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Getting Started Guide

This is intended as a quick guide to getting started developing applications with the FDB Record Layer. We will cover:

  • Getting the Record Layer artifacts
  • Running FDB locally
  • Declaring record types
  • Defining indexes
  • Performing record CRUD
  • Querying records

To keep the guide simple, we will not cover:

  • Modifying a schema
  • Using advanced index and query functionality

Setup

Install Java JDK for version 8 or above; for this demo we are using JDK 1.8.0_181.

Install FoundationDB here. Once it is installed you should verify that you can run FDB and connect to it using fdbcli:

$ fdbcli
Using cluster file `/usr/local/etc/foundationdb/fdb.cluster'.

The database is available.

Welcome to the fdbcli. For help, type `help'.
fdb>

Be sure you see the message The database is available. type exit to quit the fdbcli session:

fdb> exit

Let’s create a fresh demo project. For this example, we’ll be creating a basic Java app with Gradle:

$ mkdir record-layer-demo
$ cd record-layer-demo
$ gradle init --type basic

Gradle 'init' will ask you some questions on which DSL to use in build scripts, whether to use new APIs and behaviors, and how you would like to name your project. Choose groovy, yes to new APIs, and take the proffered project name record-layer-demo.

Now we should add the Record Layer as a dependency of our project. The Record Layer dependencies are published to Maven Central, so we can declare the dependency by adding the following to our project's build.gradle file:

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    maven {
      url "https://ossartifacts.jfrog.io/artifactory/fdb-record-layer/"
    }
}
dependencies {
    // gradle init put some other stuff here, too...
    implementation 'org.foundationdb:fdb-record-layer-core-pb3:VERSION_NUMBER'
}

Replace VERSION_NUMBER with a recent version of the artifact from Maven Central (See mvnrepository for a listing of published versions).

ProtoBuf Configuration

Our sample project will use Protocol Buffers (protobuf) to define our record meta-data. First, since we are using Gradle, let's include the protobuf-gradle-plugin, which will allow us to add protobuf compilation as a step in our build process. Add this to the top of your build.gradle, ahead of the above repositories and dependencies added above:

plugins {
    id 'java'
    id 'com.google.protobuf' version "0.8.19"
}

Gradle complains the java plugin must be included for the protobuf plugin to run so also include id'java'.

Additionally, add the following:

protobuf {
    generatedFilesBaseDir = "${projectDir}/src/main/generated"
    protoc {
        artifact = 'com.google.protobuf:protoc:3.11.4'
    }
}

This will tell the protobuf Gradle plugin to use the 3.11.4 version of protoc to compile the protos in our project. You may have noticed above that the Record Layer artifact we are using is fdb-record-layer-core-pb3 instead of fdb-record-layer-core, which is the record-layer version to use with version 2 of protoc. This also configures generatedFileBaseDir to be a separate directory at the same level as our Java code and proto definitions.

Create src/main/generated, src/main/java, and src/main/proto directories so the structure of our project source looks like this:

src
├── main
│   ├── generated
│   │   └── # generated classes
│   ├── java
│   │   ├── # application code
│   └── proto
│       └── # proto definitions

One last step might be necessary to configure your IDE of choice to discover the generated Java source files and to offer auto-complete suggestions. The additional generated source directory can be added to the list of Java sources by adding the following to the project's build.gradle file:

sourceSets {
    main {
        java {
            srcDir 'src/main/generated/main/java'
        }
    }
}

Now we are ready to define the record types and indexes we will use through the record meta-data. We can think of this as a type of schema definition for our application. We’ll define our meta-data as a set of protobuf messages. For this example, we will create a very simple meta-data definition for our application that will keep track of customer orders for flowers. Add the below protobuf as the file record_layer_demo.proto in the src/main/proto directory:

// While we pull in the proto3 org.foundationdb:fdb-record-layer-core-pb3 dependency
// above, we write record-layer protos files using `proto2` syntax.
syntax = "proto2";

option java_outer_classname = "RecordLayerDemoProto";

import "record_metadata_options.proto";

message Order {
    optional int64 order_id = 1;
    optional Flower flower = 2;
    optional int32 price = 3;
}

message Flower {
    optional string type = 1;
    optional Color color = 2;
}

enum Color {
    RED = 1;
    BLUE = 2;
    YELLOW = 3;
    PINK = 4;
}

message UnionDescriptor {
    option (com.apple.foundationdb.record.record).usage = UNION;
    optional Order _Order = 1;
}

We have one top level record type Order, which has a unique order_id and a price. All top level record types need to have a primary key that they will be indexed by in the record store. While it is possible to define a primary key (and secondary indexes) in our protobuf definition using the meta-data options, it is generally preferred to define indexes in our application code using a RecordMetaDataBuilder. Each Order also has a flower type, which is represented by a nested message containing the name of the type as well as the color (itself an enum). Later in our application code we will show how we can query the values of nested fields.

Finally, the Record Layer requires we have a UnionDescriptor message which contains all of the top level record types to be stored in our record store (here only Order). We must either set the usage = UNION option for this message or we can omit the option and instead name the message RecordTypeUnion.

Creating an Application

Run ./gradlew generateProto to see that the above configuration is correct. You should see the generated code put into src/main/generated/main/java/RecordLayerDemoProto.java.

Now we're ready to start developing our application. Create a demo app class src/main/java/Demo.java and add a main method.

public class Demo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
    }
}

We will do all of the development for this example within this class. Code snippets can be assumed to be in the main method. It will be useful to define a couple of helper methods as well. In those cases, the full helper method will be reproduced here.

Start by opening a connection to the FDB database (go ahead and start the FDB server if you haven't already):

FDBDatabase db = FDBDatabaseFactory.instance().getDatabase();

The no-argument version of getDatabase will use the default cluster file to connect to FDB. This should be fine assuming you installed FDB according to the instructions at the beginning of the guide. If you want to use a different cluster file, you can pass a String with the path to the cluster file to this method instead.

Next, we need to define a key space for our record store. The Record Layer provides the KeySpacePath API which allows us to build a logical directory structure for organizing our record stores (e.g., sharding data across stores). For now, we will only create one record store at a fixed path:

// Define the keyspace for our application
KeySpace keySpace = new KeySpace(new KeySpaceDirectory("record-layer-demo", KeySpaceDirectory.KeyType.STRING, "record-layer-demo"));
// Get the path where our record store will be rooted
KeySpacePath path = keySpace.path("record-layer-demo");

To build the record meta-data, first create the RecordMetaDataBuilder and add the Order record type from our proto definition:

RecordMetaDataBuilder metaDataBuilder = RecordMetaData.newBuilder()
        .setRecords(RecordLayerDemoProto.getDescriptor());

Set the primary key to order_id:

metaDataBuilder.getRecordType("Order")
        .setPrimaryKey(Key.Expressions.field("order_id"));

Add a secondary index on price:

metaDataBuilder.addIndex("Order", new Index("priceIndex", Key.Expressions.field("price")));

The primary and secondary index definitions take a Key.Expression as an argument. It is possible to have more complex index definitions (e.g., compound primary keys or fan-out indexes on repeated fields). For more advanced examples, see the Record Layer Overview.

Now we have finished with configuration, build the RecordMetaData:

RecordMetaData recordMetaData = metaDataBuilder.build();

We can now create an instance of our record store. As you may know, FDB is a transactional key-value store. In the Record Layer, those transactions are wrapped in an FDBRecordContext. The FDBRecordStore object only has the lifetime of a single transaction, so we need to provide an FDBRecordContext each time we create one:

Function<FDBRecordContext, FDBRecordStore> recordStoreProvider = context -> FDBRecordStore.newBuilder()
        .setMetaDataProvider(recordMetaData)
        .setContext(context)
        .setKeySpacePath(path)
        .createOrOpen();

We'll use this helper function to cut down on the repetition of setting the (never changing) meta-data and path when we open a new transaction.

A few helpers to improve the readability of our example:

private enum FlowerType {
    ROSE,
    TULIP,
    LILY,
}

private static RecordLayerDemoProto.Flower buildFlower(FlowerType type, RecordLayerDemoProto.Color color) {
    return RecordLayerDemoProto.Flower.newBuilder()
            .setType(type.name())
            .setColor(color)
            .build();
}

Now back to the main method, let's save a few records:

db.run(context -> {
    FDBRecordStore recordStore = recordStoreProvider.apply(context);
    
    recordStore.saveRecord(RecordLayerDemoProto.Order.newBuilder()
            .setOrderId(1)
            .setPrice(123)
            .setFlower(buildFlower(FlowerType.ROSE, RecordLayerDemoProto.Color.RED))
            .build());
    recordStore.saveRecord(RecordLayerDemoProto.Order.newBuilder()
            .setOrderId(23)
            .setPrice(34)
            .setFlower(buildFlower(FlowerType.ROSE, RecordLayerDemoProto.Color.PINK))
            .build());
    recordStore.saveRecord(RecordLayerDemoProto.Order.newBuilder()
            .setOrderId(3)
            .setPrice(55)
            .setFlower(buildFlower(FlowerType.TULIP, RecordLayerDemoProto.Color.YELLOW))
            .build());
    recordStore.saveRecord(RecordLayerDemoProto.Order.newBuilder()
            .setOrderId(100)
            .setPrice(9)
            .setFlower(buildFlower(FlowerType.LILY, RecordLayerDemoProto.Color.RED))
            .build());

    return null;
});

What is happening here? The run method runs the provided function transactionally against FDB, i.e., it opens a new transaction and provides it wrapped in an FDBRecordContext as an argument to the function. We can then perform some work and return a result (in this case we are just returning null). The run method handles opening the transaction for us and attempting to commit the result. If we get a retriable error on commit it will automatically retry for us (up to a configurable number of maximum retry attempts). So in the above snippet, we are opening a transaction, creating an instance of the record store, and saving 4 records. Assuming the method returns normally, the records will be persisted to FDB.

Now open another transaction and see that we can load the records there (and that we get null for records we didn't create):

FDBStoredRecord<Message> storedRecord = db.run(context ->
        // load the record
        recordStoreProvider.apply(context).loadRecord(Tuple.from(1))
);
assert storedRecord != null;

// a record that doesn't exist is null
FDBStoredRecord<Message> shouldNotExist = db.run(context ->
        recordStoreProvider.apply(context).loadRecord(Tuple.from(99999))
);
assert shouldNotExist == null;

The loadRecord method returns an FDBStoredRecord, but we want to reconstruct the original Order as defined in our meta-data. This can be accomplished by getting the proto message from the stored message and rebuilding the order:

RecordLayerDemoProto.Order order = RecordLayerDemoProto.Order.newBuilder()
        .mergeFrom(storedRecord.getRecord())
        .build();
System.out.println(order);

This prints:

order_id: 1
flower {
  type: "ROSE"
  color: RED
}
price: 123

which is exactly the record we stored with order_id 1.

We can also perform a basic query on our data. Let's look for all orders of roses that are less than $50. We can see from the records we saved that the expected result is just the record with order_id = 23. Note here that part of our query is a filter on the value of a field in a nested message (we only want roses). We can create the query:

RecordQuery query = RecordQuery.newBuilder()
        .setRecordType("Order")
        .setFilter(Query.and(
                Query.field("price").lessThan(50),
                Query.field("flower").matches(Query.field("type").equalsValue(FlowerType.ROSE.name()))))
        .build();

Here the matches method allows us to match against the value of a subfield type of a nested message flower. Now run the query, and collect the result as a list of orders:

List<RecordLayerDemoProto.Order> orders = db.run(context -> {
    FDBRecordStore recordStore = recordStoreProvider.apply(context);

    // this returns an asynchronous cursor over the results of our query
    RecordCursor<FDBQueriedRecord<Message>> cursor = recordStore.executeQuery(query);
    // let's return it as a list of records
    return cursor
            .map(queriedRecord -> RecordLayerDemoProto.Order.newBuilder()
                .mergeFrom(queriedRecord.getRecord()).build())
            .asList().join();
});

Note that we transformed the cursor of FDBQueriedRecords to a cursor over Orders by calling map on the cursor. The RecordCursor class supports several such methods.

Finally, print the list of orders that the query returned:

orders.forEach(System.out::println);

Which shows exactly what we expect:

order_id: 23
flower {
  type: "ROSE"
  color: PINK
}
price: 34

Summary

We've covered creating a very simple demo app from scratch using the FDB Record Layer. We downloaded and started up an FDB server, created a new Java project, brought in the Record Layer dependency, created a schema and wrote a simple application that uses the Record Layer. This was only a surface level demonstration of the schema management, querying and indexing capabilities of the Record Layer. For a more complete guide to what you can do, refer to the FDB Record Layer Overview.