 127.0.0.3 |
1058
Skipped 0/0 non-slice-intersecting sstables, included 0 due to tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442000 | 127.0.0.3 |
1146
Merging data from memtables and 0 sstables
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442000 | 127.0.0.3 |
1165
Read 1 live and 0 tombstoned cells
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442000 | 127.0.0.3 |
1223
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.442001 | 127.0.0.3 |
1504
Message received
from /127.0.0.4 [Thread-7] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.443000 | 127.0.0.1 |
6399
Sending message
to /127.0.0.1 [WRITE-/127.0.0.1] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.443000 | 127.0.0.3
|
1835
Message received
from /127.0.0.3 [Thread-8] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.443000 | 127.0.0.1 |
6449
Processing response from /127.0.0.4
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.443000 | 127.0.0.1 |
6623
Processing response from /127.0.0.3
[SharedPool-Worker-3] | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.443000 | 127.0.0.1 |
6635
Request complete | 2014-11-08 08:05:29.443897 | 127.0.0.1 |
6897
6. Change the consistency level to QUORUM and run the SELECT statement again.
cqlsh:demo_cl> CONSISTENCY quorum;
cqlsh:demo_cl> SELECT * FROM demo_table WHERE id = 0;
id | col1 | col2
----+------+-----0 |
0 |
0

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Using CQL

(1 rows)
Tracing session: 3bbae430-6761-11e4-96a3-fd07420471ed
activity

| timestamp
| source
|
source_elapsed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+-----------+---------------Execute CQL3 query | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.955000 | 127.0.0.1 |
0
Parsing SELECT * FROM demo_table WHERE id = 0 LIMIT 10000;
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.955000 | 127.0.0.1 |
71
Preparing statement
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.955000 | 127.0.0.1 |
267
Sending message
to /127.0.0.4 [WRITE-/127.0.0.4] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.956000 | 127.0.0.1
|
1628
Sending message
to /127.0.0.5 [WRITE-/127.0.0.5] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.956000 | 127.0.0.1
|
1690
Message received
from /127.0.0.1 [Thread-9] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.5 |
95
Executing single-partition query on demo_table
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.4 |
229
Acquiring sstable references
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.4 |
249
Merging memtable tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.4 |
299
Skipped 0/0 non-slice-intersecting sstables, included 0 due to tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.4 |
387
Merging data from memtables and 0 sstables
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.4 |
408
Read 1 live and 0 tombstoned cells
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957000 | 127.0.0.4 |
469
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957001 | 127.0.0.4 |
734
Sending message
to /127.0.0.1 [WRITE-/127.0.0.1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.957001 | 127.0.0.4
|
894
Message received
from /127.0.0.4 [Thread-7] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.958000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3383
Processing response from /127.0.0.4
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.958000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3612
Executing single-partition query on demo_table
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959000 | 127.0.0.5 |
1462

45

Using CQL

Acquiring sstable references

[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959000 | 127.0.0.5 |
1509
Merging memtable tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959000 | 127.0.0.5 |
1569
Skipped 0/0 non-slice-intersecting sstables, included 0 due to tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959000 | 127.0.0.5 |
1662
Merging data from memtables and 0 sstables
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959000 | 127.0.0.5 |
1681
Read 1 live and 0 tombstoned cells
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959000 | 127.0.0.5 |
1760
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.959001 | 127.0.0.5 |
2104
Message received
from /127.0.0.5 [Thread-10] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.960000 | 127.0.0.1 |
5330
Sending message
to /127.0.0.1 [WRITE-/127.0.0.1] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.960000 | 127.0.0.5
|
2423
Processing response from /127.0.0.5
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.960000 | 127.0.0.1 |
5519
Request complete | 2014-11-08 08:06:43.960947 | 127.0.0.1 |
5947
7. Change the consistency level to ALL and run the SELECT statement again.
cqlsh:demo_cl> CONSISTENCY ALL;
cqlsh:demo_cl> SELECT * FROM demo_table WHERE id = 0;
id | col1 | col2
----+------+-----0 |
0 |
0
(1 rows)
Tracing session: 4da75ca0-6761-11e4-96a3-fd07420471ed
activity

| timestamp
| source
|
source_elapsed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------+-----------+---------------Execute CQL3 query | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.026000 | 127.0.0.1 |
0
Parsing SELECT * FROM demo_table WHERE id = 0 LIMIT 10000;
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.026000 | 127.0.0.1 |
73
Preparing statement
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.026000 | 127.0.0.1 |
271
Sending message
to /127.0.0.4 [WRITE-/127.0.0.4] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.1
|
978

46

Using CQL

Message received
from /127.0.0.1 [Thread-9] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.5 |
56
Sending message
to /127.0.0.5 [WRITE-/127.0.0.5] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.1
|
1012
Executing single-partition query on demo_table
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.3 |
253
Sending message
to /127.0.0.3 [WRITE-/127.0.0.3] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.1
|
1054
Acquiring sstable references
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.3 |
275
Merging memtable tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.027000 | 127.0.0.3 |
344
Skipped 0/0 non-slice-intersecting sstables, included 0 due to tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028000 | 127.0.0.3 |
438
Acquiring sstable references
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028000 | 127.0.0.5 |
461
Merging memtable tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028000 | 127.0.0.5 |
525
Skipped 0/0 non-slice-intersecting sstables, included 0 due to tombstones
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028000 | 127.0.0.5 |
622
Merging data from memtables and 0 sstables
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028000 | 127.0.0.5 |
645
Read 1 live and 0 tombstoned cells
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028000 | 127.0.0.5 |
606
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
[SharedPool-Worker-1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.028001 | 127.0.0.5 |
1125
Message received
from /127.0.0.3 [Thread-8] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.029000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3224
Sending message
to /127.0.0.1 [WRITE-/127.0.0.1] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.029000 | 127.0.0.5
|
1616
Processing response from /127.0.0.3
[SharedPool-Worker-3] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.029000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3417
Message received
from /127.0.0.5 [Thread-10] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.029000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3454
Message received
from /127.0.0.4 [Thread-7] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.029000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3516
Processing response from /127.0.0.5
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.029000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3627
Processing response from /127.0.0.4
[SharedPool-Worker-2] | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.030000 | 127.0.0.1 |
3688
Request complete | 2014-11-08 08:07:14.030347 | 127.0.0.1 |
4347

47

CQL reference

How consistency affects performance

Changing the consistency level can affect read performance. The tracing output shows that as you change the consistency level, performance is affected.

Changing the consistency level can affect read performance. The tracing output shows that as you change
the consistency level from ONE to QUORUM to ALL, performance degrades in from 2585 to 2998 to 5219
microseconds, respectively. If you follow the steps in this tutorial, it is not guaranteed that you will see the
same trend because querying a one-row table is a degenerate case, used for example purposes. The
difference between QUORUM and ALL is slight in this case, so depending on conditions in the cluster,
performance using ALL might be faster than QUORUM.
Under the following conditions, performance using ALL is worse than QUORUM:

The data consists of thousands of rows or more.

One node is slower than others.
A particularly slow node was not selected to be part of the quorum.

Tracing queries on large datasets

You can use probabilistic tracing on databases having at least ten rows, but this capability is intended
for tracing through much more data. After configuring probabilistic tracing using the nodetool
settraceprobability command, you query the system_traces keyspace.
SELECT * FROM system_traces.events;

CQL reference
CQL reference topics.

Introduction
About using CQL.

All of the commands included in the CQL language are available on the cqlsh command line. There are
a group of commands that are available on the command line, but are not support by the CQL language.
These commands are called cqlsh commands. You can run cqlsh commands from the command line only.
You can run CQL commands in a number of ways.
This reference covers CQL and cqlsh based on the CQL specification 3.1.0-3.1.6. CQL 2 is deprecated
and removal is planned for Cassandra 3.0.

CQL lexical structure

CQL input consists of statements that change data, look up data, store data, or change the way data is stored.

CQL input consists of statements. Like SQL, statements change data, look up data, store data, or change
the way data is stored. Statements end in a semicolon (;).
For example, the following is valid CQL syntax:
SELECT * FROM MyTable;
UPDATE MyTable
SET SomeColumn = 'SomeValue'
WHERE columnName = B70DE1D0-9908-4AE3-BE34-5573E5B09F14;
This is a sequence of two CQL statements. This example shows one statement per line, although a
statement can usefully be split across lines as well.

48

CQL reference

Uppercase and lowercase

Keyspace, column, and table names created using CQL are case-insensitive unless enclosed in double quotation marks.

Keyspace, column, and table names created using CQL are case-insensitive unless enclosed in double
quotation marks. If you enter names for these objects using any uppercase letters, Cassandra stores the
names in lowercase. You can force the case by using double quotation marks. For example:
CREATE TABLE test (
Foo int PRIMARY KEY,
"Bar" int
);
The following table shows partial queries that work and do not work to return results from the test table:
Table: What Works and What Doesn't
Queries that Work

Queries that Don't Work

SELECT foo FROM . . .

SELECT "Foo" FROM . . .

SELECT Foo FROM . . .

SELECT "BAR" FROM . . .

SELECT FOO FROM . . .

SELECT bar FROM . . .

SELECT "foo" FROM . . .

SELECT Bar FROM . . .

SELECT "Bar" FROM . . .

SELECT "foo" FROM ... works because internally, Cassandra stores foo in lowercase. The doublequotation mark character can be used as an escape character for the double quotation mark.
Case sensitivity rules in earlier versions of CQL apply when handling legacy tables.
CQL keywords are case-insensitive. For example, the keywords SELECT and select are equivalent. This
document shows keywords in uppercase.

Valid characters for data types and keyspace/table/column

names
Keyspace, column, and table names created using CQL have restrictions regarding valid characters.

Keyspace, column, and table names created using CQL can only contain alphanumeric and underscore
characters. User-defined data type names and field names, user-defined function names, and userdefined aggregate names created using CQL can only contain alphanumeric and underscore characters.
If you enter names for these objects using anything other than alphanumeric characters or underscores,
Cassandra will issue an invalid syntax message and fail to create the object.
Table: What Works and What Doesn't
Creations that Work

Creations that Don't Work

CREATE TABLE foo ...

CREATE TABLE foo!$% ...

CREATE TABLE foo_bar ...

CREATE TABLE foo[]"90 ...

ALTER TABLE foo5 ...

ALTER TABLE foo5$$

CREATE FUNCTION foo5 ...

CREATE FUNCTION foo5$$

CREATE AGGREGATE foo5 ...

CREATE AGGREGATE foo5$$

CREATE TYPE foo5 (bar9 text, ...

CREATE TYPE foo5$$ (bar#9 int ...

49

CQL reference

Escaping characters
Using single and double quotation marks in CQL.

Column names that contain characters that CQL cannot parse need to be enclosed in double quotation
marks in CQL.
Dates, IP addresses, and strings need to be enclosed in single quotation marks. To use a single quotation
mark itself in a string literal, escape it using a single quotation mark.

Valid literals
Values and definitions of valid literals.

Valid literal consist of these kinds of values:

blob

hexadecimal defined as 0[xX](hex)+

boolean

true or false, case-insensitive, not enclosed in quotation marks

numeric constant
A numeric constant can consist of integers 0-9 and a minus sign prefix. A numeric constant can also
be float. A float can be a series of one or more decimal digits, followed by a period, ., and one or more
decimal digits. There is no optional + sign. The forms .42 and 42 are unacceptable. You can use
leading or trailing zeros before and after decimal points. For example, 0.42 and 42.0. A float constant,
expressed in E notation, consists of the characters in this regular expression:
'-'?[0-9]+('.'[0-9]*)?([eE][+-]?[0-9+])?

NaN and Infinity are floats.

identifier

A letter followed by any sequence of letters, digits, or the underscore. Names of tables, columns, and
other objects are identifiers and enclosed in double quotation marks.
integer

An optional minus sign, -, followed by one or more digits.

string literal

Characters enclosed in single quotation marks. To use a single quotation mark itself in a string literal,
escape it using a single quotation mark. For example, use '' to make dog plural: dog''s.
uuid

32 hex digits, 0-9 or a-f, which are case-insensitive, separated by dashes, -, after the 8th, 12th, 16th,
and 20th digits. For example: 01234567-0123-0123-0123-0123456789ab
timeuuid

Uses the time in 100 nanosecond intervals since 00:00:00.00 UTC (60 bits), a clock sequence number
for prevention of duplicates (14 bits), plus the IEEE 801 MAC address (48 bits) to generate a unique
identifier. For example: d2177dd0-eaa2-11de-a572-001b779c76e3
whitespace
Separates terms and used inside string literals, but otherwise CQL ignores whitespace.

Exponential notation
Cassandra supports exponential notation.

Cassandra supports exponential notation. This example shows exponential notation in the output from a
cqlsh command.
CREATE TABLE test(
id varchar PRIMARY KEY,

50

CQL reference

value_double double,
value_float float
);
INSERT INTO test (id, value_float, value_double)
VALUES ('test1', -2.6034345E+38, -2.6034345E+38);
SELECT * FROM test;

id
| value_double | value_float
-------+--------------+------------test1 | -2.6034e+38 | -2.6034e+38

CQL code comments

Commenting CQL code.

You can use the following notation to include comments in CQL code:

Double hypen
-- Single-line comment

Double forward slash

//Single-line comment

Forward slash asterisk

/* Multi-line comment */

CQL Keywords
Table of keywords and whether or not the words are reserved.

This table lists keywords and whether or not the words are reserved. A reserved keyword cannot be used
as an identifier unless you enclose the word in double quotation marks. Non-reserved keywords have a
specific meaning in certain context but can be used as an identifier outside this context.
Table: Keywords
Keyword

Reserved

ADD

yes

ALL

no

ALLOW

yes

ALTER

yes

AND

yes

ANY

yes

APPLY

yes

AS

no

ASC

yes

ASCII

no

AUTHORIZE

yes

51

CQL reference

52

Keyword

Reserved

BATCH

yes

BEGIN

yes

BIGINT

no

BLOB

no

BOOLEAN

no

BY

yes

CLUSTERING

no

COLUMNFAMILY

yes

COMPACT

no

CONSISTENCY

no

COUNT

no

COUNTER

no

CREATE

yes

CUSTOM

no

DECIMAL

no

DELETE

yes

DESC

yes

DISTINCT

no

DOUBLE

no

DROP

yes

EACH_QUORUM

yes

EXISTS

no

FILTERING

no

FLOAT

no

FROM

yes

FROZEN

no

GRANT

yes

IF

yes

IN

yes

INDEX

yes

INET

yes

INFINITY

yes

INSERT

yes

INT

no

CQL reference

Keyword

Reserved

INTO

yes

KEY

no

KEYSPACE

yes

KEYSPACES

yes

LEVEL

no

LIMIT

yes

LIST

no

LOCAL_ONE

yes

LOCAL_QUORUM

yes

MAP

no

MODIFY

yes

NAN

yes

NORECURSIVE

yes

NOSUPERUSER

no

NOT

yes

OF

yes

ON

yes

ONE

yes

ORDER

yes

PASSWORD

yes

PERMISSION

no

PERMISSIONS

no

PRIMARY

yes

QUORUM

yes

RENAME

yes

REVOKE

yes

SCHEMA

yes

SELECT

yes

SET

yes

STATIC

no

STORAGE

no

SUPERUSER

no

TABLE

yes

TEXT

no

53

CQL reference

Keyword

Reserved

TIMESTAMP

no

TIMEUUID

no

THREE

yes

TO

yes

TOKEN

yes

TRUNCATE

yes

TTL

no

TUPLE

no

TWO

yes

TYPE

no

UNLOGGED

yes

UPDATE

yes

USE

yes

USER

no

USERS

no

USING

yes

UUID

no

VALUES

no

VARCHAR

no

VARINT

no

WHERE

yes

WITH

yes

WRITETIME

no

CQL data types

Built-in data types for columns.

CQL defines built-in data types for columns. The counter type is unique.
Table: CQL Data Types

54

CQL Type

Constants

Description

ascii

strings

US-ASCII character string

bigint

integers

64-bit signed long

blob

blobs

Arbitrary bytes (no validation), expressed as

hexadecimal

boolean

booleans

true or false

counter

integers

Distributed counter value (64-bit long)

CQL reference

CQL Type

Constants

Description

decimal

integers, floats

Variable-precision decimal
Java type
Note: When dealing with currency, it is a best
practice to have a currency class that serializes to
and from an int or use the Decimal form.

double

integers, floats

64-bit IEEE-754 floating point

Java type

float

integers, floats

32-bit IEEE-754 floating point

Java type

frozen

tuples, collections, userdefined types

A frozen value serializes multiple components into

a single value. Non-frozen types allow updates to
individual fields. Cassandra treats the value of a
frozen type as a blob. The entire value must be
overwritten.
Note: Cassandra 2.1.0 to 2.1.2 requires using
frozen for tuples:
frozen <tuple <int, tuple<text,
double>>>
Cassandra 2.1.3+ does not require this keyword.

inet

strings

IP address string in IPv4 or IPv6 format, used by

the python-cql driver and CQL native protocols

int

integers

32-bit signed integer

list

n/a

A collection of one or more ordered elements

map

n/a

A JSON-style array of literals: { literal : literal,

literal : literal ... }

set

n/a

A collection of one or more elements

text

strings

UTF-8 encoded string

timestamp

integers, strings

Date plus time, encoded as 8 bytes since epoch

timeuuid

uuids

Type 1 UUID only

tuple

n/a

Cassandra 2.1 and later. A group of 2-3 fields.

uuid

uuids

A UUID in standard UUID format

varchar

strings

UTF-8 encoded string

varint

integers

Arbitrary-precision integer
Java type

In addition to the CQL types listed in this table, you can use a string containing the name of a JAVA class
(a sub-class of AbstractType loadable by Cassandra) as a CQL type. The class name should either be fully
qualified or relative to the org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal package.

55

CQL reference

Enclose ASCII text, timestamp, and inet values in single quotation marks. Enclose names of a keyspace,
table, or column in double quotation marks.

Java types
The Java types, from which most CQL types are derived, are obvious to Java programmers. The derivation
of the following types, however, might not be obvious:
Table: Derivation of selective CQL types
CQL type

Java type

decimal

java.math.BigDecimal

float

java.lang.Float

double

java.lang.Double

varint

java.math.BigInteger

Blob type
Cassandra blob data type represents a constant hexadecimal number.

The Cassandra blob data type represents a constant hexadecimal number defined as 0[xX](hex)+ where
hex is an hexadecimal character, such as [0-9a-fA-F]. For example, 0xcafe. The maximum theoretical size
for a blob is 2GB. The practical limit on blob size, however, is less than 1 MB, ideally even smaller. A blob
type is suitable for storing a small image or short string.

Blob conversion functions

These functions convert the native types into binary data (blob):

typeAsBlob(type)
blobAsType

For every native, nonblob type supported by CQL, the typeAsBlob function takes a argument of type type
and returns it as a blob. Conversely, the blobAsType function takes a 64-bit blob argument and converts it
to a bigint value.
This example shows how to use bitintAsBlob:
CREATE TABLE bios ( user_name varchar PRIMARY KEY,
bio blob
);
INSERT INTO bios (user_name, bio) VALUES ('fred', bigintAsBlob(3));
SELECT * FROM bios;
user_name | bio
-----------+-------------------fred | 0x0000000000000003

This example shows how to use blobAsBigInt.

ALTER TABLE bios ADD id bigint;
INSERT INTO bios (user_name, id) VALUES ('fred',
blobAsBigint(0x0000000000000003));
SELECT * FROM bios;

56

CQL reference

user_name | bio
| id
-----------+--------------------+---fred | 0x0000000000000003 | 3

Collection type
A collection column is declared using the collection type, followed by another type.

A collection column is declared using the collection type, followed by another type, such as int or text, in
angle brackets. For example, you can create a table having a list of textual elements, a list of integers, or a
list of some other element types.
list<text>
list<int>
Collection types cannot currently be nested. For example, you cannot define a list within a list:
list<list<int>>

// not allowed

In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can create an index on a column of type map, set, or list.

Using frozen in a collection

A frozen value serializes multiple components into a single value. Non-frozen types allow updates
to individual fields. Cassandra treats the value of a frozen type as a blob. The entire value must be
overwritten.
Note: You cannot use non-frozen collections for primary key columns. However, you can use frozen
collections for primary key columns.
column_name <collection_type><cql_type, frozen<column_name>>
For example:
CREATE TABLE mykeyspace.users (
id uuid PRIMARY KEY,
name frozen <fullname>,
direct_reports set<frozen <fullname>>,
addresses map<text, frozen <address>>
);

// a collection set
// a collection map

Counter type
A counter column value is a 64-bit signed integer.

A counter column value is a 64-bit signed integer. You cannot set the value of a counter, which supports
two operations: increment and decrement.
Use counter types as described in the "Using a counter" section. Do not assign this type to a column
that serves as the primary key or partition key. Also, do not use the counter type in a table that contains
anything other than counter types and the primary key. To generate sequential numbers for surrogate
keys, use the timeuuid type instead of the counter type. You cannot create an index on a counter column
or set data in a counter column to expire using the Time-To-Live (TTL) property.

UUID and timeuuid types

The UUID (universally unique id) comparator type for avoiding collisions in column names.

The UUID (universally unique id) comparator type is used to avoid collisions in column names.
Alternatively, you can use the timeuuid.

57

CQL reference

Timeuuid types can be entered as integers for CQL input. A value of the timeuuid type is a Version 1 UUID.
A Version 1 UUID includes the time of its generation and are sorted by timestamp, making them ideal
for use in applications requiring conflict-free timestamps. For example, you can use this type to identify
a column (such as a blog entry) by its timestamp and allow multiple clients to write to the same partition
key simultaneously. Collisions that would potentially overwrite data that was not intended to be overwritten
cannot occur.
A valid timeuuid conforms to the timeuuid format shown in valid literals.

uuid and Timeuuid functions

About using Timeuuid functions.

Cassandra 2.0.7 and later includes the uuid() function. This function takes no parameters and generates a
random Type 4 UUID suitable for use in INSERT or SET statements.
Several Timeuuid functions are designed for use with the timeuuid type:

dateOf()

Used in a SELECT clause, this function extracts the timestamp of a timeuuid column in a resultset. This
function returns the extracted timestamp as a date. Use unixTimestampOf() to get a raw timestamp.
now()

In the coordinator node, generates a new unique timeuuid in milliseconds when the statement is
executed. The timestamp portion of the timeuuid conforms to the UTC (Universal Time) standard. This
method is useful for inserting values. The value returned by now() is guaranteed to be unique.
minTimeuuid() and maxTimeuuid()
Returns a UUID-like result given a conditional time component as an argument. For example:
SELECT * FROM myTable
WHERE t > maxTimeuuid('2013-01-01 00:05+0000')
AND t < minTimeuuid('2013-02-02 10:00+0000')

unixTimestampOf()
Used in a SELECT clause, this functions extracts the timestamp in milliseconds of a timeuuid column in
a resultset. Returns the value as a raw, 64-bit integer timestamp.

The min/maxTimeuuid example selects all rows where the timeuuid column, t, is strictly
later than 2013-01-01 00:05+0000 but strictly earlier than 2013-02-02 10:00+0000. The t >=
maxTimeuuid('2013-01-01 00:05+0000') does not select a timeuuid generated exactly at 2013-01-01
00:05+0000 and is essentially equivalent to t > maxTimeuuid('2013-01-01 00:05+0000').
The values returned by minTimeuuid and maxTimeuuid functions are not true UUIDs in that the values do
not conform to the Time-Based UUID generation process specified by the RFC 4122. The results of these
functions are deterministic, unlike the now function.

Timestamp type
A timestamp type can be entered as an integer for CQL input, or as a string literal in ISO 8601 formats.

Values for the timestamp type are encoded as 64-bit signed integers representing a number of
milliseconds since the standard base time known as the epoch: January 1 1970 at 00:00:00 GMT. A
timestamp type can be entered as an integer for CQL input, or as a string literal in any of the following ISO
8601 formats:
yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm
yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss
yyyy-mm-dd HH:mmZ
yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ssZ
yyyy-mm-dd'T'HH:mm
yyyy-mm-dd'T'HH:mmZ
yyyy-mm-dd'T'HH:mm:ss

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yyyy-mm-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ
yyyy-mm-dd
yyyy-mm-ddZ
where Z is the RFC-822 4-digit time zone, expressing the time zone's difference from UTC. For example,
for the date and time of Jan 2, 2003, at 04:05:00 AM, GMT:
2011-02-03 04:05+0000
2011-02-03 04:05:00+0000
2011-02-03T04:05+0000
2011-02-03T04:05:00+0000
If no time zone is specified, the time zone of the Cassandra coordinator node handing the write request is
used. For accuracy, DataStax recommends specifying the time zone rather than relying on the time zone
configured on the Cassandra nodes.
If you only want to capture date values, the time of day can also be omitted. For example:
2011-02-03
2011-02-03+0000
In this case, the time of day defaults to 00:00:00 in the specified or default time zone.
Timestamp output appears in the following format by default:
yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ssZ
You can change the format by setting the time_format property in the [ui] section of the cqlshrc file.

Tuple type
You can use a tuple as a convenient alternative to a user-defined type.

Cassandra 2.1 introduces the tuple type that holds fixed-length sets of typed positional fields. You can
use a tuple as an alternative to a user-defined type when you don't need to add new fields. A tuple can
accommodate many fields (32768), more than you can prudently use. Typically, you create a tuple having
only a few fields.
In the table creation statement, use angle brackets and a comma delimiter to declare the tuple component
types. Surround tuple values in parentheses to insert the values into a table, as shown in this example.
CREATE TABLE collect_things (
k int PRIMARY KEY,
v <tuple<int, text, float>>
);
INSERT INTO collect_things (k, v) VALUES(0, (3, 'bar', 2.1));
SELECT * FROM collect_things;
k | v
---+----------------0 | (3, 'bar', 2.1)
Note: Cassandra 2.1.0 to 2.1.2 requires using frozen for tuples:
frozen <tuple <int, tuple<text, double>>>
Cassandra 2.1.3+ does not require this keyword.
You can filter a selection using a tuple.
CREATE INDEX on collect_things (v);

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SELECT * FROM collect_things WHERE v = (3, 'bar', 2.1);

k | v
---+----------------0 | (3, 'bar', 2.1)
You can nest tuples as shown in the following example:
create table nested (k int PRIMARY KEY, t frozen <tuple <int, tuple<text,
double>>>);
INSERT INTO nested (k, t) VALUES (0, (3, ('foo', 3.4)));

User-defined type
A user-defined type facilitates handling multiple fields of related information in a table.

Cassandra 2.1 supports user-defined types. A user-defined type facilitates handling multiple fields of
related information in a table. Applications that required multiple tables can be simplified to use fewer
tables by using a user-defined type to represent the related fields of information instead of storing the
information in a separate table. The address type example demonstrates how to use a user-defined type.
You can create, alter, and drop a user-defined type using these commands:

CREATE TYPE
ALTER TYPE
DROP TYPE

The cqlsh utility includes these commands for describing a user-defined type or listing all user-defined
types:

DESCRIBE TYPE
DESCRIBE TYPES

The scope of a user-defined type is the keyspace in which you define it. Use dot notation to access a
type from a keyspace outside its scope: keyspace name followed by a period followed the name of the
type. Cassandra accesses the type in the specified keyspace, but does not change the current keyspace;
otherwise, if you do not specify a keyspace, Cassandra accesses the type within the current keyspace.

CQL keyspace and table properties

About using CQL keyspace and table properties.

The CQL WITH clause specifies keyspace and table properties in these CQL commands:

ALTER KEYSPACE
ALTER TABLE
CREATE KEYSPACE
CREATE TABLE

CQL keyspace properties

CQL supports setting the following keyspace properties in addition to naming data centers.

class

The name of the replication strategy: SimpleStrategy or NetworkTopologyStrategy. You set the
replication factor independently for each data center.
replication_factor
The replication_factor property is used only when specifying the SimpleStrategy, as shown in CREATE
KEYSPACE examples. The replication factor value is the total number of replicas across the cluster.

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For production use or for use with mixed workloads, create the keyspace using NetworkTopologyStrategy.
SimpleStrategy is fine for evaluation purposes. NetworkTopologyStrategy is recommended for most
deployments because it is much easier to expand to multiple data centers when required by future
expansion.
You can also configure the durable writes property when creating or altering a keyspace.

Table properties
A list of CQL table properties and their syntax.

CQL supports Cassandra table properties, such as comments and compaction options, listed in the
following table.
In CQL commands, such as CREATE TABLE, you format properties in either the name-value pair or
collection map format. The name-value pair property syntax is:
name = value AND name = value
The collection map format, used by compaction and compression properties, is:
{ name : value, name : value, name : value ... }
Enclose properties that are strings in single quotation marks.
See CREATE TABLE for examples.
Table: CQL properties
CQL property

Default

Description

bloom_filter_fp_chance
0.01 for
Desired false-positive probability for SSTable Bloom filters. See
SizeTieredCompactionStrategyand
Bloom filter below.
DateTieredCompactionStrategy,
0.1 for
LeveledCompactionStrategy
caching

Cassandra 2.1:
ALL for keys

Optimizes the use of cache memory without manual tuning. See

caching below.

NONE for
rows_per_partition
Cassandra
2.0.x: keys_only
comment

N/A

compaction

SizeTieredCompactionStrategy
Sets the compaction strategy for the table. See compaction below.

compression

LZ4CompressorThe compression algorithm to use. Valid values

are LZ4Compressor), SnappyCompressor, and
DeflateCompressor. See compression below.

dclocal_read_repair_chance
0.1 (Cassandra
2.1, Cassandra
2.0.9 and later)
0.0 (Cassandra
2.0.8 and
earlier)

A human readable comment describing the table. See comments

below.

Specifies the probability of read repairs being invoked over all

replicas in the current data center.

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CQL property

Default

Description

default_time_to_live
0

The default expiration time in seconds for a table. Used in

MapReduce scenarios when you have no control of TTL.

gc_grace_seconds864000 [10
days]

Specifies the time to wait before garbage collecting tombstones

(deletion markers). The default value allows a great deal of time for
consistency to be achieved prior to deletion. In many deployments
this interval can be reduced, and in a single-node cluster it can be
safely set to zero.

min_index_interval,
min_index_intervalTo control the sampling of entries from the partition index, configure
max_index_interval
128 and
the sample frequency of the partition summary by changing these
(Cassandra
max_index_interval
properties. See min_index_interval and max_index_interval below.
2.1.x) or
2048, or
index_interval
index_interval
(Cassandra
128
2.0.x)
memtable_flush_period_in_ms
0

Forces flushing of the memtable after the specified time in

milliseconds elapses.

populate_io_cache_on_flush
false
(Cassandra
2.0.x only)

Adds newly flushed or compacted SSTables to the operating system

page cache, potentially evicting other cached data to make room.
Enable when all data in the table is expected to fit in memory. You
can also configure the global compaction_preheat_key_cache option
in the cassandra.yaml file.

read_repair_chance
0.0 (Cassandra
2.1, Cassandra
2.0.9 and later)
0.1 (Cassandra
2.0.8 and
earlier)

Specifies the basis for invoking read repairs on reads in clusters. The
value must be between 0 and 1.

replicate_on_writetrue
(Cassandra
2.0.x only)

Removed in Cassandra 2.1. Applies only to counter tables. When

set to true, replicates writes to all affected replicas regardless of
the consistency level specified by the client for a write request. For
counter tables, this should always be set to true.

speculative_retry 99percentile
Cassandra
2.0.2 and later

Overrides normal read timeout when read_repair_chance is not 1.0,

sending another request to read. See speculative retry below.

Bloom filter
The Bloom filter property is the desired false-positive probability for SSTable Bloom filters. When data is
requested, the Bloom filter checks if the row exists before doing disk I/O. Bloom filter property value ranges
from 0 to 1.0. The effects of the minimum and maximum values are:
0 Enables the unmodified, effectively the largest possible, Bloom filter
1.0 Disables the Bloom Filter
The recommended setting is 0.1. A higher value yields diminishing returns.

caching
Caching optimizes the use of cache memory without manual tuning. You set table properties to configure
caching when you create or alter the table. Cassandra weights the cached data by size and access
frequency. After configuring the caching table property, configure the global caching properties in the

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cassandra.yaml file. For information about global caching properties, see Cassandra 2.1 documentation
or Cassandra 2.0 documentation.
Cassandra 2.1
Configure the cache by creating a property map of values for the caching property. Options are:

keys: ALL or NONE

rows_per_partition: number of CQL rows, NONE, or ALL

For example:
CREATE TABLE DogTypes (
block_id uuid,
species text,
alias text,
population varint,
PRIMARY KEY (block_id)
) WITH caching = { 'keys' : 'NONE', 'rows_per_partition' : '120' };
Cassandra 2.0
Configure the cache using one of these caching property options:

all
keys_only
rows_only
none

You can specify a key or row cache, or specify both key and row caches using the options. For example:
// Cassandra 2.0.x only
CREATE TABLE DogTypes (
block_id uuid,
species text,
alias text,
population varint,
PRIMARY KEY (block_id)
) WITH caching = 'keys_only';
Important: In Cassandra 2.0.x, use row caching with caution.

comments
Comments can be used to document CQL statements in your application code. Single line comments can
begin with a double dash (--) or a double slash (//) and extend to the end of the line. Multi-line comments
can be enclosed in /* and */ characters.

compaction
The compaction property defines the compaction strategy class to use. Choose the compaction strategy
that best fits your data and environment:
Note: For more guidance, see the When to Use Leveled Compaction, Leveled Compaction in Apache
Cassandra blog.

SizeTieredCompactionStrategy (STCS): The default compaction strategy. This strategy triggers

a minor compaction when there are a number of similar sized SSTables on disk as configured by the
table subproperty, min_threshold. A minor compaction does not involve all the tables in a keyspace.
Also see STCS compaction subproperties.

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DateTieredCompactionStrategy (DTCS): Available in Cassandra 2.0.11 and 2.1.1 and later.

This strategy is particularly useful for time series data. DateTieredCompactionStrategy stores data
written within a certain period of time in the same SSTable. For example, Cassandra can store your last
hour of data in one SSTable time window, and the next 4 hours of data in another time window, and so
on. Compactions are triggered when the min_threshold (4 by default) for SSTables in those windows
is reached. The most common queries for time series workloads retrieve the last hour/day/month of
data. Cassandra can limit SSTables returned to those having the relevant data. Also, Cassandra can
store data that has been set to expire using TTL in an SSTable with other data scheduled to expire at
approximately the same time. Cassandra can then drop the SSTable without doing any compaction.
Also see DTCS compaction subproperties and DateTieredCompactionStrategy: Compaction for Time
Series Data.
Note: When using DTCS disabling read repair is recommended. Use full repair as necessary.
LeveledCompactionStrategy (LCS): The leveled compaction strategy creates SSTables of a
fixed, relatively small size (160 MB by default) that are grouped into levels. Within each level, SSTables
are guaranteed to be non-overlapping. Each level (L0, L1, L2 and so on) is 10 times as large as the
previous. Disk I/O is more uniform and predictable on higher than on lower levels as SSTables are
continuously being compacted into progressively larger levels. At each level, row keys are merged
into non-overlapping SSTables. This can improve performance for reads, because Cassandra can
determine which SSTables in each level to check for the existence of row key data. This compaction
strategy is modeled after Google's leveldb implementation. Also see LCS compaction subproperties.

Hybrid (leveled and size-tiered) compaction improvements to the leveled compaction strategy reduce the
performance overhead on read operations when compaction cannot keep pace with write-heavy workload.
When using the LCS, if Cassandra cannot keep pace with the workload, the compaction strategy switches
to STCS until Cassandra catches up. For this reason, it is a best practice to configure the max_threshold
subproperty for a table to use when the switch occurs.
You can specify a custom strategy. Use the full class name as a string constant.

compression
To configure compression, choose the LZ4Compressor, SnappyCompressor, or DeflateCompressor
property to use in creating or altering a table. Use an empty string ('') to disable compression, as shown in
the example of how to use subproperties. Choosing the right compressor depends on your requirements
for space savings over read performance. LZ4 is fastest to decompress, followed by Snappy, then
by Deflate. Compression effectiveness is inversely correlated with decompression speed. The extra
compression from Deflate or Snappy is not enough to make up for the decreased performance for generalpurpose workloads, but for archival data they may be worth considering. Developers can also implement
custom compression classes using the org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.ICompressor
interface. Specify the full class name enclosed in single quotation marks. Also use the compression
subproperties.

min_index_interval and max_index_interval

The index_interval (Cassandra 2.0.x) property or the min_index_interval and max_index_interval
(Cassandra 2.1) properties control the sampling of entries from the primary row index, configure sample
frequency of the partition summary by changing the index interval. After changing the index interval,
SSTables are written to disk with new information. The interval corresponds to the number of index entries
that are skipped between taking each sample. By default Cassandra samples one row key out of every
128. The larger the interval, the smaller and less effective the sampling. The larger the sampling, the more
effective the index, but with increased memory usage. In Cassandra 2.0.x, generally, the best trade off
between memory usage and performance is a value between 128 and 512 in combination with a large
table key cache. However, if you have small rows (many to an OS page), you may want to increase
the sample size, which often lowers memory usage without an impact on performance. For large rows,
decreasing the sample size may improve read performance.

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In Cassandra 2.1, the name index_interval is replaced by min_index_interval and max_index_interval. The
max_index_interval is 2048 by default. The default would be reached only when SSTables are infrequentlyread and the index summary memory pool is full. When upgrading from earlier releases, Cassandra uses
the old index_interval value for the min_index_interval.

speculative retry
To override normal read timeout when read_repair_chance is not 1.0, sending another request to read,
choose one of these values and use the property to create or alter the table:

ALWAYS: Retry reads of all replicas.

Xpercentile: Retry reads based on the effect on throughput and latency.
Yms: Retry reads after specified milliseconds.
NONE: Do not retry reads.

Using the speculative retry property, you can configure rapid read protection in Cassandra 2.0.2 and later.
Use this property to retry a request after some milliseconds have passed or after a percentile of the typical
read latency has been reached, which is tracked per table. For example:
ALTER TABLE users WITH speculative_retry = '10ms';
Or:
ALTER TABLE users WITH speculative_retry = '99percentile';
Related information
Cassandra 2.0 cassandra.yaml
Cassandra 2.1 cassandra.yaml

Compaction subproperties
Constructing a map of the compaction property and its subproperties.

Using CQL, you can configure a table to use SizeTieredCompactionStrategy (STCS),

DateTieredCompactionStrategy (DTCS), and LeveledCompactionStrategy (LCS).
DateTieredCompactionStrategy is available in Cassandra 2.0.11 and later. You construct a map of the
compaction property and the following subproperties:
CQL Compaction Subproperties for STCS
Compaction
Subproperties

Default

Description

bucket_high

1.5

Size-tiered compaction considers SSTables to be within

the same bucket if the SSTable size diverges by 50% or
less from the default bucket_low and default bucket_high
values: [average-size bucket_low, average-size
bucket_high].

bucket_low

0.5

Same as above.

cold_reads_to_omit

0.05

The maximum percentage of reads/sec that ignored

SSTables may account for. The recommended range of
values is 0.0 and 1.0. See cold_reads_to_omit.

enabled

true

Enables background compaction. See Enabling and

disabling background compaction.

max_threshold

32

Sets the maximum number of SSTables to allow in a minor

compaction.

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Compaction
Subproperties

Default

Description

min_threshold

Sets the minimum number of SSTables to trigger a minor

compaction.

min_sstable_size

50MB

STCS roups SSTables for compaction into buckets. The

bucketing process groups SSTables that differ in size by
less than 50%. This results in a bucketing process that
is too fine grained for small SSTables. If your SSTables
are small, use min_sstable_size to define a size threshold
(in bytes) below which all SSTables belong to one unique
bucket.

tombstone_compaction_interval
1 day

The minimum time to wait after an SSTable creation time

before considering the SSTable for tombstone compaction.
Tombstone compaction is the compaction triggered if the
SSTable has more garbage-collectable tombstones than
tombstone_threshold.

tombstone_threshold

A ratio of garbage-collectable tombstones to all contained

columns, which if exceeded by the SSTable triggers
compaction (with no other SSTables) for the purpose of
purging the tombstones.

0.2

unchecked_tombstone_compaction
false

True enables more aggressive than normal tombstone

compactions. A single SSTable tombstone compaction
runs without checking the likelihood of success. Cassandra
2.0.9 and later.

CQL Compaction Subproperties for DTCS (Cassandra 2.0.11 and 2.1.1)

66

Compaction
Subproperties

Default

Description

base_time_seconds

3600 (1 hour) The size of the first time window.

enabled

true

Enables background compaction. See Enabling and

disabling background compaction.

max_sstable_age_days

365

Stop compacting SSTables only having data older than

these specified days. Fractional days may be set for
Cassandra 2.1.5 and later.

max_threshold

32

Sets the maximum number of SSTables to allow in a minor

compaction.

min_threshold

Sets the minimum number of SSTables to trigger a minor

compaction.

timestamp_resolution

MICROSECONDS
MICROSECONDS or MILLISECONDS, depending on the
timestamp unit of the data you insert

tombstone_compaction_interval
1 day

The minimum time to wait after an SSTable creation time

before considering the SSTable for tombstone compaction.
Tombstone compaction is the compaction triggered if the
SSTable has more garbage-collectable tombstones than
tombstone_threshold.

tombstone_threshold

A ratio of garbage-collectable tombstones to all contained

columns, which if exceeded by the SSTable triggers

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Compaction
Subproperties

Default

Description
compaction (with no other SSTables) for the purpose of
purging the tombstones.

unchecked_tombstone_compaction
false

True enables more aggressive than normal tombstone

compactions. A single SSTable tombstone compaction
runs without checking the likelihood of success. Cassandra
2.0.9 and later.

CQL Compaction Subproperties for LCS

Compaction
Subproperties

Default

Description

enabled

true

Enables background compaction. See cold_reads_to_omit

below.

sstable_size_in_mb

160MB

The target size for SSTables that use the leveled

compaction strategy. Although SSTable sizes should be
less or equal to sstable_size_in_mb, it is possible to have a
larger SSTable during compaction. This occurs when data
for a given partition key is exceptionally large. The data is
not split into two SSTables.

tombstone_compaction_interval
1 day

The minimum time to wait after an SSTable creation time

before considering the SSTable for tombstone compaction.
Tombstone compaction is the compaction triggered if the
SSTable has more garbage-collectable tombstones than
tombstone_threshold.

tombstone_threshold

A ratio of garbage-collectable tombstones to all contained

columns, which if exceeded by the SSTable triggers
compaction (with no other SSTables) for the purpose of
purging the tombstones.

0.2

unchecked_tombstone_compaction
false

True enables more aggressive than normal tombstone

compactions. A single SSTable tombstone compaction
runs without checking the likelihood of success. Cassandra
2.0.9 and later.

cold_reads_to_omit
Using SizeTieredCompactionStrategy, you can configure the maximum percentage of reads/sec that
ignored SSTables may account for. The recommended range of values is 0.0 and 1.0. In Cassandra
2.1 and later, Cassandra ignores the coldest 5% of SSTables. In Cassandra 2.0.3 and later, the
cold_reads_to_omit is (0.0) by default: all SSTables are compacted.
You can increase the cold_reads_to_omit property value to tune performace per table. A value of 1.0
completely disables compaction. The "Optimizations around Cold SSTables" blog includes detailed
information tuning performance using this property, which avoids compacting cold SSTables. Use the
ALTER TABLE command to configure cold_reads_to_omit.

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Enabling and disabling background compaction

The following example uses the enable property to disable background compaction:
ALTER TABLE mytable WITH COMPACTION = {'class':
'SizeTieredCompactionStrategy', 'enabled': 'false'}
Disabling background compaction can prove harmful, as disk space is never regained and zombies,
tombstones that rewrite data as new data, are possible. In most cases, although compaction uses I/O, it is
better to leave it enabled, rather than disabling it.

Compression subproperties
Configuring compression for a table.

Using CQL, you can configure compression for a table by constructing a map of the compaction property
and the following subproperties:
Table: CQL Compression Subproperties
Compression
Subproperties

Default

Description

sstable_compression

SnappyCompressor
The compression algorithm to use. Valid values
are LZ4Compressor, SnappyCompressor, and
DeflateCompressor. See sstable_compressionbelow.

chunk_length_kb

64KB

On disk, SSTables are compressed by block to allow

random reads. This subproperty of compression defines
the size (in KB) of the block. Values larger than the default
value might improve the compression rate, but increases
the minimum size of data to be read from disk when a
read occurs. The default value is a good middle-ground for
compressing tables. Adjust compression size to account
for read/write access patterns (how much data is typically
requested at once) and the average size of rows in the
table.

crc_check_chance

1.0

When compression is enabled, each compressed block

includes a checksum of that block for the purpose
of detecting disk bitrot and avoiding the propagation
of corruption to other replica. This option defines the
probability with which those checksums are checked during
read. By default they are always checked. Set to 0 to
disable checksum checking and to 0.5, for instance, to
check them on every other read.

sstable_compression
The compression algorithm to use. Valid values are LZ4Compressor SnappyCompressor, and
DeflateCompressor. Use an empty string ('') to disable compression:
ALTER TABLE mytable WITH COMPRESSION = {'sstable_compression': ''};
Choosing the right compressor depends on your requirements for space savings over read performance.
LZ4 is fastest to decompress, followed by Snappy, then by Deflate. Compression effectiveness is inversely
correlated with decompression speed. The extra compression from Deflate or Snappy is not enough
to make up for the decreased performance for general-purpose workloads, but for archival data they
may be worth considering. Developers can also implement custom compression classes using the

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org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.ICompressor interface. Specify the full class name as a

"string constant".

Functions
CQL support functions for transforming one or more column values into a new value.

CQL supports several functions that transform one or more column values into a new value. Aggregation
functions are not supported.

Blob conversion functions

UUID and Timeuuid functions
Token function
WRITETIME function
TTL function

Use the token function to compute the token for a given partition key. The exact signature of the token
function depends on the table and partitioner used by the cluster. The type of the arguments to the token
function depends on the type of the partition key columns. The return type depends on the partitioner in
use:

Murmur3Partitioner, bigint
RandomPartitioner, varint
ByteOrderedPartitioner, blob

For instance, in a cluster using the default Murmur3Partitioner, the token function that computes the token
for the partition key of this table takes a single argument of type text. The partition key is userid. There is
no clustering column so the partition key is the same as the primary key, and the return type is bigint.
CREATE TABLE users (
userid text PRIMARY KEY,
username text,
...
)
Regardless of the partitioner in use, Cassandra does not support non-equal conditional operations on the
partition key. Use the token function for range queries on the partition key.

CQL limits
Upper CQL limits.

Observe the following upper limits:

31

Columns in a partition: 2B (2 ); single column value size: 2 GB (x MB is recommended)

16
Clustering column value, length of: 65535 (2 -1)
16
Key length: 65535 (2 -1)
16
Query parameters in a query: 65535 (2 -1)
16
Statements in a batch: 65535 (2 -1)
15
Fields in a tuple: 32768 (2 ) (just a few fields, such as 2-10, are recommended)
31
16
Collection (List): collection size: 2B (2 ); values size: 65535 (2 -1) (Cassandra 2.1 and later, using
native protocol v3)
31
16
Collection (Set): collection size: 2B (2 ); values size: 65535 (2 -1) (Cassandra 2.1 and later, using
native protocol v3)
31
16
16
Collection (Map): collection size: 2B (2 ); number of keys: 65535 (2 -1); values size: 65535 (2 -1)
(Cassandra 2.1 and later, using native protocol v3)
Blob size: 2 GB ( less than 1 MB is recommended)

Note: The limits specified for collections are for non-frozen collections.

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cqlsh commands
The cqlsh commands.

cqlsh
Start the CQL interactive terminal.

Start the CQL interactive terminal.

Synopsis
cqlsh [options] [host [port]]
python cqlsh [options] [host [port]]

Description
The Cassandra installation includes the cqlsh utility, a python-based command line client for executing
Cassandra Query Language (CQL) commands. The cqlsh command is used on the Linux or Windows
command line to start the cqlsh utility. On Windows, the keyword python is used if the PATH environment
variable does not point to the python installation.
You can use cqlsh to execute CQL commands interactively. cqlsh supports tab completion. You can also
execute cqlsh commands, such as TRACE.

Requirements
In Cassandra 2.1, the cqlsh utility uses the native protocol. In Cassandra 2.1, which uses the Datastax
python driver, the default cqlsh listen port is 9042.
In Cassandra 2.0, the cqlsh utility uses the Thrift transport. In Cassandra 2.0.x, the default cqlsh listen
port is 9160. By default, Cassandra 2.0.x and earlier enables Thrift by configuring start_rpc to true in the
cassandra.yaml file. The cqlsh utility uses the Thrift RPC service. Also, firewall configuration to allow
access through the Thrift port might be required.
For more information about configuration, see the Cassandra 2.1 cassandra.yaml or Cassandra 2.0
cassandra.yaml file.

Options
-C, --color
Always use color output.
--debug
Show additional debugging information.
--cqlshrc path
Use an alternative cqlshrc file location, path. (Cassandra 2.1.1)
-e cql_statement, --execute cql_statement
Accept and execute a CQL command in Cassandra 2.1 and later. Useful for saving CQL output to a file.
-f file_name, --file=file_name
Execute commands from file_name, then exit.
-h, --help
Show the online help about these options and exit.
-k keyspace_name
Use the given keyspace. Equivalent to issuing a USE keyspace command immediately after starting cqlsh.

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--no-color
Never use color output.
-p password
Authenticate using password. Default = cassandra.
-t transport_factory_name, --transport=transport_factory_name
Use the provided Thrift transport factory function.
-u user_name
Authenticate as user. Default = cassandra.
--version
Show the cqlsh version.

Creating and using cqlshrc file

You can create cqlshrc file that resides in the hidden .cassandra directory in your home directory.
When present, the file can pass default configuration information to cqlsh. A sample file looks like this:
; Sample ~/.cassandra/cqlshrc file.
[authentication]
username = fred
password = !!bang!!
The Cassandra installation includes a cqlshrc.sample file in the conf directory of a tarball installation.
On Windows, in Command Prompt, create this file by copying the cqlshrc.sample file from the conf
directory to the hidden .cassandra folder your user home folder, and renaming it to cqlshrc.
You can use a cqlshrc file to configure SSL encryption instead of overriding the SSL_CERTFILE
environmental variables repeatedly. Cassandra internal authentication must be configured before users
can use the authentication options.

cqlshrc options
You configure the cqlshrc file by setting these options in the [authentication], [ui], or [ssl] sections of the
file.
[authentication] options are:
keyspace
Use the given keyspace. Equivalent to issuing a USE keyspace command immediately after starting cqlsh.
password
Authenticate using password.
username
Authenticate as user.
[connection] option (Cassandra 2.1.1) is:
client_timeout
Configures the cqlsh timeout in seconds. Set to None or the number of seconds of inactivity that triggers
timeout.
[csv] option (Cassandra 2.0.15+, 2.1.5+) is:
field_size_limit
Configures the cqlsh field size. Set to a particular field size. For instance, field_size_limit (1000000000).
[ssl] options are covered in the Cassandra documentation.
[ui] options are:

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color
Always use color output.
completekey
Use this key for autocompletion of a cqlsh shell entry. Default is the tab key.
float_precision
Use this many decimal digits of precision. Default = 5.
time_format
Configure the output format of database objects using Python strftime syntax.

Using CQL commands

On startup, cqlsh shows the name of the cluster, IP address, and the port used for connection to the cqlsh
utility. The cqlsh prompt initially is cqlsh>. After you specify a keyspace to use, the prompt includes the
name of the keyspace. For example:
cqlsh 1.2.3.4 9042 -u jdoe -p mypassword
Connected to trace_consistency at 1.2.3.4:9042.
[cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 2.1.0 | CQL spec 3.2 | Native protocol v3]
Use HELP for help.
cqlsh>USE mykeyspace;
cqlsh:mykeyspace>
At the cqlsh prompt, type CQL commands. Use a semicolon to terminate a command. A new line does not
terminate a command, so commands can be spread over several lines for clarity.
cqlsh> USE demo_cl;
cqlsh:demo_cl> SELECT * FROM demo_table
... WHERE id = 0;
If a command is sent and executed successfully, results are sent to standard output.

The lexical structure of commands, covered earlier in this reference, includes how upper- and lower-case
literals are treated in commands, when to use quotation marks in strings, and how to enter exponential
notation.

Saving CQL output in a file

Using the -e option to the cqlsh command followed by a CQL statement, enclosed in quotation marks,
accepts and executes the CQL statement. For example, to save the output of a SELECT statement to
myoutput.txt:
cqlsh -e "SELECT * FROM mytable" > myoutput.txt

Using files as input

To execute CQL commands in a file, use the -f option and the path to the file on the operating system
command line. Or, after you start cqlsh, use the SOURCE command and the path to the file on the cqlsh
command line.

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cqlsh environment variables

You can override the default cqlsh host and listen port by setting the CQLSH_HOST and CQLSH_PORT
environment variables. You set the CQLSH_HOST to a host name or IP address. When configured, cqlsh
uses the variables instead of the default values of localhost and port 9042 (Cassandra 2.1 or later) or 9160
(Cassandra 2.0.x). A host and port number given on the command line takes precedence over configured
variables.
Related information
Cassandra 2.0 cassandra.yaml
Cassandra 2.1 cassandra.yaml

CAPTURE
Captures command output and appends it to a file.

Captures command output and appends it to a file.

Synopsis
CAPTURE ('<file>' | OFF )

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
To start capturing the output of a query, specify the path of the file relative to the current directory. Enclose
the file name in single quotation marks. The shorthand notation in this example is supported for referring to
$HOME.

Examples
CAPTURE '~/mydir/myfile.txt'
Output is not shown on the console while it is captured. Only query result output is captured. Errors and
output from cqlsh-only commands still appear.
To stop capturing output and return to normal display of output, use CAPTURE OFF.
To determine the current capture state, use CAPTURE with no arguments.

CONSISTENCY
Shows the current consistency level, or given a level, sets it.

Shows the current consistency level, or given a level, sets it.

Synopsis
CONSISTENCY level

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Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

Description
Providing an argument to the CONSISTENCY command overrides the default consistency level of ONE,
and configures the consistency level for future requests. Valid values are: ANY, ONE, TWO, THREE,
QUORUM, ALL, LOCAL_QUORUM, EACH_QUORUM, SERIAL and LOCAL_SERIAL.
Providing no argument shows the current consistency level.

Example
CONSISTENCY
If you haven't changed the default, the output of the CONSISTENCY command with no arguments is:
Current consistency level is ONE.

COPY
Imports and exports CSV (comma-separated values) data to and from Cassandra.

Imports and exports CSV (comma-separated values) data to and from Cassandra.

Synopsis
COPY table_name ( column, ...)
FROM ( 'file_name' | STDIN )
WITH option = 'value' AND ...
COPY table_name ( column , ... )
TO ( 'file_name' | STDOUT )
WITH option = 'value' AND ...

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

Description
Using the COPY options in a WITH clause, you can change the CSV format. This table describes these
options:

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Table: COPY options

COPY Options

Default Value

Use To

DELIMITER

comma (,)

Set the character that separates fields having

newline characters in the file.

QUOTE

quotation mark (")

Set the character that encloses field values.

ESCAPE

backslash (\)

Set the character that escapes literal uses of the

QUOTE character.

HEADER

false

Set true to indicate that first row of the file is a

header.

NULL

an empty string

Represents the absence of a value.

ENCODING

UTF8

Set the COPY TO command to output unicode

strings.

TIME_FORMAT

time_format value in
cqlshrc, which is %Y%m-%d %H:%M:%S%z

Set the time format for writing CSV time data. Only
works for COPY TO command.

Note: TIME_FORMAT works for Cassandra 2.1.12 and later.

The ENCODING option cannot be used in the COPY FROM command. This table shows that, by default,
Cassandra expects the CSV data to consist of fields separated by commas (,), records separated by
line separators (a newline, \r\n), and field values enclosed in double-quotation marks (""). Also, to avoid
ambiguity, escape a literal double-quotation mark using a backslash inside a string enclosed in doublequotation marks ("\""). By default, Cassandra does not expect the CSV file to have a header record on the
first line that consists of the column names. COPY TO includes the header in the output if HEADER=true.
COPY FROM ignores the first line if HEADER=true.
You cannot copy data to or from counter tables.

COPY FROM a CSV file

By default, when you use the COPY FROM command, Cassandra expects every row in the CSV input to
contain the same number of columns. The number of columns in the CSV input is the same as the number
of columns in the Cassandra table metadata. Cassandra assigns fields in the respective order. To apply
your input data to a particular set of columns, specify the column names in parentheses after the table
name.
COPY FROM is intended for importing small datasets (a few million rows or less) into Cassandra. For
importing larger datasets, use the Cassandra bulk loader.

COPY TO a CSV file

For example, assume you have the following table in CQL:
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM test.airplanes;

name
| mach | manufacturer | year
---------------+------+--------------+-----P38-Lightning | 0.7 |
Lockheed | 1937

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After inserting data into the table, you can copy the data to a CSV file in another order by specifying the
column names in parentheses after the table name:
COPY airplanes
(name, mach, year, manufacturer)
TO 'temp.csv'

Specifying the source or destination files

Specify the source file of the CSV input or the destination file of the CSV output by a file path. Alternatively,
you can use the STDIN or STDOUT keywords to import from standard input and export to standard output.
When using stdin, signal the end of the CSV data with a backslash and period ("\.") on a separate line. If
the data is being imported into a table that already contains data, COPY FROM does not truncate the table
beforehand. You can copy only a partial set of columns. Specify the entire set or a subset of column names
in parentheses after the table name in the order you want to import or export them. By default, when you
use the COPY TO command, Cassandra copies data to the CSV file in the order defined in the Cassandra
table metadata. You can also omit listing the column names when you want to import or export all the
columns in the order they appear in the source table or CSV file.

Roundtrip copying of a simple table

Copy a table to a CSV file.
1. Using CQL, create a table named airplanes and copy it to a CSV file.
CREATE KEYSPACE test
WITH REPLICATION = { 'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy',
'datacenter1' : 1 };
USE test;
CREATE TABLE airplanes (
name text PRIMARY KEY,
manufacturer ascii,
year int,
mach float
);
INSERT INTO airplanes
(name, manufacturer, year, mach)
VALUES ('P38-Lightning', 'Lockheed', 1937, 0.7);
COPY airplanes (name, manufacturer, year, mach) TO 'temp.csv';
1 rows exported in 0.004 seconds.
2. Clear the data from the airplanes table and import the data from the temp.csv file.
TRUNCATE airplanes;
COPY airplanes (name, manufacturer, year, mach) FROM 'temp.csv';
1 rows imported in 0.087 seconds.
Copy data from standard input to a table.
1. Enter data directly during an interactive cqlsh session, using the COPY command defaults.
TRUNCATE airplanes;

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COPY airplanes (name, manufacturer, year, mach) FROM STDIN;

The output is:
[Use \. on a line by itself to end input]
[copy]
2. At the [copy] prompt, enter the following data:
'F-14D Super Tomcat', Grumman, 1987, 2.34
'MiG-23 Flogger', Russian-made, 1964, 2.35
'Su-27 Flanker', U.S.S.R., 1981, 2.35
\.
3. Query the airplanes table to see data imported from STDIN:
SELECT * FROM airplanes;
Output is:
name
| manufacturer | year | mach
--------------------+------+--------------+------------F-14D Super Tomcat |
Grumman | 1987 | 2.35
P38-Lightning |
Lockheed | 1937 | 0.7
Su-27 Flanker |
U.S.S.R. | 1981 | 2.35

Copying collections
Cassandra supports round-trip copying of collections to and from CSV files. To perform this example,
download the sample code now.
1. Unzip the downloaded file named cql_collections.zip.
2. Copy/paste all the CQL commands from the cql_collections.txt file to the cqlsh command line.
3. Take a look at the contents of the songs table. The table contains a map of venues, a list of reviews,
and a set of tags.
cqlsh> SELECT * FROM music.songs;
id
|album|artist|data|reviews
|tags
|
title|venue
------------+-----+------+----+-------------------+-----------------+----+---------------------------------------------------------------------7db1a490...| null| null |null|['hot dance music']|
{'rock'}|
null|{'2013-09-22...': 'The Fillmore', '2013-10-01...': 'The Apple
Barrel'}
a3e64f8f...| null| null |null|
null|{'1973', 'blues'}|
null|null
8a172618...| null| null |null|
null|'2007', 'covers'}|
null|null
4. Copy the music.songs table to a CSV file named songs-20140603.csv.
cqlsh> COPY music.songs to 'songs-20140603.csv';
3 rows exported in 0.006 seconds.
5. Check that the copy operation worked.
cqlsh> exit;

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CQL reference

$ cat songs-20140603.csv
7db1a490...,,,,['hot dance music'],{'rock'},,"{'2013-09-22...': 'The
Fillmore', '2013-10-01....': 'The Apple Barrel'}"
a3e64f8f...,,,,,"{'1973', 'blues'}",,
8a172618...,,,,,"{'2007', 'covers'}",,
6. Start cqlsh again, and create a table definition that matches the data in the songs-204140603 file.
cqlsh> CREATE TABLE music.imported_songs (
id uuid PRIMARY KEY,
album text,
artist text,
data blob,
reviews list<text>,
tags set<text>,
title text,
venue map<timestamp, text>
);
7. Copy the data from the CSV file into the imported_songs table.
cqlsh> COPY music.imported_songs from 'songs-20140603.csv';
3 rows imported in 0.004 seconds.

DESCRIBE
Provides information about the connected Cassandra cluster, or about the data objects stored in the cluster.

Provides information about the connected Cassandra cluster, or about the data objects stored in the
cluster.

Synopsis
DESCRIBE FULL ( CLUSTER | SCHEMA )
| KEYSPACES
| ( KEYSPACE keyspace_name )
| TABLES
| ( TABLE table_name )
| TYPES
| ( TYPE user_defined_type )
| INDEX
| ( INDEX index_name )

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

Description
The DESCRIBE or DESC command outputs information about the connected Cassandra cluster, or about
the data stored on it. To query the system tables directly, use SELECT.

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The keyspace and table name arguments are case-sensitive and need to match the upper or lowercase
names stored internally. Use the DESCRIBE commands to list objects by their internal names. Use
DESCRIBE FULL SCHEMA if you need the schema of system_* keyspaces.
DESCRIBE functions in the following ways:
DESCRIBE commands

Example

Description

DESCRIBE CLUSTER

DESCRIBE
CLUSTER;

Output information about the connected Cassandra cluster.

Cluster name, partitioner, and snitch are output. For
non-system keyspace, the endpoint-range ownership
information is also shown.

DESCRIBE KEYSPACES
DESCRIBE KEYSPACE
<keyspace_name>

Output a list of all keyspace names.

DESCRIBE
KEYSPACE
cycling;

Output CQL commands for the given keyspace. These

CQL commands can be used to recreate the keyspace and
tables.

DESCRIBE [FULL]
SCHEMA

Output CQL commands for entire non-system keyspace

and table schema. Use the FULL option to also include
system keyspaces.

DESCRIBE TABLES

Output all tables in the current keyspace, or in all

keyspaces if there is not current keyspace.

DESCRIBE TABLE
<table_name>

DESCRIBE
Output CQL commands for the given table. This CQL
TABLE
command can be used to recreate the table.
upcoming_calendar;

DESCRIBE INDEX
<index_name>

DESCRIBE
INDEX
team_entry;

DESCRIBE TYPES
DESCRIBE TYPE
<type_name>

Output CQL command for the given index. This CQL

command can be used to recreate the index.
Output list of all user-defined types in the current keyspace.

DESCRIBE
TYPE
basic_info;

Output CQL command for the given user-defined type. This

CQL command can be used to recreate the index.

EXPAND
Formats the output of a query vertically.

Formats the output of a query vertically.

Synopsis
EXPAND ( ON | OFF )

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

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CQL reference

Description
This command lists the contents of each row of a table vertically, providing a more convenient way to read
long rows of data than the default horizontal format. You scroll down to see more of the row instead of
scrolling to the right. Each column name appears on a separate line in column one and the values appear
in column two.
Sample output of EXPAND ON is:
cqlsh:my_ks> EXPAND ON
Now printing expanded output
cqlsh:my_ks> SELECT * FROM users;
@ Row 1
------------+---------------------------------------------userid
| samwise
emails
| {'[email protected]', '[email protected]'}
first_name | Samwise
last_name | Gamgee
todo
| {'2013-09-22 12:01:00-0700': 'plant trees'}
top_scores | null
@ Row 2
------------+---------------------------------------------userid
| frodo
emails
| {'[email protected]', '[email protected]'}
first_name | Frodo
last_name | Baggins
todo
| {'2012-10-02 12:00:00-0700': 'throw my precious into mount
doom'}
top_scores | null
(2 rows)

EXIT
Terminates cqlsh.

Terminates cqlsh.

Synopsis
EXIT | QUIT

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

PAGING
Enables or disables query paging.

Enables or disables query paging.

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Synopsis
PAGING ( ON | OFF )

Synopsis Legend
In the synopsis section of each statement, formatting has the following meaning:

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
In Cassandra 2.1.1, you can use query paging in cqlsh. Paging provides the output of queries in 100line chunks followed by the more prompt. To get the next chunk, press the space bar. Turning paging on
enables query paging for all further queries. Using no ON or OFF argument with the command shows the
current query paging status.

SHOW
Shows the Cassandra version, host, or tracing information for the current cqlsh client session.

Shows the Cassandra version, host, or tracing information for the current cqlsh client session.

Synopsis
SHOW VERSION
| HOST
| SESSION tracing_session_id

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

Description
A SHOW command displays this information about the current cqlsh client session:

The version and build number of the connected Cassandra instance, as well as the CQL mode for cqlsh
and the native protocol version used by the connected Cassandra instance.
The host information of the Cassandra node that the cqlsh session is currently connected to.
Tracing information for the current cqlsh session.

The SHOW SESSION command retrieves tracing session information, which is available for 24 hours.
After that time, the tracing information time-to-live expires.

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These examples show how to use the commands.

cqlsh:my_ks> SHOW version
[cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 2.1.0 | CQL spec 3.2 | Native protocol v3]
cqlsh:my_ks> SHOW host
Connected to Test Cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042.
cqlsh:my_ks> SHOW SESSION d0321c90-508e-11e3-8c7b-73ded3cb6170
Sample output of SHOW SESSION is:
Tracing session: d0321c90-508e-11e3-8c7b-73ded3cb6170
activity

| timestamp
| source
| source_elapsed
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------+-----------+---------------execute_cql3_query | 12:19:52,372
| 127.0.0.1 |
0
Parsing CREATE TABLE emp (\n empID int,\n deptID int,\n first_name
varchar,\n last_name varchar,\n PRIMARY KEY (empID, deptID)\n); |
12:19:52,372 | 127.0.0.1 |
153
Request complete | 12:19:52,372
| 127.0.0.1 |
. . .

650

SOURCE
Executes a file containing CQL statements.

Executes a file containing CQL statements.

Synopsis
SOURCE 'file'

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
To execute the contents of a file, specify the path of the file relative to the current directory. Enclose the
file name in single quotation marks. The shorthand notation in this example is supported for referring to
$HOME:

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Examples
SOURCE '~/mydir/myfile.txt'
The output for each statement, if there is any, appears in turn, including any error messages. Errors do not
abort execution of the file.
Alternatively, use the --file option to execute a file while starting CQL.

TRACING
Enables or disables request tracing.

Enables or disables request tracing.

Synopsis
TRACING ( ON | OFF )

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

Description
To turn tracing read/write requests on or off, use the TRACING command. After turning on tracing,
database activity creates output that can help you understand Cassandra internal operations and
troubleshoot performance problems. For example, using the tracing tutorial you can see how different
consistency levels affect operations. Some tracing messages refer to internals of the database that users
cannot understand, but can provide to the Cassandra team for troubleshooting.
For 24 hours, Cassandra saves the tracing information in sessions and events tables in the system_traces
keyspace, which you query when using probabilistic tracing. For information about probabilistic tracing, see
Cassandra 2.1 documentation or Cassandra 2.0 documentation.
$ CREATE TABLE sessions (
session_id uuid PRIMARY KEY,
coordinator inet,
duration int,
parameters map<text, text>,
request text,
started_at timestamp
);
CREATE TABLE events (
session_id uuid,
event_id timeuuid,
activity text,
source inet,
source_elapsed int,
thread text,
PRIMARY KEY (session_id, event_id)
);

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The source_elapsed column stores the elapsed time in microseconds before the event occurred on the
source node.
To keep tracing information, copy the data in sessions and event tables to another location. Alternatively,
use the tracing session id to retrieve session information using SHOW SESSION. Tracing session
information expires after one day.

Tracing a write request

This example shows tracing activity on a 3-node cluster created by ccm on Mac OSX. Using a keyspace
that has a replication factor of 3 and an employee table similar to the one in "Using a compound primary
key on page 21," the tracing shows that the coordinator performs the following actions:

Identifies the target nodes for replication of the row.

Writes the row to the commitlog and memtable.
Confirms completion of the request.
TRACING ON
INSERT INTO emp (empID, deptID, first_name, last_name)
VALUES (104, 15, 'jane', 'smith');

Cassandra provides a description of each step it takes to satisfy the request, the names of nodes that are
affected, the time for each step, and the total time for the request.
Tracing session: 740b9c10-3506-11e2-0000-fe8ebeead9ff
activity
| timestamp
| source
|
source_elapsed
-------------------------------------+--------------+----------+---------------execute_cql3_query | 16:41:00,754 | 127.0.0.1 |
0
Parsing statement | 16:41:00,754 | 127.0.0.1 |
48
Preparing statement | 16:41:00,755 | 127.0.0.1 |
658
Determining replicas for mutation | 16:41:00,755 | 127.0.0.1 |
979
Message received from /127.0.0.1 | 16:41:00,756 | 127.0.0.3 |
37
Acquiring switchLock read lock | 16:41:00,756 | 127.0.0.1 |
1848
Sending message to /127.0.0.3 | 16:41:00,756 | 127.0.0.1 |
1853
Appending to commitlog | 16:41:00,756 | 127.0.0.1 |
1891
Sending message to /127.0.0.2 | 16:41:00,756 | 127.0.0.1 |
1911
Adding to emp memtable | 16:41:00,756 | 127.0.0.1 |
1997
Acquiring switchLock read lock | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.3 |
395
Message received from /127.0.0.1 | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.2 |
42
Appending to commitlog | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.3 |
432
Acquiring switchLock read lock | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.2 |
168
Adding to emp memtable | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.3 |
522

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CQL reference

Appending to commitlog | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.2 |

211
Adding to emp memtable | 16:41:00,757 | 127.0.0.2 |
359
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
1282
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
1024
Sending message to /127.0.0.1
1469
Sending message to /127.0.0.1
1179
Message received from /127.0.0.2
10966
Message received from /127.0.0.3
10966
Processing response from /127.0.0.2
11063
Processing response from /127.0.0.3
11066
Request complete
11139

| 16:41:00,758 | 127.0.0.3 |
| 16:41:00,758 | 127.0.0.2 |
| 16:41:00,758 | 127.0.0.3 |
| 16:41:00,758 | 127.0.0.2 |
| 16:41:00,765 | 127.0.0.1 |
| 16:41:00,765 | 127.0.0.1 |
| 16:41:00,765 | 127.0.0.1 |
| 16:41:00,765 | 127.0.0.1 |
| 16:41:00,765 | 127.0.0.1 |

Tracing a sequential scan

Due to the log structured design of Cassandra, a single row is spread across multiple SSTables. Reading
one row involves reading pieces from multiple SSTables, as shown by this trace of a request to read the
employee table, which was pre-loaded with 10 rows of data.
SELECT * FROM emp;
Output is:

empid | deptid | first_name | last_name

-------+--------+------------+----------110 |
16 |
naoko |
murai
105 |
15 |
john |
smith
111 |
15 |
jane |
thath
113 |
15 |
lisa |
amato
112 |
20 |
mike |
burns
107 |
15 |
sukhit |
ran
108 |
16 |
tom |
brown
109 |
18 |
ann |
green
104 |
15 |
jane |
smith
106 |
15 |
bob |
jones
The tracing output of this read request looks something like this (a few rows have been truncated to fit on
this page):
Tracing session: bf5163e0-350f-11e2-0000-fe8ebeead9ff
activity
| timestamp
| source
| source_elapsed
-------------------------------------------------+--------------+----------+---------------execute_cql3_query | 17:47:32,511 | 127.0.0.1
|
0
Parsing statement | 17:47:32,511 | 127.0.0.1
|
47

85

CQL reference

Preparing statement | 17:47:32,511 | 127.0.0.1

|

249

383

Determining replicas to query | 17:47:32,511 | 127.0.0.1

Sending message to /127.0.0.2
883
Message received from /127.0.0.1
|
33
Executing seq scan across 0 sstables for . . .
|
670
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
964
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
1268
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
1502
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
1673
Scanned 4 rows and matched 4
|
1721
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
|
1742
Sending message to /127.0.0.1
|
1852
Message received from /127.0.0.2
|
3776
Processing response from /127.0.0.2
|
3900
Sending message to /127.0.0.2
|
153535
Message received from /127.0.0.1
|
44
Executing seq scan across 0 sstables for . . .
|
1068
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
1454
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
1640
Scanned 2 rows and matched 2
|
1694
Enqueuing response to /127.0.0.1
|
1722
Sending message to /127.0.0.1
|
1825
Message received from /127.0.0.2
|
156454
Processing response from /127.0.0.2
|
156610
Executing seq scan across 0 sstables for . . .
|
157387
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
157729
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
157904
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
158054
Read 1 live cells and 0 tombstoned
|
158217
Scanned 4 rows and matched 4
|
158270
Request complete
|
159525

| 17:47:32,512 | 127.0.0.1

86

| 17:47:32,512 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,513 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,513 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,514 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,514 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,514 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,514 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,514 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,514 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,515 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,515 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,665 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,665 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,666 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,667 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,667 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,667 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,667 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,667 | 127.0.0.2
| 17:47:32,668 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,668 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,669 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,669 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,669 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,669 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,669 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,669 | 127.0.0.1
| 17:47:32,670 | 127.0.0.1

CQL reference

The sequential scan across the cluster shows:

The first scan found 4 rows on node 2.

The second scan found 2 more rows found on node 2.
The third scan found the 4 rows on node 1.

Related information
Cassandra 2.1 probabilistic tracing
Cassandra 2.0 probabilistic tracing

CQL commands
CQL commands.

ALTER KEYSPACE
Change property values of a keyspace.

Change property values of a keyspace.

Synopsis
ALTER ( KEYSPACE | SCHEMA ) keyspace_name
WITH REPLICATION = map
| ( WITH DURABLE_WRITES = ( true | false ))
AND ( DURABLE_WRITES = ( true | false))
map is a map collection, a JSON-style array of literals:
{ literal : literal , literal : literal, ... }

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
ALTER KEYSPACE changes the map that defines the replica placement strategy and/or the
DURABLE_WRITES value. You can also use the alias ALTER SCHEMA. Use these properties and values
to construct the map. To set the replica placement strategy, construct a map of properties and values, as
shown in the table of map properties on the CREATE KEYSPACE reference page. CQL property map keys
must be lower case. For example, class and replication_factor are correct.
You cannot change the name of the keyspace.

Example
Change the definition of the mykeyspace to use the NetworkTopologyStrategy in a single data center. Use
the default data center name in Cassandra and a replication factor of 3.
ALTER KEYSPACE "Excalibur" WITH REPLICATION =
{ 'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 3 };

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CQL reference

ALTER TABLE
Modify the column metadata of a table.

Modify the column metadata of a table.

Synopsis
ALTER TABLE keyspace_name.table_name instruction
instruction is:
ALTER column_name TYPE cql_type
| ( ADD column_name cql_type )
| ( DROP column_name )
| ( RENAME column_name TO column_name )
| ( WITH property AND property ... )
cql_type is compatible with the original type and is a CQL type, other than a collection or counter.
Exceptions: ADD supports a collection type and also, if the table is a counter, a counter type.
property is a CQL table property and value, such as speculative_retry = '10ms'. Enclose a string property in
single quotation marks.

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
ALTER TABLE manipulates the table metadata. You can change the data storage type of columns, add
new columns, drop existing columns, and change table properties. No results are returned. You can also
use the alias ALTER COLUMNFAMILY.
First, specify the name of the table to be changed after the ALTER TABLE keywords, followed by the type
of change: ALTER, ADD, DROP, RENAME, or WITH. Next, provide the rest of the needed information, as
explained in the following sections.
You can qualify table names by keyspace. For example, to alter the addamsFamily table in the monsters
keyspace:
ALTER TABLE monsters.addamsFamily ALTER lastKnownLocation TYPE uuid;

Changing the type of a column

To change the storage type for a column, the type you are changing from must be compatible with the
type you are changing to. You can change an ascii type to text. You cannot change text (varchar) to ascii
because every UTF8 string is not ascii. You can convert text to blobs. You cannot convert a blob to text
because not every blob is not a UTF8 string. For example, change this type of the bio column in the users
table from ascii to text, and then from text to blob.
CREATE TABLE users (
user_name varchar PRIMARY KEY,

88

CQL reference

bio ascii,
);
ALTER TABLE users ALTER bio TYPE text;
ALTER TABLE users ALTER bio TYPE blob;
The column must already exist in current rows. The bytes stored in values for that column remain
unchanged, and if existing data cannot be deserialized according to the new type, your CQL driver or
interface might report errors.
These changes to a column type are not allowed:

Changing the type of a clustering column.

Changing columns on which an index is defined.

Altering the type of a column after inserting data can confuse CQL drivers/tools if the new type is
incompatible with the data.

Adding a column
To add a column, other than a column of a collection type, to a table, use ALTER TABLE and the ADD
keyword in the following way:
ALTER TABLE addamsFamily ADD gravesite varchar;
To add a column of the collection type:
ALTER TABLE users ADD top_places list<text>;
No validation of existing data occurs.
These additions to a table are not allowed:

Adding a column having the same name as an existing column

A static column

Dropping a column
To drop a column from the table, use ALTER TABLE and the DROP keyword. Dropping a column removes
the column from the table.
ALTER TABLE addamsFamily DROP gender;
ALTER DROP removes the column from the table definition, removes data pertaining to that column,
and eventually reclaims the space formerly used by the column. The column is unavailable for querying
immediately after being dropped. The actual data removal occurs during compaction; data is not included
in SSTables in the future. To force the removal of dropped columns before compaction occurs, use the
nodetool upgradesstables command followed by an ALTER TABLE statement, which updates the table
metadata to register the drop.
After re-adding a dropped column, a query does not return values written before the column was last
dropped. Do not re-add a dropped column to a table using client-supplied timestamps, which is not a
Cassandra-generated write time.
You cannot drop columns from tables defined with the COMPACT STORAGE option.

Renaming a column
The main purpose of the RENAME clause is to change the names of CQL-generated primary key and
column names that are missing from a legacy table. Primary key columns can be renamed. You cannot
rename an indexed column or a static column, which is supported in Cassandra 2.0.6 and later.

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Modifying table properties

To change the table storage properties established during creation of the table, use one of the following
formats to alter a table:

ALTER TABLE and a WITH directive that includes the property name and value
ALTER TABLE and a property map, shown in the next section

Using a WITH directive, for example, you can modify the read_repair_chance property, which configures
the basis for invoking read repairs on reads in clusters configured for a non-quorum consistency.
To change multiple properties, use AND as shown in this example:
ALTER TABLE addamsFamily
WITH comment = 'A most excellent and useful table'
AND read_repair_chance = 0.2;
Enclose a text property value in single quotation marks. You cannot modify properties of a table having
compact storage.

Modifying compression and compaction

Use a property map to alter a compression or compaction option.
ALTER TABLE addamsFamily WITH compression =
{ 'sstable_compression' : 'DeflateCompressor', 'chunk_length_kb' : 64 };
ALTER TABLE mykeyspace.mytable
WITH compaction = {'class': 'SizeTieredCompactionStrategy',
'cold_reads_to_omit': 0.05};
Change the values of the caching property. For example, change the keys option from ALL, the default, to
NONE and change the rows_per_partition to 15.

Changing caching
In Cassandra 2.1, you create and change the caching options using a property map.
//Cassandra 2.1 only
ALTER TABLE users WITH caching = { 'keys' : 'NONE', 'rows_per_partition' :
'15' };
Next, change just the rows_per_partition to 25.
//Cassandra 2.1 only
ALTER TABLE users WITH caching = { 'rows_per_partition' : '25' };
Finally, take a look at the table definition.
//Cassandra 2.1 only
DESCRIBE TABLE users;
CREATE TABLE mykeyspace.users (
user_name text PRIMARY KEY,
bio blob
) WITH bloom_filter_fp_chance = 0.01
AND caching = '{"keys":"NONE", "rows_per_partition":"25"}'
AND comment = ''

90

CQL reference

AND compaction = {'min_threshold': '4', 'class':

'org.apache.cassandra.db.compaction.SizeTieredCompactionStrategy',
'max_threshold': '32'}
AND compression = {'sstable_compression':
'org.apache.cassandra.io.compress.LZ4Compressor'}
AND default_time_to_live = 0
AND gc_grace_seconds = 864000
AND max_index_interval = 2048
AND memtable_flush_period_in_ms = 0
AND min_index_interval = 128
AND read_repair_chance = 0.1
AND speculative_retry = '99.0PERCENTILE';
In Cassandra 2.0.x, you alter the caching options using the WITH directive.
//Cassandra 2.0.x only
ALTER TABLE users WITH caching = "keys_only;
Important: Use row caching in Cassandra 2.0.x with caution.

ALTER TYPE
Modify a user-defined type. Cassandra 2.1 and later.

Modify a user-defined type. Cassandra 2.1 and later.

Synopsis
ALTER TYPE field_name instruction
instruction is:
ALTER field_name TYPE new_type
| ( ADD field_name new_type )
| ( RENAME field_name TO field_name )
( AND field_name TO field_name ) ...
field_name is an arbitrary identifier for the field.
new_type is an identifier other than the reserved type names.

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
ALTER TYPE can change a user-defined type in the following ways:

Change the type of an existing field.

Append a new field to an existing type.
Rename a field defined by the type.

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CQL reference

First, after the ALTER TYPE keywords, specify the name of the user-defined type to be changed, followed
by the type of change: ALTER, ADD, or RENAME. Next, provide the rest of the needed information, as
explained in the following sections.

Changing the type of a field

To change the type of a field, the field must already exist in type definition and its type should be
compatible with the new type. You can change an ascii type to text. You cannot change text (varchar) to
ascii because every UTF8 string is not ascii. You can convert text to blobs. You cannot convert a blob to
text because not every blob is not a UTF8 string. This example shows changing the type of the model field
from ascii to text and then to blob.
CREATE TYPE version (
model ascii,
version_number int
);
ALTER TYPE version ALTER model TYPE text;
ALTER TYPE version ALTER model TYPE blob;
You cannot change the type of these columns:

Clustering columns because doing so induces the on-disk ordering of rows

Indexed columns

Adding a field to a type

To add a new field to a type, use ALTER TYPE and the ADD keyword.
ALTER TYPE version ADD release_date timestamp;
To add a collection map field called point_release in this example that represents the release date and
decimal designator, use this syntax:
ALTER TYPE version ADD point_release map<timestamp, decimal>;

Renaming a field of a type

To change the name of a field of a user-defined type, use the RENAME old_name TO new_name syntax.
You can't use different keyspaces prefixes for the old and new names. Make multiple changes to field
names of a type by appending AND old_name TO new_name to the command.
ALTER TYPE version RENAME model TO sku;
ALTER TYPE version RENAME sku TO model AND version_number TO num

ALTER USER
Alter existing user options.

Alter existing user options.

Synopsis
ALTER USER user_name
WITH PASSWORD 'password' ( NOSUPERUSER | SUPERUSER )

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Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
Superusers can change a user's password or superuser status. To prevent disabling all superusers,
superusers cannot change their own superuser status. Ordinary users can change only their own
password. Enclose the user name in single quotation marks if it contains non-alphanumeric characters.
Enclose the password in single quotation marks.

Examples
ALTER USER moss WITH PASSWORD 'bestReceiver';

BATCH
Write multiple DML statements.

Write multiple DML statements.

Synopsis
Cassandra 2.1 and later
BEGIN UNLOGGED BATCH
USING TIMESTAMP timestamp
dml_statement;
dml_statement;
...
APPLY BATCH;
Cassandra 2.0.x
BEGIN ( UNLOGGED | COUNTER ) BATCH
USING TIMESTAMP timestamp
dml_statement;
dml_statement;
...
APPLY BATCH;
dml_statement is:

INSERT
UPDATE
DELETE

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional

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The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR

Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
A BATCH statement combines multiple data modification language (DML) statements (INSERT, UPDATE,
DELETE) into a single logical operation, and sets a client-supplied timestamp for all columns written by
the statements in the batch. Batching multiple statements can save network exchanges between the
client/server and server coordinator/replicas. However, because of the distributed nature of Cassandra,
spread requests across nearby nodes as much as possible to optimize performance. Using batches to
optimize performance is usually not successful, as described in Using and misusing batches section. For
information about the fastest way to load data, see "Cassandra: Batch loading without the Batch keyword."
Batches are atomic by default. In the context of a Cassandra batch operation, atomic means that if any
of the batch succeeds, all of it will. To achieve atomicity, Cassandra first writes the serialized batch to the
batchlog system table that consumes the serialized batch as blob data. When the rows in the batch have
been successfully written and persisted (or hinted) the batchlog data is removed. There is a performance
penalty for atomicity. If you do not want to incur this penalty, prevent Cassandra from writing to the
batchlog system by using the UNLOGGED option: BEGIN UNLOGGED BATCH
Although an atomic batch guarantees that if any part of the batch succeeds, all of it will, no other
transactional enforcement is done at the batch level. For example, there is no batch isolation. Clients are
able to read the first updated rows from the batch, while other rows are still being updated on the server.
However, transactional row updates within a partition key are isolated: clients cannot read a partial update.
Statement order does not matter within a batch; Cassandra applies all rows using the same timestamp.
Use client-supplied timestamps to achieve a particular order.

Using a timestamp
BATCH supports setting a client-supplied timestamp, an integer, in the USING clause with one exception:
if a DML statement in the batch contains a compare-and-set (CAS) statement, such as the following
statement, do not attempt to use a timestamp:
INSERT INTO users (id, lastname) VALUES (999, 'Sparrow')

IF NOT EXISTS

The timestamp applies to all statements in the batch. If not specified, the current time of the insertion (in
microseconds) is used. The individual DML statements inside a BATCH can specify a timestamp if one is
not specified in the USING clause.
For example, specify a timestamp in an INSERT statement.
BEGIN BATCH
INSERT INTO purchases (user, balance) VALUES ('user1', -8) USING TIMESTAMP
19998889022757000;
INSERT INTO purchases (user, expense_id, amount, description, paid)
VALUES ('user1', 1, 8, 'burrito', false);
APPLY BATCH;
Verify that balance column has the client-provided timestamp.
SELECT balance, WRITETIME(balance) FROM PURCHASES;
balance | writetime_balance
---------+-------------------8 | 19998889022757000

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CQL reference

Batching conditional updates

In Cassandra 2.0.6 and later, you can batch conditional updates introduced as lightweight transactions
in Cassandra 2.0. Only updates made to the same partition can be included in the batch because the
underlying Paxos implementation works at the granularity of the partition. You can group updates that have
conditions with those that do not, but when a single statement in a batch uses a condition, the entire batch
is committed using a single Paxos proposal, as if all of the conditions contained in the batch apply. This
example shows batching of conditional updates:
The statements for inserting values into purchase records use the IF conditional clause.
BEGIN BATCH
INSERT INTO purchases (user, balance) VALUES ('user1', -8) IF NOT EXISTS;
INSERT INTO purchases (user, expense_id, amount, description, paid)
VALUES ('user1', 1, 8, 'burrito', false);
APPLY BATCH;
BEGIN BATCH
UPDATE purchases SET balance = -208 WHERE user='user1' IF balance = -8;
INSERT INTO purchases (user, expense_id, amount, description, paid)
VALUES ('user1', 2, 200, 'hotel room', false);
APPLY BATCH;
A continuation of this example shows how to use a static column with conditional updates in batch.

Batching counter updates

In Cassandra 2.1 and later, batches of counters should use UNLOGGED because, unlike other writes in
Cassandra, counter updates are not an idempotent operation.
In Cassandra 2.0, use BEGIN COUNTER BATCH in a batch statement for batched counter updates.

Cassandra 2.1 Example

BEGIN UNLOGGED BATCH
UPDATE UserActionCounts SET total = total + 2 WHERE keyalias = 523;
UPDATE AdminActionCounts SET total = total + 2 WHERE keyalias = 701;
APPLY BATCH;

Cassandra 2.0 Example

BEGIN COUNTER BATCH
UPDATE UserActionCounts SET total = total + 2 WHERE keyalias = 523;
UPDATE AdminActionCounts SET total = total + 2 WHERE keyalias = 701;
APPLY BATCH;

CREATE INDEX
Define a new index on a single column of a table.

Define a new index on a single column of a table.

Synopsis
CREATE CUSTOM INDEX IF NOT EXISTS index_name
ON keyspace_name.table_name ( KEYS ( column_name ) )
(USING class_name) (WITH OPTIONS = map)
Restrictions: Using class_name is allowed only if CUSTOM is used and class_name is a string literal
containing a java class name.

95

CQL reference

index_name is an identifier, enclosed or not enclosed in double quotation marks, excluding reserved
words.
map is a map collection, a JSON-style array of literals:
{ literal : literal, literal : literal ... }

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
CREATE INDEX creates a new index on the given table for the named column. Attempting to create an
already existing index will return an error unless the IF NOT EXISTS option is used. If you use the option,
the statement will be a no-op if the index already exists. Optionally, specify a name for the index itself
before the ON keyword. Enclose a single column name in parentheses. It is not necessary for the column
to exist on any current rows. The column and its data type must be specified when the table is created, or
added afterward by altering the table.
You can use dot notation to specify a keyspace for the table: keyspace name followed by a period followed
the name of the table. Cassandra creates the table in the specified keyspace, but does not change the
current keyspace; otherwise, if you do not use a keyspace name, Cassandra creates the index for the table
within the current keyspace.
If data already exists for the column, Cassandra indexes the data during the execution of this statement.
After the index is created, Cassandra indexes new data for the column automatically when new data is
inserted.
Cassandra supports creating an index on most columns, including a clustering column of a compound
primary key or on the partition (primary) key itself. Cassandra 2.1 and later supports creating an index on
a collection or the key of a collection map. Cassandra rejects an attempt to create an index on both the
collection key and value.
Indexing can impact performance greatly. Before creating an index, be aware of when and when not to
create an index.
Counter columns cannot be indexed.
Cassandra supports creating a custom index, which is primarily for internal use, and options that apply to
the custom index. For example:
CREATE CUSTOM INDEX ON users (email) USING 'path.to.the.IndexClass';
CREATE CUSTOM INDEX ON users (email) USING 'path.to.the.IndexClass' WITH
OPTIONS = {'storage': '/mnt/ssd/indexes/'};

Creating an index on a column

Define a table and then create an index on two of its columns:
CREATE TABLE myschema.users (
userID uuid,
fname text,

96

CQL reference

lname text,
email text,
address text,
zip int,
state text,
PRIMARY KEY (userID)
);
CREATE INDEX user_state
ON myschema.users (state);
CREATE INDEX ON myschema.users (zip);

Creating an index on a clustering column

Define a table having a composite partition key, and then create an index on a clustering column.

CREATE TABLE mykeyspace.users (

userID uuid,
fname text,
lname text,
email text,
address text,
zip int,
state text,
PRIMARY KEY ((userID, fname), state)
);
CREATE INDEX ON mykeyspace.users (state);

Creating an index on a collection

In Cassandra 2.1 and later, create an index on a collection column as you would any other column.
Enclose the name of the collection column in parentheses at the end of the CREATE INDEX statement.
For example, add a collection of phone numbers to the users table to index the data in the phones set.
ALTER TABLE users ADD phones set<text>;
CREATE INDEX ON users (phones);
If the collection is a map, Cassandra creates an index on map values. Assume the users table contains this
map data from the example of a todo map:
{'2014-10-2 12:10' : 'die' }
The map value is located to the right of the colon, 'die'. The map key, the timestamp, is located to the left
of the colon. You can also create an index on map keys using a slightly different syntax. If an index of the
map keys of the collection exists, drop that index before creating an index on the map collection values.

Creating an index on map keys

In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you can create an index on map collection keys. If an index of the map values
of the collection exists, drop that index before creating an index on the map collection keys.
To index map keys, you use the KEYS keyword and map name in nested parentheses. For example, index
the collection keys, the timestamps, in the todo map in the users table:

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CQL reference

CREATE INDEX todo_dates ON users (KEYS(todo));

To query the table, you can use CONTAINS KEY in WHERE clauses.

CREATE KEYSPACE
Define a new keyspace and its replica placement strategy.

Define a new keyspace and its replica placement strategy.

Synopsis
CREATE ( KEYSPACE | SCHEMA ) IF NOT EXISTS keyspace_name
WITH REPLICATION = map
AND DURABLE_WRITES = ( true | false )
map is a map collection, a JSON-style array of literals:
{ literal : literal, literal : literal ... }

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
CREATE KEYSPACE creates a top-level namespace and sets the keyspace name, replica placement
strategy class, replication factor, and DURABLE_WRITES options for the keyspace. For information about
the replica placement strategy, see Cassandra 2.1 replica placement strategy or Cassandra 2.0 replica
placement strategy.
When you configure NetworkTopologyStrategy as the replication strategy, you set up one or more virtual
data centers. Alternatively, you use the default data center. Use the same names for data centers as
those used by the snitch. For information about the snitch, see Cassandra 2.1 snitch documentation or
Cassandra 2.0 snitch documentation.
You assign different nodes, depending on the type of workload, to separate data centers. For example,
assign Hadoop nodes to one data center and Cassandra real-time nodes to another. Segregating
workloads ensures that only one type of workload is active per data center. The segregation prevents
incompatibility problems between workloads, such as different batch requirements that affect performance.
A map of properties and values defines the two different types of keyspaces:
{ 'class' : 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor' : <integer> };
{ 'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy'[, '<data center>' : <integer>, '<data
center>' : <integer>] . . . };

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Table: Table of map properties and values

Property

Value

Value Description

'class'

'SimpleStrategy' or
'NetworkTopologyStrategy'

Required. The name of the

replica placement strategy class
for the new keyspace.

'replication_factor'

<number of replicas>

Required if class is
SimpleStrategy; otherwise, not
used. The number of replicas of
data on multiple nodes.

'<first data center>'

<number of replicas>

Required if class is
NetworkTopologyStrategy and
you provide the name of the
first data center. This value is
the number of replicas of data
on each node in the first data
center. Example

'<next data center>'

<number of replicas>

Required if class is
NetworkTopologyStrategy and
you provide the name of the
second data center. The value is
the number of replicas of data on
each node in the data center.

...

...

More replication factors for

optional named data centers.

CQL property map keys must be lower case. For example, class and replication_factor are correct.
Keyspace names are 48 or fewer alpha-numeric characters and underscores, the first of which is an alpha
character. Keyspace names are case-insensitive. To make a name case-sensitive, enclose it in double
quotation marks.
You can use the alias CREATE SCHEMA instead of CREATE KEYSPACE. Attempting to create an
already existing keyspace will return an error unless the IF NOT EXISTS option is used. If the option is
used, the statement will be a no-op if the keyspace already exists.

Example of setting the SimpleStrategy class

To construct the CREATE KEYSPACE statement, first declare the name of the keyspace, followed by the
WITH REPLICATION keywords and the equals symbol. The name of the keyspace is case insensitive
unless enclosed in double quotation marks. Next, to create a keyspace that is not optimized for multiple
data centers, use SimpleStrategy for the class value in the map. Set replication_factor properties,
separated by a colon and enclosed in curly brackets. For example:
CREATE KEYSPACE Excelsior
WITH REPLICATION = { 'class' : 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor' :
3 };
Using SimpleStrategy is fine for evaluating Cassandra. For production use or for use with mixed workloads,
use NetworkTopologyStrategy.

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Example of setting the NetworkToplogyStrategy class

Using NetworkTopologyStrategy is also fine for evaluating Cassandra. To use NetworkTopologyStrategy
for evaluation purposes using, for example, a single node cluster, specify the default data center name of
the cluster. To determine the default data center name, use nodetool status.
$ nodetool status
Datacenter: datacenter1
=======================
Status=Up/Down
|/ State=Normal/Leaving/Joining/Moving
-- Address
Load
Tokens Owns
Rack
UN 127.0.0.1 46.59 KB
256
100.0%
e22e75e46432 rack1

Host ID
dd867d15-6536-4922-b574-

Cassandra uses datacenter1 as the default data center name. Create a keyspace named NTSkeyspace on
a single node cluster, for example:
CREATE KEYSPACE NTSkeyspace WITH REPLICATION = { 'class' :
'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'datacenter1' : 1 };
To use NetworkTopologyStrategy with data centers in a production environment, you need to change the
default snitch, SimpleSnitch, to a network-aware snitch, define one or more data center names in the snitch
properties file, and use those data center name(s) to define the keyspace; otherwise, Cassandra will fail to
find a node, to complete a write request, such as inserting data into a table.
After configuring Cassandra to use a network-aware snitch, such as the PropertyFileSnitch, you define
data center and rack names in the cassandra-topology.properties file.
Construct the CREATE KEYSPACE statement using NetworkTopologyStrategy for the class value in the
map. Set one or more key-value pairs consisting of the data center name and number of replicas per data
center, separated by a colon and enclosed in curly brackets. For example:
CREATE KEYSPACE "Excalibur"
WITH REPLICATION = {'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy', 'dc1' : 3,
'dc2' : 2};
This example sets three replicas for a data center named dc1 and two replicas for a data center named
dc2. The data center name you use depends on the cluster-configured snitch you are using. There is a
correlation between the data center name defined in the map and the data center name as recognized
by the snitch you are using. The nodetool status command prints out data center names and rack
locations of your nodes if you are not sure what they are.

Setting DURABLE_WRITES
You can set the DURABLE_WRITES option after the map specification of the CREATE KEYSPACE
command. When set to false, data written to the keyspace bypasses the commit log. Be careful using this
option because you risk losing data. Do not set this attribute on a keyspace using the SimpleStrategy.
CREATE KEYSPACE Risky
WITH REPLICATION = { 'class' : 'NetworkTopologyStrategy',
'datacenter1' : 3 } AND DURABLE_WRITES = false;

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Checking created keyspaces

Check that the keyspaces were created:
SELECT * FROM system.schema_keyspaces;

keyspace_name | durable_writes | strategy_class

| strategy_options
---------------+---------------+-----------------------------------------------------+---------------------------excelsior |
True |
org.apache.cassandra.locator.SimpleStrategy | {"replication_factor":"3"}
Excalibur |
True |
org.apache.cassandra.locator.NetworkTopologyStrategy |
{"dc2":"2","dc1":"3"}
risky |
False |
org.apache.cassandra.locator.NetworkTopologyStrategy |
{"datacenter1":"1"}
system |
True |
org.apache.cassandra.locator.LocalStrategy |
{}
system_traces |
True |
org.apache.cassandra.locator.SimpleStrategy | {"replication_factor":"1"}
(5 rows)
Cassandra converted the excelsior keyspace to lowercase because quotation marks were not used to
create the keyspace and retained the initial capital letter for the Excalibur because quotation marks were
used.
Related information
Cassandra 2.1 replication strategy
Cassandra 2.0 replication strategy
Cassandra 2.1 snitch configuraition
Cassandra 2.0 snitch configuration
Cassandra 2.1 property file snitch
Cassandra 2.0 property file snitch

CREATE TABLE
Define a new table.

Define a new table.

Synopsis
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS keyspace_name.table_name
( column_definition, column_definition, ...)
WITH property AND property ...
Cassandra 2.1.3+ column_definition is:
column_name cql_type STATIC PRIMARY KEY
| column_name <tuple<tuple_type> tuple<tuple_type>... > PRIMARY KEY
| column_name frozen<user-defined_type> PRIMARY KEY
| column_name frozen<collection_name><collection_type>... PRIMARY KEY
| ( PRIMARY KEY ( partition_key ) )

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Note: You cannot use non-frozen collections for primary key columns. However, you can use frozen
collections for primary key columns.
Cassandra 2.1.0 to 2.1.2 column_definition is:
column_name cql_type STATIC PRIMARY KEY
| column_name frozen<tuple<tuple_type> tuple<tuple_type>... > PRIMARY KEY
| column_name frozen<user-defined_type> PRIMARY KEY
| column_name frozen<collection> PRIMARY KEY
| ( PRIMARY KEY ( partition_key ) )
Cassandra 2.0.x column_definition is:
column_name cql_type STATIC PRIMARY KEY
| ( PRIMARY KEY ( partition_key ) )
Restrictions:

There should always be exactly one primary key definition.

cql_type of the primary key must be a CQL data type or a user-defined type.
cql_type of a collection uses this syntax:
LIST<cql_type>
| SET<cql_type>
| MAP<cql_type, cql_type>

In Cassandra 2.1 only, tuple and user-defined types require the frozen keyword followed by the type in
angle brackets.

PRIMARY KEY is:

column_name
| ( column_name1, column_name2, column_name3 ...)
| ((column_name4, column_name5), column_name6, column_name7 ...)
column_name1 is the partition key.
column_name2, column_name3 ... are clustering columns.
column_name4, column_name5 are partitioning keys.
column_name6, column_name7 ... are clustering columns.
property is a CQL table property, enclosed in single quotation marks in the case of strings, or one of these
directives:
COMPACT STORAGE
| ( CLUSTERING ORDER BY (clustering_column ( ASC) | DESC ), ...) )

Synopsis legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

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Description
CREATE TABLE creates a new table under the current keyspace. You can also use the alias CREATE
COLUMNFAMILY.
Cassandra 2.1.1 and later supports the IF NOT EXISTS syntax for creating a trigger. Attempting to create
an existing table returns an error unless the IF NOT EXISTS option is used. If the option is used, the
statement if a no-op if the table already exists.
Valid table names are strings of alphanumeric characters and underscores, which begin with a letter. You
can use dot notation to specify a keyspace for the table: keyspace name followed by a period followed the
name of the table, Cassandra creates the table in the specified keyspace, but does not change the current
keyspace; otherwise, if you do not use a keyspace name, Cassandra creates the table within the current
keyspace.
In Cassandra 2.0.6 and later, you can use a static column to store the same data in multiple clustered rows
of a partition, and then retrieve that data with a single SELECT statement.
You can add a counter column, which has been improved in Cassandra 2.1, to a table.

Defining a column
You assign a type to columns during table creation. Column types, other than collection-type columns, are
specified as a parenthesized, comma-separated list of column name and type pairs.
This example shows how to create a table that includes collection-type columns: map, set, and list.
CREATE TABLE users (
userid text PRIMARY KEY,
first_name text,
last_name text,
emails set<text>,
top_scores list<int>,
todo map<timestamp, text>
);

Defining columns of the user-defined, tuple types, and collections

To support future capabilities, a column definition of a user-defined or tuple type requires the frozen
keyword. Cassandra serializes a frozen value having multiple components into a single value. For
examples and usage information, see "Using a user-defined type", "Tuple type", and Collection type on
page 57.
Note: Cassandra 2.1.0 to 2.1.2 requires using frozen for tuples:
frozen <tuple <int, tuple<text, double>>>
Cassandra 2.1.3+ does not require this keyword.

Ordering results
You can order query results to make use of the on-disk sorting of columns. You can order results in
ascending or descending order. The ascending order will be more efficient than descending. If you need
results in descending order, you can specify a clustering order to store columns on disk in the reverse
order of the default. Descending queries will then be faster than ascending ones.
The following example shows a table definition that changes the clustering order to descending by insertion
time.
CREATE TABLE timeseries (
event_type text,
insertion_time timestamp,

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event blob,
PRIMARY KEY (event_type, insertion_time)
)
WITH CLUSTERING ORDER BY (insertion_time DESC);

Using compact storage

When you create a table using compound primary keys, for every piece of data stored, the column name
needs to be stored along with it. Instead of each non-primary key column being stored such that each
column corresponds to one column on disk, an entire row is stored in a single column on disk. If you need
to conserve disk space, use the WITH COMPACT STORAGE directive that stores data in the legacy
(Thrift) storage engine format.
CREATE TABLE sblocks (
block_id uuid,
subblock_id uuid,
data blob,
PRIMARY KEY (block_id, subblock_id)
)
WITH COMPACT STORAGE;
Using the compact storage directive prevents you from defining more than one column that is not part of
a compound primary key. A compact table using a primary key that is not compound can have multiple
columns that are not part of the primary key.
A compact table that uses a compound primary key must define at least one clustering column. Columns
cannot be added nor removed after creation of a compact table. Unless you specify WITH COMPACT
STORAGE, CQL creates a table with non-compact storage.

Setting a table property

Using the optional WITH clause and keyword arguments, you can configure caching, compaction, and a
number of other operations that Cassandra performs on new table. Use the WITH clause to specify the
properties of tables listed in Setting a table property on page 105. Enclose a string property in single
quotation marks.

Defining a primary key column

The only schema information that must be defined for a table is the primary key and its associated data type.

The only schema information that must be defined for a table is the primary key and its associated data
type. Unlike earlier versions, CQL does not require a column in the table that is not part of the primary key.
A primary key can have any number (1 or more) of component columns.
If the primary key consists of only one column, you can use the keywords, PRIMARY KEY, after the
column definition:
CREATE TABLE users (
user_name varchar PRIMARY KEY,
password varchar,
gender varchar,
session_token varchar,
state varchar,
birth_year bigint
);
Alternatively, you can declare the primary key consisting of only one column in the same way as you
declare a compound primary key. Do not use a counter column for a key.

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Setting a table property

Using the WITH clause and keyword arguments for configure caching, compaction, and other operations that Cassandra performs on new table.

Using the optional WITH clause and keyword arguments, you can configure caching, compaction, and
a number of other operations that Cassandra performs on new table. You can use the WITH clause
to specify the properties of tables listed in CQL table properties, including caching, table comments,
compression, and compaction. Format the property as either a string or a map. Enclose a string property in
single quotation marks. For example, to embed a comment in a table, you format the comment as a string
property:
CREATE TABLE MonkeyTypes (
block_id uuid,
species text,
alias text,
population varint,
PRIMARY KEY (block_id)
)
WITH comment='Important biological records'
AND read_repair_chance = 1.0;

To configure compression and compaction, you use property maps:

CREATE TABLE DogTypes (
block_id uuid,
species text,
alias text,
population varint,
PRIMARY KEY (block_id)
) WITH compression =
{ 'sstable_compression' : 'DeflateCompressor', 'chunk_length_kb' : 64 }
AND compaction =
{ 'class' : 'SizeTieredCompactionStrategy', 'min_threshold' : 6 };
To specify using compact storage or clustering order use the WITH clause.
To configure caching in Cassandra 2.1, you also use a property map.
// Cassandra 2.1
CREATE TABLE DogTypes (
...
block_id uuid,
...
species text,
...
alias text,
...
population varint,
...
PRIMARY KEY (block_id)
... ) WITH caching = '{ 'keys' : 'NONE', 'rows_per_partition' :
'120' }';
To configure caching in Cassandra 2.0.x, you do not use a property map. Simply set the caching property
to a value:
// Cassandra 2.0.x only
CREATE TABLE DogTypes (
block_id uuid,
species text,
alias text,
population varint,
PRIMARY KEY (block_id)
) WITH caching = 'keys_only';

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Important: In Cassandra 2.0.x, use row caching with caution.

Using a compound primary key

A compound primary key consists of more than one column and treats the first column declared in a definition as the partition key.

As shown in the music service example, a compound primary key consists of more than one column and
treats the first column declared in a definition as the partition key. To create a compound primary key,
use the keywords, PRIMARY KEY, followed by the comma-separated list of column names enclosed in
parentheses.
CREATE TABLE emp (
empID int,
deptID int,
first_name varchar,
last_name varchar,
PRIMARY KEY (empID, deptID)
);

Using a composite partition key

A composite partition key is a partition key consisting of multiple columns.

A composite partition key is a partition key consisting of multiple columns. You use an extra set of
parentheses to enclose columns that make up the composite partition key. The columns within the primary
key definition but outside the nested parentheses are clustering columns. These columns form logical sets
inside a partition to facilitate retrieval.
CREATE TABLE Cats (
block_id uuid,
breed text,
color text,
short_hair boolean,
PRIMARY KEY ((block_id, breed), color, short_hair)
);
For example, the composite partition key consists of block_id and breed. The clustering columns, color and
short_hair, determine the clustering order of the data. Generally, Cassandra will store columns having the
same block_id but a different breed on different nodes, and columns having the same block_id and breed
on the same node.

Using clustering order

Ordering query results to make use of the on-disk sorting of columns.

You can order query results to make use of the on-disk sorting of columns. You can order results in
ascending or descending order. The ascending order will be more efficient than descending. If you need
results in descending order, you can specify a clustering order to store columns on disk in the reverse
order of the default. Descending queries will then be faster than ascending ones.
The following example shows a table definition that changes the clustering order to descending by insertion
time.
create table timeseries (
event_type text,
insertion_time timestamp,
event blob,
PRIMARY KEY (event_type, insertion_time)
)
WITH CLUSTERING ORDER BY (insertion_time DESC);

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Sharing a static column

In a table that uses clustering columns, non-clustering columns can be declared static in the table definition.

In a table that uses clustering columns, non-clustering columns can be declared static in the table
definition. Static columns are only static within a given partition.
CREATE TABLE t (
k text,
s text STATIC,
i int,
PRIMARY KEY (k, i)
);
INSERT INTO t (k, s, i) VALUES ('k', 'I''m shared', 0);
INSERT INTO t (k, s, i) VALUES ('k', 'I''m still shared', 1);
SELECT * FROM t;
Output is:
k |
s | i
---------------------------k | "I'm still shared" | 0
k | "I'm still shared" | 1
Restrictions

A table that does not define any clustering columns cannot have a static column. The table having no
clustering columns has a one-row partition in which every column is inherently static.
A table defined with the COMPACT STORAGE directive cannot have a static column.
A column designated to be the partition key cannot be static.

You can batch conditional updates to a static column.

In Cassandra 2.0.9 and later, you can use the DISTINCT keyword to select static columns. In this case,
Cassandra retrieves only the beginning (static column) of the partition.

CREATE TRIGGER
Registers a trigger on a table.

Registers a trigger on a table.

Synopsis
CREATE TRIGGER IF NOT EXISTS trigger_name ON table_name
USING 'java_class'

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

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Description
The implementation of triggers includes the capability to register a trigger on a table using the familiar
CREATE TRIGGER syntax. This implementation is experimental.
CREATE TRIGGER myTrigger
ON myTable
USING 'org.apache.cassandra.triggers.InvertedIndex'
In Cassandra 2.1 and later, you need to enclose trigger names that use uppercase characters in
double quotation marks. The logic comprising the trigger can be written in any Java (JVM) language
and exists outside the database. The Java class in this example that implements the trigger is named
org.apache.cassandra.triggers and defined in an Apache repository. The trigger defined on a table
fires before a requested DML statement occurs to ensures the atomicity of the transaction.
Place the custom trigger code (JAR) in the triggers directory on every node. The custom JAR loads at
startup. The location of triggers directory depends on the installation:

Cassandra 2.0.x tarball: install_location/lib/triggers

Cassandra 2.1.x tarball: install_location/conf/triggers
Datastax Enterprise 4.5 and later: Installer-No Services and tarball: install_location/
resources/cassandra/conf/triggers
Datastax Enterprise 4.5 and later: Installer-Services and packages: /etc/dse/cassandra/
triggers

Cassandra 2.1.1 and later supports lightweight transactions for creating a trigger. Attempting to create
an existing trigger returns an error unless the IF NOT EXISTS option is used. If the option is used, the
statement is a no-op if the table already exists.

CREATE TYPE
Create a user-defined type. Cassandra 2.1 and later.

Create a user-defined type. Cassandra 2.1 and later.

Synopsis
CREATE TYPE IF NOT EXISTS keyspace.type_name
( field, field, ...)
type_name is a type identifier other than the reserved type names.
field is:
field_name type
field_name is an arbitrary identifier for the field.
type is a CQL collection or non-collection type other than a counter type.

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

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Description
A user-defined type is one or more typed fields. A user-defined type facilitates handling multiple fields of
related information, such as address information: street, city, and postal code. Attempting to create an
already existing type will return an error unless the IF NOT EXISTS option is used. If the option is used, the
statement will be a no-op if the type already exists.
To create a user-defined type, use the CREATE TYPE command followed by the name of the type and a
list of fields delimited by commas and enclosed in parentheses.
Choose a name for the user-defined type other than reserved type names, such as:

byte
smallint
complex
enum
date
interval
macaddr
bitstring

If you are in the system keyspace, which is the keyspace when you launch cqlsh, you need to specify
a keyspace for the type. You can use dot notation to specify a keyspace for the type: keyspace name
followed by a period followed the name of the type. Cassandra creates the type in the specified keyspace,
but does not change the current keyspace; otherwise, if you do not specify a keyspace, Cassandra creates
the type within the current keyspace.

Example
This example creates a user-defined type, address, that consists of address and phone number
information.
CREATE TYPE address (
street text,
city text,
zip_code int,
phones set<text>
)
After defining the address type, you can create a table having a column of that type. CQL collection
columns and other columns support the use of user-defined types, as shown in Using CQL examples.

CREATE USER
Create a new user.

Create a new user.

Synopsis
CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS user_name WITH PASSWORD 'password'
( NOSUPERUSER | SUPERUSER )

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable

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Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
CREATE USER defines a new database user account. By default users accounts do not have superuser
status. Only a superuser can issue CREATE USER requests.
User accounts are required for logging in under internal authentication and authorization.
Enclose the user name in single quotation marks if it contains non-alphanumeric characters. You cannot
recreate an existing user. To change the superuser status or password, use ALTER USER.

Creating internal user accounts

You need to use the WITH PASSWORD clause when creating a user account for internal authentication.
Enclose the password in single quotation marks.
CREATE USER spillman WITH PASSWORD 'Niner27';
CREATE USER akers WITH PASSWORD 'Niner2' SUPERUSER;
CREATE USER boone WITH PASSWORD 'Niner75' NOSUPERUSER;
If internal authentication has not been set up, you do not need the WITH PASSWORD clause:
CREATE USER test NOSUPERUSER;

Creating a user account conditionally

In Cassandra 2.0.9 and later, you can test that the user does not have an account before attempting to
create one. Attempting to create an existing user results in an invalid query condition unless the IF NOT
EXISTS option is used. If the option is used, the statement will be a no-op if the user exists.
$ bin/cqlsh -u cassandra -p cassandra
Connected to Test Cluster at 127.0.0.1:9042.
[cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 2.1.0 | CQL spec 3.2.0 | Native protocol v3]
Use HELP for help.
cqlsh> CREATE USER newuser WITH PASSWORD 'password';
cqlsh> CREATE USER newuser WITH PASSWORD 'password';
code=2200 [Invalid query] message="User newuser already exists"
cqlsh> CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS newuser WITH PASSWORD 'password';
cqlsh>

DELETE
Removes entire rows or one or more columns from one or more rows.

Removes entire rows or one or more columns from one or more rows.

Synopsis
DELETE column_name, ... | ( column_name term )
FROM keyspace_name.table_name
USING TIMESTAMP integer
WHERE row_specification
( IF ( EXISTS | ( condition( AND condition ) . . .

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) ) )

CQL reference

term is:
[ list_position ] | key_value
row_specification is one of:
primary_key_name = key_value
primary_key_name IN ( key_value, key_value, ...)
condition is:
column_name = key_value
| column_name [list_position] = key_value

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
A DELETE statement removes one or more columns from one or more rows in a table, or it removes
the entire row if no columns are specified. Cassandra applies selections within the same partition key
atomically and in isolation.

Deleting columns or a row

After the DELETE keyword, optionally list column names, separated by commas.
DELETE col1, col2, col3 FROM Planeteers WHERE userID = 'Captain';
When no column names are specified, the entire row(s) specified in the WHERE clause are deleted.
DELETE FROM MastersOfTheUniverse WHERE mastersID IN ('Man-At-Arms',
'Teela');
When a column is deleted, it is not removed from disk immediately. The deleted column is marked with
a tombstone and then removed after the configured grace period has expired. The optional timestamp
defines the new tombstone record.

Conditionally deleting columns

In Cassandra 2.0.7 and later, you can conditionally delete columns using IF or IF EXISTS. Deleting a
column is similar to making an insert or update conditionally. Conditional deletions incur a non-negligible
performance cost and should be used sparingly.

Specifying the table

The table name follows the list of column names and the keyword FROM.

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Deleting old data

You can identify the column for deletion using a timestamp.
DELETE email, phone
FROM users
USING TIMESTAMP 1318452291034
WHERE user_name = 'jsmith';
The TIMESTAMP input is an integer representing microseconds. The WHERE clause specifies which row
or rows to delete from the table.
DELETE col1 FROM SomeTable WHERE userID = 'some_key_value';
This form provides a list of key names using the IN notation and a parenthetical list of comma-delimited key
names.
DELETE col1 FROM SomeTable WHERE userID IN (key1, key2);
DELETE phone FROM users WHERE user_name IN ('jdoe', 'jsmith');
In Cassandra 2.0 and later, CQL supports an empty list of values in the IN clause, useful in Java Driver
applications when passing empty arrays as arguments for the IN clause.

Using a collection set, list or map

To delete an element from the map, use the DELETE command and enclose the key of the element in
square brackets:
DELETE todo ['2012-9-24'] FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To remove an element from a list, use the DELETE command and the list index position in square
brackets:
DELETE top_places[3] FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To remove all elements from a set, you can use the DELETE statement:
DELETE emails FROM users WHERE user_id = 'frodo';

DESCRIBE
Provides information about the connected Cassandra cluster, or about the data objects stored in the cluster.

Provides information about the connected Cassandra cluster, or about the data objects stored in the
cluster.

Synopsis
DESCRIBE FULL ( CLUSTER | SCHEMA )
| KEYSPACES
| ( KEYSPACE keyspace_name )
| TABLES
| ( TABLE table_name )
| TYPES
| ( TYPE user_defined_type )
| INDEX
| ( INDEX index_name )

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Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

Description
The DESCRIBE or DESC command outputs information about the connected Cassandra cluster, or about
the data stored on it. To query the system tables directly, use SELECT.
The keyspace and table name arguments are case-sensitive and need to match the upper or lowercase
names stored internally. Use the DESCRIBE commands to list objects by their internal names. Use
DESCRIBE FULL SCHEMA if you need the schema of system_* keyspaces.
DESCRIBE functions in the following ways:
DESCRIBE commands

Example

Description

DESCRIBE CLUSTER

DESCRIBE
CLUSTER;

Output information about the connected Cassandra cluster.

Cluster name, partitioner, and snitch are output. For
non-system keyspace, the endpoint-range ownership
information is also shown.

DESCRIBE KEYSPACES
DESCRIBE KEYSPACE
<keyspace_name>

Output a list of all keyspace names.

DESCRIBE
KEYSPACE
cycling;

Output CQL commands for the given keyspace. These

CQL commands can be used to recreate the keyspace and
tables.

DESCRIBE [FULL]
SCHEMA

Output CQL commands for entire non-system keyspace

and table schema. Use the FULL option to also include
system keyspaces.

DESCRIBE TABLES

Output all tables in the current keyspace, or in all

keyspaces if there is not current keyspace.

DESCRIBE TABLE
<table_name>

DESCRIBE
Output CQL commands for the given table. This CQL
TABLE
command can be used to recreate the table.
upcoming_calendar;

DESCRIBE INDEX
<index_name>

DESCRIBE
INDEX
team_entry;

DESCRIBE TYPES
DESCRIBE TYPE
<type_name>

Output CQL command for the given index. This CQL

command can be used to recreate the index.
Output list of all user-defined types in the current keyspace.

DESCRIBE
TYPE
basic_info;

Output CQL command for the given user-defined type. This

CQL command can be used to recreate the index.

DROP INDEX
Drop the named index.

Drop the named index.

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Synopsis
DROP INDEX IF EXISTS keyspace.index_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
A DROP INDEX statement removes an existing index. If the index was not given a name during creation,
the index name is <table_name>_<column_name>_idx. If the index does not exists, the statement will
return an error, unless IF EXISTS is used in which case the operation is a no-op. You can use dot notation
to specify a keyspace for the index you want to drop: keyspace name followed by a period followed the
name of the index. Cassandra drops the index in the specified keyspace, but does not change the current
keyspace; otherwise, if you do not use a keyspace name, Cassandra drops the index for the table within
the current keyspace.

Example
DROP INDEX user_state;
DROP INDEX users_zip_idx;
DROP INDEX myschema.users_state;

DROP KEYSPACE
Remove the keyspace.

Remove the keyspace.

Synopsis
DROP ( KEYSPACE | SCHEMA ) IF EXISTS keyspace_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

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Description
A DROP KEYSPACE statement results in the immediate, irreversible removal of a keyspace, including all
tables and data contained in the keyspace. You can also use the alias DROP SCHEMA. If the keyspace
does not exists, the statement will return an error unless IF EXISTS is used, in which case the operation is
a no-op.
Cassandra takes a snapshot of the keyspace before dropping it. In Cassandra 2.0.4 and earlier, the user
was responsible for removing the snapshot manually.

Example
DROP KEYSPACE MyTwitterClone;

DROP TABLE
Remove the named table.

Remove the named table.

Synopsis
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS keyspace_name.table_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
A DROP TABLE statement results in the immediate, irreversible removal of a table, including all data
contained in the table. You can also use the alias DROP COLUMNFAMILY.

Example
DROP TABLE worldSeriesAttendees;

DROP TRIGGER
Removes registration of a trigger.

Removes registration of a trigger.

Synopsis
DROP TRIGGER IF EXISTS trigger_name ON table_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

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Lowercase means not literal

Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
The experimental DROP TRIGGER statement removes the registration of a trigger created using CREATE
TRIGGER. Cassandra 2.1.1 and later supports the IF EXISTS syntax for dropping a trigger. Cassandra
checks for the existence of the trigger before dropping it.

DROP TYPE
Drop a user-defined type. Cassandra 2.1 and later.

Drop a user-defined type. Cassandra 2.1 and later.

Synopsis
DROP TYPE IF EXISTS type_name
type_name is the name of a user-defined type.

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
This statement immediately and irreversibly removes a type. To drop a type, use ALTER TYPE and the
DROP keyword as shown in the following example. Attempting to drop a type that does not exist will return
an error unless the IF EXISTS option is used. If the option is used, the statement will be a no-op if the type
already exists. Dropping a user-defined type that is in use by a table or another type is not allowed.
DROP TYPE version;

DROP USER
Remove a user.

Remove a user.

Synopsis
DROP USER IF EXISTS user_name

Synopsis Legend

116

Uppercase means literal

CQL reference

Lowercase means not literal

Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
DROP USER removes an existing user. In Cassandra 2.0.9 and later, you can test that the user exists.
Attempting to drop a user that does not exist results in an invalid query condition unless the IF EXISTS
option is used. If the option is used, the statement will be a no-op if the user does not exist. You have to be
logged in as a superuser to issue a DROP USER statement. Users cannot drop themselves.
Enclose the user name in single quotation marks only if it contains non-alphanumeric characters.

GRANT
Provide access to database objects.

Provide access to database objects.

Synopsis
GRANT permission_name PERMISSION
| ( GRANT ALL PERMISSIONS ) ON resource TO user_name
permission_name is one of these:

ALL
ALTER
AUTHORIZE
CREATE
DROP
MODIFY
SELECT

resource is one of these:

ALL KEYSPACES
KEYSPACE keyspace_name
TABLE keyspace_name.table_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
Permissions to access all keyspaces, a named keyspace, or a table can be granted to a user. Enclose the
user name in single quotation marks if it contains non-alphanumeric characters.

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This table lists the permissions needed to use CQL statements:

Table: CQL Permissions
Permission

CQL Statement

ALL

All statements

ALTER

ALTER KEYSPACE, ALTER TABLE, CREATE

INDEX, DROP INDEX

AUTHORIZE

GRANT, REVOKE

CREATE

CREATE KEYSPACE, CREATE TABLE

DROP

DROP KEYSPACE, DROP TABLE

MODIFY

INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE, TRUNCATE

SELECT

SELECT

To be able to perform SELECT queries on a table, you have to have SELECT permission on the
table, on its parent keyspace, or on ALL KEYSPACES. To be able to CREATE TABLE you need
CREATE permission on its parent keyspace or ALL KEYSPACES. You need to be a superuser or to
have AUTHORIZE permission on a resource (or one of its parents in the hierarchy) plus the permission in
question to be able to GRANT or REVOKE that permission to or from a user. GRANT, REVOKE and LIST
permissions check for the existence of the table and keyspace before execution. GRANT and REVOKE
check that the user exists.

Examples
Give spillman permission to perform SELECT queries on all tables in all keyspaces:
GRANT SELECT ON ALL KEYSPACES TO spillman;
Give akers permission to perform INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and TRUNCATE queries on all tables in the
field keyspace.
GRANT MODIFY ON KEYSPACE field TO akers;
Give boone permission to perform ALTER KEYSPACE queries on the forty9ers keyspace, and also ALTER
TABLE, CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX queries on all tables in forty9ers keyspace:
GRANT ALTER ON KEYSPACE forty9ers TO boone;
Give boone permission to run all types of queries on ravens.plays table.
GRANT ALL PERMISSIONS ON ravens.plays TO boone;
Grant access to a keyspace to just one user, assuming nobody else has ALL KEYSPACES access.
GRANT ALL ON KEYSPACE keyspace_name TO user_name;

INSERT
Add or update columns.

Add or update columns.

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Synopsis
INSERT INTO keyspace_name.table_name
( identifier, column_name...)
VALUES ( value, value ... ) IF NOT EXISTS
USING option AND option
Value is one of:

a literal
a set
{ literal, literal, . . . }

a list
[ literal, literal, . . . ]

a map collection, a JSON-style array of literals

{ literal : literal, literal : literal, . . . }

option is one of:

TIMESTAMP microseconds
TTL seconds

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
An INSERT writes one or more columns to a record in a Cassandra table atomically and in isolation. No
results are returned. You do not have to define all columns, except those that make up the key. Missing
columns occupy no space on disk.
If the column exists, it is updated. The row is created if none exists. Use IF NOT EXISTS to perform the
insertion only if the row does not already exist. Using IF NOT EXISTS incurs a performance hit associated
with using Paxos internally. For information about Paxos, see Cassandra 2.1 documentation or Cassandra
2.0 documentation.
You can qualify table names by keyspace. INSERT does not support counters, but UPDATE does.
Internally, insert and update operations are identical.

Specifying TIMESTAMP and TTL

Time-to-live (TTL) in seconds

Timestamp in microseconds
INSERT INTO Hollywood.NerdMovies (user_uuid, fan)
VALUES (cfd66ccc-d857-4e90-b1e5-df98a3d40cd6, 'johndoe')
USING TTL 86400;

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TTL input is in seconds. TTL column values are automatically marked as deleted (with a tombstone)
after the requested amount of time has expired. TTL marks the inserted values, not the column itself, for
expiration. Any subsequent update of the column resets the TTL to the TTL specified in the update. By
default, values never expire. You cannot set data in a counter column to expire.
The TIMESTAMP input is in microseconds. If not specified, the time (in microseconds) that the write
occurred to the column is used.
INSERT INTO cycling.calendar (race_id, race_name, race_start_date,
race_end_date)
VALUES (200, 'placeholder', '2015-05-27', '2015-05-27')
USING TIMESTAMP 123456789;

Using a collection set or map

To insert data into a collection, enclose values in curly brackets. Set values must be unique. For example:
INSERT INTO users (userid, first_name, last_name, emails)
VALUES('frodo', 'Frodo', 'Baggins', {'[email protected]',
'[email protected]'});
Insert a map named todo to insert a reminder, 'die' on October 2 for user frodo.
INSERT INTO users (userid, todo )
VALUES('frodo', {'2014-10-2 12:10' : 'die' } );
Values of items in collections are limited to 64K.
To insert data into a collection column of a user-defined type, enclose components of the type in
parentheses within the curly brackets, as shown in "Using a user-defined type."
Related information
Cassandra 2.1 tunable consistency
Cassandra 2.0 tunable consistency

Example of inserting data into playlists

An example showing how to insert data into the music service example playlists table.

The "Example of a music service" section described the playlists table. This example shows how to insert
data into that table.

Procedure
Use the INSERT command to insert UUIDs for the compound primary keys, title, artist, and album data
of the playslists table.
INSERT INTO playlists (id, song_order, song_id, title, artist, album)
VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 1,
a3e64f8f-bd44-4f28-b8d9-6938726e34d4, 'La Grange', 'ZZ Top', 'Tres
Hombres');
INSERT INTO playlists (id, song_order, song_id, title, artist, album)
VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 2,
8a172618-b121-4136-bb10-f665cfc469eb, 'Moving in Stereo', 'Fu Manchu',
'We Must Obey');
INSERT INTO playlists (id, song_order, song_id, title, artist, album)
VALUES (62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204, 3,

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2b09185b-fb5a-4734-9b56-49077de9edbf, 'Outside Woman Blues', 'Back Door

Slam', 'Roll Away');

LIST PERMISSIONS
List permissions granted to a user.

List permissions granted to a user.

Synopsis
LIST permission_name PERMISSION
| ( LIST ALL PERMISSIONS )
ON resource OF user_name
NORECURSIVE
permission_name is one of these:

ALTER
AUTHORIZE
CREATE
DROP
MODIFY
SELECT

resource is one of these:

ALL KEYSPACES
KEYSPACE keyspace_name
TABLE keyspace_name.table_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
Permissions checks are recursive. If you omit the NORECURSIVE specifier, permission on the requests
resource and its parents in the hierarchy are shown.

Omitting the resource name (ALL KEYSPACES, keyspace, or table), lists permissions on all tables and
all keyspaces.
Omitting the user name lists permissions of all users. You need to be a superuser to list permissions of
all users. If you are not, you must add
OF <myusername>

Omitting the NORECURSIVE specifier, lists permissions on the resource and its parent resources.
Enclose the user name in single quotation marks only if it contains non-alphanumeric characters.

After creating users in and granting the permissions in the GRANT examples, you can list permissions that
users have on resources and their parents.

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Example
Assuming you completed the examples in Examples, list all permissions given to akers:
LIST ALL PERMISSIONS OF akers;
Output is:
username | resource
| permission
----------+--------------------+-----------akers | <keyspace field>
|
MODIFY
List permissions given to all the users:
LIST ALL PERMISSIONS;
Output is:
username | resource
| permission
----------+----------------------+-----------akers |
<keyspace field> |
MODIFY
boone | <keyspace forty9ers> |
ALTER
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
CREATE
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
ALTER
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
DROP
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
SELECT
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
MODIFY
boone | <table ravens.plays> | AUTHORIZE
spillman |
<all keyspaces> |
SELECT

List all permissions on the plays table:

LIST ALL PERMISSIONS ON ravens.plays;
Output is:
username | resource
| permission
----------+----------------------+-----------boone | <table ravens.plays> |
CREATE
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
ALTER
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
DROP
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
SELECT
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
MODIFY
boone | <table ravens.plays> | AUTHORIZE
spillman |
<all keyspaces> |
SELECT
List all permissions on the ravens.plays table and its parents:
Output is:
LIST ALL PERMISSIONS ON ravens.plays NORECURSIVE;
username | resource
| permission
----------+----------------------+-----------boone | <table ravens.plays> |
CREATE
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
ALTER
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
DROP
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
SELECT
boone | <table ravens.plays> |
MODIFY
boone | <table ravens.plays> | AUTHORIZE

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LIST USERS
List existing users and their superuser status.

List existing users and their superuser status.

Synopsis
LIST USERS

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
Assuming you use internal authentication, created the users in the CREATE USER examples, and have
not yet changed the default user, the following example shows the output of LIST USERS.

Example
LIST USERS;
Output is:
name
| super
-----------+------cassandra | True
boone | False
akers | True
spillman | False

LOGIN
Use LOGIN to switch from one user to another within cqlsh.

Synopsis
cqlsh> LOGIN user_name password

Synopsis Legend
In the synopsis section of each statement, formatting has the following meaning:

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

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A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
Use this command to change login information without requiring cqlsh to restart. Login using a specified
username. If the the password is specified, it will be used. Otherwise, you will be prompted to enter the
password.

Examples
Login as the user cutie with the password patootie.
LOGIN cutie patootie

REVOKE
Revoke user permissions.

Revoke user permissions.

Synopsis
REVOKE ( permission_name PERMISSION )
| ( REVOKE ALL PERMISSIONS )
ON resource FROM user_name
permission_name is one of these:

ALL
ALTER
AUTHORIZE
CREATE
DROP
MODIFY
SELECT

resource is one of these:

ALL KEYSPACES
KEYSPACE keyspace_name
TABLE keyspace_name.table_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
Permissions to access all keyspaces, a named keyspace, or a table can be revoked from a user. Enclose
the user name in single quotation marks if it contains non-alphanumeric characters.
The table in GRANT lists the permissions needed to use CQL statements:

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Example
REVOKE SELECT ON ravens.plays FROM boone;
The user boone can no longer perform SELECT queries on the ravens.plays table. Exceptions: Because of
inheritance, the user can perform SELECT queries on ravens.plays if one of these conditions is met:

The user is a superuser.

The user has SELECT on ALL KEYSPACES permissions.
The user has SELECT on the ravens keyspace.

SELECT
Retrieve data from a Cassandra table.

Retrieve data from a Cassandra table.

Synopsis
SELECT select_expression
FROM keyspace_name.table_name
WHERE relation AND relation ...
ORDER BY ( clustering_column ( ASC | DESC )...)
LIMIT n
ALLOW FILTERING
select expression is:
selection_list
| DISTINCT selection_list
| ( COUNT ( * | 1 ) )
selection_list is one of:

A list of partition keys (used with DISTINCT)

selector AS alias, selector AS alias, ...| *
alias is an alias for a column name.

selector is:
column name
| ( WRITETIME (column_name) )
| ( TTL (column_name) )
| (function (selector , selector, ...) )
function is a timeuuid function, a token function, or a blob conversion function.
relation is:
column_name op term
| ( column_name, column_name, ... ) op term-tuple
| column_name IN ( term, ( term ... ) )
| ( column_name, column_name, ... ) IN ( term-tuple, ( term-tuple ... ) )
| TOKEN (column_name, ...) op ( term )
op is = | < | > | <= | > | = | CONTAINS | CONTAINS KEY
term-tuple (Cassandra 2.1 and later) is:
( term, term, ... )

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term is

a constant: string, number, uuid, boolean, hex

a bind marker (?)
a function
set:
{ literal, literal, ... }

list:
[ literal, literal, ... ]

map:
{ literal : literal, literal : literal, ... }

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
A SELECT statement reads one or more records from a Cassandra table. The input to the SELECT
statement is the select expression. The output of the select statement depends on the select expression:
Table: Select Expression Output
Select Expression

Output

Column of list of columns

Rows having a key value and collection of columns

COUNT aggregate function

One row with a column that has the value of the

number of rows in the resultset

DISTINCT partition key list

Values of columns that are different from other

column values

WRITETIME function

The date/time that a write to a column occurred

TTL function

The remaining time-to-live for a column

Specifying columns
The SELECT expression determines which columns, if any, appear in the result. Using the asterisk
specifies selection of all columns:
SELECT * from People;
Columns in big data applications duplicate values. Use the DISTINCT keyword to return only distinct
(different) values of partition keys.

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Counting returned rows

A SELECT expression using COUNT(*) returns the number of rows that matched the query. Alternatively,
you can use COUNT(1) to get the same result.
Count the number of rows in the users table:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users;
The capability to use an alias for a column name is particularly useful when using a function call on a
column, such as dateOf(created_at), in the select expression.

SELECT event_id, dateOf(created_at), blobAsText(content) FROM timeline;

Using a column alias

You can define an alias on columns using the AS keyword.

SELECT event_id,
dateOf(created_at) AS creation_date,
blobAsText(content) AS content
FROM timeline;

In the output, columns assume the aesthetically-pleasing name.

event_id
| creation_date
| content
-------------------------+--------------------------+---------------550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716 | 2013-07-26 10:44:33+0200 | Some stuff

Specifying rows returned using LIMIT

Using the LIMIT option, you can specify that the query return a limited number of rows.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM big_table LIMIT 50000;
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM big_table LIMIT 200000;
The output of these statements if you had 105,291 rows in the database would be: 50000, and 105,291.
The cqlsh shell has a default row limit of 10,000. The Cassandra server and native protocol do not limit the
number of rows that can be returned, although a timeout stops running queries to protect against running
malformed queries that would cause system instability.

Specifying the table using FROM

The FROM clause specifies the table to query. Optionally, specify a keyspace for the table followed by a
period, (.), then the table name. If a keyspace is not specified, the current keyspace is used.
For example, count the number of rows in the IndexInfo table in the system keyspace:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM system."IndexInfo";

Filtering data using WHERE

The WHERE clause specifies which rows to query. In the WHERE clause, refer to a column using the
actual name, not an alias. Columns in the WHERE clause need to meet one of these requirements:

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The partition key definition includes the column.

A column that is indexed using CREATE INDEX.

The primary key in the WHERE clause tells Cassandra to race to the specific node that has the data. Put
the name of the column to the left of the = or IN operator. Put the column value to the right of the operator.
For example, empID and deptID columns are included in the partition key definition in the following table,
so you can query all the columns using the empID in the WHERE clause:
CREATE TABLE emp (
empID int,
deptID int,
first_name varchar,
last_name varchar,
PRIMARY KEY (empID, deptID));
SELECT deptid FROM emp WHERE empid = 104;
Cassandra supports these conditional operators in the WHERE clause: CONTAINS, CONTAINS KEY, IN,
=, >, >=, <, or <=, but not all in certain situations.
Restrictions on the use of conditions

Non-equal conditional operations on the partition key

Regardless of the partitioner in use, Cassandra does not support non-equal conditional operations on
the partition key. Use the token function for range queries on the partition key.
Using the IN condition with a compound or composite partition key

The IN condition is allowed on the last column of the partition key only if you query all preceding
columns of key for equality. "Using the IN filter condition" presents examples of using the IN operation.
Querying an indexed table

A query on an indexed table must have at least one equality condition on the indexed column, as shown
in "Indexing a column".
Range queries
Cassandra supports greater-than and less-than comparisons, but for a given partition key, the
conditions on the clustering column are restricted to the filters that allow Cassandra to select a
contiguous ordering of rows.
For example:
CREATE TABLE ruling_stewards (
steward_name text,
king text,
reign_start int,
event text,
PRIMARY KEY (steward_name, king, reign_start)
);

This query constructs a filter that selects data about stewards whose reign started by 2450 and ended
before 2500. If king were not a component of the primary key, you would need to create an index on king to
use this query:
SELECT * FROM ruling_stewards
WHERE king = 'Brego'
AND reign_start >= 2450
AND reign_start < 2500 ALLOW FILTERING;
The output is:
steward_name | king

128

| reign_start | event

CQL reference

--------------+-------+-------------+-------------------Boromir | Brego |
2477 |
Attacks continue
Cirion | Brego |
2489 | Defeat of Balchoth
(2 rows)
To allow Cassandra to select a contiguous ordering of rows, you need to include the king component of
the primary key in the filter using an equality condition. The ALLOW FILTERING clause is also required.
ALLOW FILTERING provides the capability to query the clustering columns using any condition if
performance is not an issue.

ALLOW FILTERING clause

When you attempt a potentially expensive query, such as searching a range of rows, this prompt appears:
Bad Request: Cannot execute this query as it might involve data
filtering and thus may have unpredictable performance. If you want
to execute this query despite the performance unpredictability,
use ALLOW FILTERING.
To run the query, use the ALLOW FILTERING clause. Imposing a limit using the LIMIT n clause is
recommended to reduce memory used. For example:
Select * FROM ruling_stewards
WHERE king = 'none'
AND reign_start >= 1500
AND reign_start < 3000 LIMIT 10 ALLOW FILTERING;
Critically, LIMIT doesn't protect you from the worst liabilities. For instance, what if there are no entries with
no king? Then you have to scan the entire list no matter what LIMIT is.
ALLOW FILTERING will probably become less strict as we collect more statistics on our data. For
example, if we knew that 90% of entries have no king we would know that finding 10 such entries should
be relatively inexpensive.

Using the IN filter condition

Use IN, an equals condition operator, in the WHERE clause to specify multiple possible values for a
column. For example, select two columns, first_name and last_name, from three rows having employee ids
(primary key) 105, 107, or 104:
SELECT first_name, last_name FROM emp WHERE empID IN (105, 107, 104);
Format values for the IN conditional test as a comma-separated list. The list can consist of a range of
column values.
Using IN to filter on a compound or composite primary key
The IN condition is recommended on the last column of the partition key only if you query all preceding
columns of key for equality. For example:
CREATE TABLE parts (part_type text, part_name text, part_num int, part_year
text, serial_num text, PRIMARY KEY ((part_type, part_name), part_num,
part_year));
SELECT * FROM parts WHERE part_type='alloy' AND part_name='hubcap' AND
part_num=1249 AND part_year IN ('2010', '2015');

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The IN condition will not work on any clustering column except the last one. The following query will not
work, since part_year is the final clustering column, not part_num:
SELECT * FROM parts WHERE part_type='alloy' AND part_name='hubcap' AND
part_num IN (1249, 3456);
You can omit the equality test for clustering columns other than the last when using IN, but such a query
might involve data filtering and thus may have unpredictable performance. Such a query requires use of
ALLOW FILTERING. For example:
SELECT * FROM parts WHERE part_num=123456 AND part_year IN ('2010', '2015')
ALLOW FILTERING;
CQL supports an empty list of values in the IN clause, useful in Java Driver applications when passing
empty arrays as arguments for the IN clause.

When not to use IN

The recommendations about when not to use an index apply to using IN in the WHERE clause. Under
most conditions, using IN in the WHERE clause is not recommended. Using IN can degrade performance
because usually many nodes must be queried. For example, in a single, local data center cluster with 30
nodes, a replication factor of 3, and a consistency level of LOCAL_QUORUM, a single key query goes out
to two nodes, but if the query uses the IN condition, the number of nodes being queried are most likely
even higher, up to 20 nodes depending on where the keys fall in the token range.

Comparing clustering columns

In Cassandra 2.0.6 and later, you can group the partition key and clustering columns and compare the
tuple to values for slicing over rows in a partition. For example:
SELECT * FROM ruling_stewards WHERE (steward_name, king) = ('Boromir',
'Brego');
The syntax used in the WHERE clause compares records of steward_name and king as a tuple against the
Boromir, Brego tuple.

Paging through unordered results

The TOKEN function can be used with a condition operator on the partition key column to query. The
query selects rows based on the token of their partition key rather than on their value. The token of a key
depends on the partitioner in use. Use with the RandomPartitioner or Murmur3Partitioner will not give you
a meaningful order.
For example, assume you defined this table:
CREATE TABLE periods (
period_name text,
event_name text,
event_date timestamp,
weak_race text,
strong_race text,
PRIMARY KEY (period_name, event_name, event_date)
);
After inserting data, this query uses the TOKEN function to find the data using the partition key.
SELECT * FROM periods
WHERE TOKEN(period_name) > TOKEN('Third Age')
AND TOKEN(period_name) < TOKEN('Fourth Age');

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Using compound primary keys and sorting results

ORDER BY clauses can select a single column only. That column has to be the second column in a
compound PRIMARY KEY. This also applies to tables with more than two column components in the
primary key. Ordering can be done in ascending or descending order, default ascending, and specified with
the ASC or DESC keywords.
In the ORDER BY clause, refer to a column using the actual name, not the aliases.
For example, set up the playlists table, which uses a compound primary key, insert the example data, and
use this query to get information about a particular playlist, ordered by song_order. You do not need to
include the ORDER BY column in the select expression.
SELECT * FROM playlists WHERE id = 62c36092-82a1-3a00-93d1-46196ee77204
ORDER BY song_order DESC LIMIT 50;
Output is:

Or, create an index on playlist artists, and use this query to get titles of Fu Manchu songs on the playlist:
CREATE INDEX ON playlists(artist)
SELECT album, title FROM playlists WHERE artist = 'Fu Manchu';
Output is:

Filtering a collection set, list, or map

You can query a table containing a collection to retrieve the collection in its entirety. You can also index
the collection column, and then use the CONTAINS condition in the WHERE clause to filter the data for a
particular value in the collection. Continuing with the music service example, after adding the collection of
tags to the playlists table, adding some tag data, and then indexing the tags, you can filter on 'blues' in the
tags set.
SELECT album, tags FROM playlists WHERE tags CONTAINS 'blues';

After indexing the music venue map, you can filter on map values, such as 'The Fillmore':
SELECT * FROM playlists WHERE venue CONTAINS 'The Fillmore';

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CQL reference

After indexing the collection keys in the venues map, you can filter on map keys.
SELECT * FROM playlists WHERE venue CONTAINS KEY '2014-09-22 22:00:00-0700';

Retrieving the date/time a write occurred

Using WRITETIME followed by the name of a column in parentheses returns date/time in microseconds
that the column was written to the database.
Retrieve the date/time that a write occurred to the first_name column of the user whose last name is Jones:
SELECT WRITETIME (first_name) FROM users WHERE last_name = 'Jones';
writetime(first_name)
----------------------1353010594789000
The writetime output in microseconds converts to November 15, 2012 at 12:16:34 GMT-8

TRUNCATE
Remove all data from a table.

Remove all data from a table.

Synopsis
TRUNCATE keyspace_name.table_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

Description
A TRUNCATE statement results in the immediate, irreversible removal of all data in the named table.
Note: The consistency level must be set to ALL prior to performing a TRUNCATE operation. All replicas
must remove the data.

Examples
Set the consistency level to ALL first. TRUNCATE or TRUNCATE TABLE can be used to remove all data
from a named table.
CONSISENTENCY ALL;
TRUNCATE user_activity;
CONSISTENCY ALL;
TRUNCATE TABLE menu_item;

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CQL reference

UPDATE
Update columns in a row.

Update columns in a row.

Synopsis
UPDATE keyspace_name.table_name
USING option AND option
SET assignment, assignment, ...
WHERE row_specification
IF column_name = literal AND column_name = literal . . .
IF EXISTS
option is one of:

TIMESTAMP microseconds
TTL seconds

assignment is one of:

column_name = value
set_or_list_item = set_or_list_item ( + | - ) ...
map_name = map_name ( + | - ) ...
map_name = map_name ( + | - ) { map_key : map_value, ... }
column_name [ term ] = value
counter_column_name = counter_column_name ( + | - ) integer
set is:
{ literal, literal, . . . }
list is:
[ literal, literal ]
map is:
{ literal : literal, literal : literal, . . . }
term is:
[ list_index_position | [ key_value ]
row_specification is:
primary key name = key_value
primary key name IN (key_value ,...)

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

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CQL reference

Description
An UPDATE writes one or more column values for a given row to a Cassandra table. No results are
returned. A statement begins with the UPDATE keyword followed by a Cassandra table name.
The row is created if none existed before, and updated otherwise. Specify the row to update in the WHERE
clause by including all columns composing the partition key. The IN relation is supported only for the last
column of the partition key. The UPDATE SET operation is not valid on a primary key field. Specify other
column values using SET. To update multiple columns, separate the name-value pairs using commas.
You can invoke a lightweight transaction using UPDATE:
UPDATE customer_account
SET customer_email='[email protected]'
If customer_email='[email protected]';
Use the IF keyword followed by a condition to be met for the update to succeed. Using an IF condition
incurs a performance hit associated with using Paxos internally to support linearizable consistency. In an
UPDATE statement, all updates within the same partition key are applied atomically and in isolation.
To update a counter column value in a counter table, specify the increment or decrement to the current
value of the counter column. Unlike the INSERT command, the UPDATE command supports counters.
Otherwise, the update and insert operations are identical internally.
UPDATE UserActionCounts SET total = total + 2 WHERE keyalias = 523;
In an UPDATE statement, you can specify these options on columns that are not counter columns:

TTL seconds
Timestamp microseconds

TTL input is in seconds. TTL column values are automatically marked as deleted (with a tombstone)
after the requested amount of time has expired. TTL marks the inserted values, not the column itself, for
expiration. Any subsequent update of the column resets the TTL to the TTL specified in the update. By
default, values never expire.
The TIMESTAMP input is an integer representing microseconds. If not specified, the time (in
microseconds) that the write occurred to the column is used. Each update statement requires a precise
set of primary keys to be specified using a WHERE clause. You need to specify all keys in a table having
compound and clustering columns. For example, update the value of a column in a table having a
compound primary key, userid and url:
UPDATE excelsior.clicks USING TTL 432000
SET user_name = 'bob'
WHERE userid=cfd66ccc-d857-4e90-b1e5-df98a3d40cd6 AND
url='http://google.com';
UPDATE Movies SET col1 = val1, col2 = val2 WHERE movieID = key1;
UPDATE Movies SET col3 = val3 WHERE movieID IN (key1, key2, key3);
UPDATE Movies SET col4 = 22 WHERE movieID = key4;
CQL supports an empty list of values in the IN clause, useful in Java Driver applications when passing
empty arrays as arguments for the IN clause.

Examples of updating a column

Update a column in several rows at once:
UPDATE users
SET state = 'TX'
WHERE user_uuid
IN (88b8fd18-b1ed-4e96-bf79-4280797cba80,
06a8913c-c0d6-477c-937d-6c1b69a95d43,

134

CQL reference

bc108776-7cb5-477f-917d-869c12dfffa8);
Update several columns in a single row:
UPDATE users
SET name = 'John Smith',
email = '[email protected]'
WHERE user_uuid = 88b8fd18-b1ed-4e96-bf79-4280797cba80;

Updating a counter column

You can increase or decrease the value of a counter column by an arbitrary numeric value though the
assignment of an expression that adds or substracts the value. To update the value of a counter column,
use the syntax shown in the following example:
UPDATE counterks.page_view_counts
SET counter_value = counter_value + 2
WHERE url_name='www.datastax.com' AND page_name='home';
To use a lightweight transaction on a counter column to ensure accuracy, put one or more counter updates
in the batch statement.

Updating a collection set

To add an element to a set, use the UPDATE command and the addition (+) operator:
UPDATE users
SET emails = emails + {'[email protected]'} WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To remove an element from a set, use the subtraction (-) operator.
UPDATE users
SET emails = emails - {'[email protected]'} WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To remove all elements from a set, you can use the UPDATE statement:
UPDATE users SET emails = {} WHERE user_id = 'frodo';

Updating a collection map

To set or replace map data, you can use the UPDATE command. Enclose the timestamp and text values in
map collection syntax: strings in curly brackets, separated by a colon.
UPDATE users
SET todo = { '2012-9-24' : 'enter mordor',
'2012-10-2 12:00' : 'throw ring into mount doom' }
WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
You can also update or set a specific element using the UPDATE command. For example, update a map
named todo to insert a reminder, 'die' on October 2 for user frodo.
UPDATE users SET todo['2014-10-2 12:10'] = 'die'
WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
You can set the a TTL for each map element:
UPDATE users USING TTL <ttl value>
SET todo['2012-10-1'] = 'find water' WHERE user_id = 'frodo';

135

CQL reference

In Cassandra 2.1.1 and later, you can update the map by adding one or more elements separated by
commas:
UPDATE users SET todo = todo + { '2012-10-1': 'find water', '2014-12-15':
'buy presents' } where user_id = 'frodo';
You can remove elements from a map in the same way using - instead of +.

Using a collection list

To insert values into the list.
UPDATE users
SET top_places = [ 'rivendell', 'rohan' ] WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To prepend an element to the list, enclose it in square brackets, and use the addition (+) operator:
UPDATE users
SET top_places = [ 'the shire' ] + top_places WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To append an element to the list, switch the order of the new element data and the list name in the
UPDATE command:
UPDATE users
SET top_places = top_places + [ 'mordor' ] WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To add an element at a particular position, use the list index position in square brackets:
UPDATE users SET top_places[2] = 'riddermark' WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To remove all elements having a particular value, use the UPDATE command, the subtraction operator (-),
and the list value in square brackets:
UPDATE users
SET top_places = top_places - ['riddermark'] WHERE user_id = 'frodo';
To update data in a collection column of a user-defined type, enclose components of the type in
parentheses within the curly brackets, as shown in "Using a user-defined type."

USE
Connect the client session to a keyspace.

Connect the client session to a keyspace.

Synopsis
USE keyspace_name

Synopsis Legend

Uppercase means literal

Lowercase means not literal
Italics mean optional
The pipe (|) symbol means OR or AND/OR
Ellipsis (...) means repeatable
Orange ( and ) means not literal, indicates scope

A semicolon that terminates CQL statements is not included in the synopsis.

136

Tips for using DataStax documentation

Description
A USE statement identifies the keyspace that contains the tables to query for the current client session. All
subsequent operations on tables and indexes are in the context of the named keyspace, unless otherwise
specified or until the client connection is terminated or another USE statement is issued.
To use a case-sensitive keyspace, enclose the keyspace name in double quotation marks.

Example
USE PortfolioDemo;
Continuing with the example of checking created keyspaces:
USE "Excalibur";

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