Expiring Columns - how to set TTL?

[Oleg Tsvinev]

It's been a while since 0.7 was announced that introduced expiring columns.
I can't find a Hector API to set the TTL value. I know there's a
Thrift way but using Thrift directly from Hector is discouraged.
Does anyone has experience setting the TTL?

[Oleg Tsvinev]

Looks like I need to use HColumn.setTtl directly as there's no factory method that would take TTL.

[soumik]

Yes, TTL as the factory method param would've been nicer.

So, does calling the setTtl() method translate into the client making
an extra Cassandra "update" operation for the column in question?

There seems to be a method - HColumn<N, V> apply(V value, long clock,
int ttl). Not sure if we end up calling this method(or its overloaded
form) before the actual Column creation using Thrift.

On Apr 25, 1:56 am, Oleg Tsvinev <oleg.tsvi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Looks like I need to use HColumn.setTtl directly as there's no factory
> method that would take TTL.
>

[Oleg Tsvinev]

Nope, it does not:

  @Override

  public HColumn<N, V> apply(V value, long clock, int ttl) {

    setValue(value);

    column.setTimestamp(clock);

    column.setTtl(ttl);

    return this;

[soumik]

So in that case, setTtl() is another update on the column and not an
initial setting?

[Oleg Tsvinev]

HColumn.setTtl looks like just a setter for the TTL  property. 

HColumnImpl is a wrapper for Thrift Column type.

HFactory, which one uses to create a HColumn, does not have any createColumn methods that would take TTL as a parameter. So there's no initial setting. It has to be added, because I believe there is a demand for it :)

[Nate McCall]

HColumnImpl#apply is to facilitate re-use of HColumn.

Fair enough on the overloaded versions. We like patches :-)

[Oleg Tsvinev]

Just submitted a pull request.