Database Reference
In-Depth Information
conf
This directory, which is present in the source version at this location under the package root,
contains the files for configuring your Cassandra instance. There are three basic functions:
the storage-conf.xmlile allows you to create your data store by configuring your keyspace
and column families; there are files related to setting up authentication; and finally, the log4j
properties let you change the logging levels to suit your needs. We see how to use all of these
when we discuss configuration in
Chapter 6
.
iintterface
For versions 0.6 and earlier, this directory contains a single file, called cassandra.thrift. This
file represents the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) client API that Cassandra makes available.
The interface is defined using the Thrift syntax and provides an easy means to generate cli-
ents. For a quick way to see all of the operations that Cassandra supports, open this file in
a regular text editor. You can see that Cassandra supports clients for Java, C++, PHP, Ruby,
Python, Perl, and C# through this interface.
jjavadoc
This directory contains a documentation website generated using Java's JavaDoc tool. Note
that JavaDoc reflects only the comments that are stored directly in the Java code, and as such
does not represent comprehensive documentation. It's helpful if you want to see how the
code is laid out. Moreover, Cassandra is a wonderful project, but the code contains precious
few comments, so you might find the JavaDoc's usefulness limited. It may be more fruitful
to simply read the class files directly if you're familiar with Java. Nonetheless, to read the
JavaDoc, open the javadoc/index.htmlile in a browser.
lliib
This directory contains all of the external libraries that Cassandra needs to run. For example,
it uses two different JSON serialization libraries, the Google collections project, and several
Apache Commons libraries. This directory includes the Thrift and Avro RPC libraries for
interacting with Cassandra.
Building from Source
Cassandra uses Apache Ant for its build scripting language and the Ivy plug-in for dependency
management.
