Set Up a SpringData Project with Apache Cassandra

On this post we will use Gradle and spring boot in order to create a project that integrates spring-mvc and the Apache Cassandra database.

First we will begin with our Gradle configuration:

group 'com.gkatzioura'
version '1.0-SNAPSHOT'

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'idea'
apply plugin: 'spring-boot'

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath("org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:1.2.5.RELEASE")
    }
}

jar {
    baseName = 'gs-serving-web-content'
    version =  '0.1.0'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}


sourceCompatibility = 1.8

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}


dependencies {
    compile "org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf"
    compile "org.springframework.data:spring-data-cassandra:1.2.2.RELEASE"
    compile 'org.slf4j:slf4j-api:1.6.6'
    compile 'ch.qos.logback:logback-classic:1.0.13'
    testCompile "junit:junit"
}

task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
    gradleVersion = '2.3'
}

We will create the keyspace and the table on our Cassandra database:

CREATE KEYSPACE IF NOT EXISTS example WITH replication = {'class': 'SimpleStrategy', 'replication_factor': '1'}  AND durable_writes = true;

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS example.greetings (
    user text,
    id timeuuid,
    greet text,
    creation_date timestamp,
    PRIMARY KEY (user, id)
) WITH CLUSTERING ORDER BY (id DESC);

We can run a file containing cql statements by using cqlsh:

cqlsh -f database_creation.cql

Cassandra connection information will reside on META-INF/cassandra.properties:

cassandra.contactpoints=localhost
cassandra.port=9042
cassandra.keyspace=example

Now we can proceed with the Cassandra configuration using spring annotations.

package com.gkatzioura.spring.config;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.PropertySource;
import org.springframework.core.env.Environment;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.config.CassandraClusterFactoryBean;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.config.CassandraSessionFactoryBean;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.config.SchemaAction;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.convert.CassandraConverter;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.convert.MappingCassandraConverter;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.core.CassandraOperations;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.core.CassandraTemplate;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.mapping.BasicCassandraMappingContext;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.mapping.CassandraMappingContext;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.repository.config.EnableCassandraRepositories;


@Configuration
@PropertySource(value = {"classpath:META-INF/cassandra.properties"})
@EnableCassandraRepositories(basePackages = {"com.gkatzioura.spring"})
public class CassandraConfig {

    @Autowired
    private Environment environment;

    private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(CassandraConfig.class);

    @Bean
    public CassandraClusterFactoryBean cluster() {

        CassandraClusterFactoryBean cluster = new CassandraClusterFactoryBean();
        cluster.setContactPoints(environment.getProperty("cassandra.contactpoints"));
        cluster.setPort(Integer.parseInt(environment.getProperty("cassandra.port")));

        return cluster;
    }

    @Bean
    public CassandraMappingContext mappingContext() {
        return new BasicCassandraMappingContext();
    }

    @Bean
    public CassandraConverter converter() {
        return new MappingCassandraConverter(mappingContext());
    }

    @Bean
    public CassandraSessionFactoryBean session() throws Exception {

        CassandraSessionFactoryBean session = new CassandraSessionFactoryBean();
        session.setCluster(cluster().getObject());
        session.setKeyspaceName(environment.getProperty("cassandra.keyspace"));
        session.setConverter(converter());
        session.setSchemaAction(SchemaAction.NONE);

        return session;
    }

    @Bean
    public CassandraOperations cassandraTemplate() throws Exception {
        return new CassandraTemplate(session().getObject());
    }

}

Then we create the Greeting entity.

package com.gkatzioura.spring.entity;

import com.datastax.driver.core.utils.UUIDs;
import org.springframework.cassandra.core.PrimaryKeyType;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.mapping.Column;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.mapping.PrimaryKeyColumn;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.mapping.Table;

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.UUID;

@Table(value = "greetings")
public class Greeting {

    @PrimaryKeyColumn(name = "id",ordinal = 1,type = PrimaryKeyType.CLUSTERED)
    private UUID id = UUIDs.timeBased();

    @PrimaryKeyColumn(name="user",ordinal = 0,type = PrimaryKeyType.PARTITIONED)
    private String user;

    @Column(value = "greet")
    private String greet;

    @Column(value = "creation_date")
    private Date creationDate;

    public UUID getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(UUID id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public Date getCreationDate() {
        return creationDate;
    }

    public void setCreationDate(Date creationDate) {
        this.creationDate = creationDate;
    }

    public String getUser() {
        return user;
    }

    public void setUser(String user) {
        this.user = user;
    }

    public String getGreet() {
        return greet;
    }

    public void setGreet(String greet) {
        this.greet = greet;
    }
}

In order to access the data, a repository should be created. In our case we will add some extra functionality to the repository by adding some queries.

package com.gkatzioura.spring.repository;

import com.gkatzioura.spring.entity.Greeting;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.repository.CassandraRepository;
import org.springframework.data.cassandra.repository.Query;
import org.springframework.data.repository.NoRepositoryBean;

import java.util.UUID;

public interface GreetRepository extends CassandraRepository<Greeting> {

    @Query("SELECT*FROM greetings WHERE user=?0 LIMIT ?1")
    Iterable<Greeting> findByUser(String user,Integer limit);

    @Query("SELECT*FROM greetings WHERE user=?0 AND id<?1 LIMIT ?2")
    Iterable<Greeting> findByUserFrom(String user,UUID from,Integer limit);

}

Now we can implement the controller in order to access the data through http.
By post we can save a Greeting entity.
Through get we can fetch all the greetings received.
By specifying user we can use the Cassandra query to fetch greetings for a specific user.

package com.gkatzioura.spring.controller;

import com.gkatzioura.spring.entity.Greeting;
import com.gkatzioura.spring.repository.GreetRepository;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.*;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;

@RestController
public class GreetingController {

    @Autowired
    private GreetRepository greetRepository;

    @RequestMapping(value = "/greeting",method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ResponseBody
    public List<Greeting> greeting() {
        List<Greeting> greetings = new ArrayList<>();
        greetRepository.findAll().forEach(e->greetings.add(e));
        return greetings;
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/greeting/{user}/",method = RequestMethod.GET)
    @ResponseBody
    public List<Greeting> greetingUserLimit(@PathVariable String user,Integer limit) {
        List<Greeting> greetings = new ArrayList<>();
        greetRepository.findByUser(user,limit).forEach(e -> greetings.add(e));
        return greetings;
    }

    @RequestMapping(value = "/greeting",method = RequestMethod.POST)
    @ResponseBody
    public String saveGreeting(@RequestBody Greeting greeting) {

        greeting.setCreationDate(new Date());
        greetRepository.save(greeting);

        return "OK";
    }

}

Last but not least our Application class

package com.gkatzioura.spring;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

}

In order to run just run