sorry to beat on the dead horse. I looked at the link referred from #2103 : https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-2101 I agree with the reasoning in #2101 that the ultimate issue is that delete and counter adds are not commutative. since by definition we can't achieve predictable behavior with deletes + counter, can we redefine the behavior of counter deletes, so that we can always guarantee the declared behavior? --- specifically:
*we define that once a counter column is deleted, you can never add to it again.* attempts to add to a dead counter throws an exception ---- all future adds are just ignored. i.e. a counter column has only one life, until all tombstones are purged from system, after which it is possible for the counter to have a new incarnation. basically instead of solving the problem raised in #2103, we declare openly that it's unsolvable (which is true), and make the code reflect this fact. I think this behavior would satisfy most use cases of counters. so instead of relying on the advice to developers: "do not do updates for a period after deletes, otherwise it probably wont' work", we enforce this into the code. the same logic can be carried over into expiring column, since they are essentially automatically inserted deletes. that way #2103 could be "solved" I'm attaching an example below, you can refer to them if needed. Thanks a lot Yang example: for simplicity we assume there is only one column family , one column, so we omit column name and cf name in our notation, assume all counterColumns have a delta value of 1, we only mark their ttl now. so c(123) means a counter column of ttl=1, adding a delta of 1. d(456) means a tombstone with ttl=456. then we can have the following operations operation result after operation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- c(1) count=1 d(2) count = null ( counter not present ) c(3) count = null ( add on dead counter ignored) --------------------------------------------------- if the 2 adds arrive out of order , we would still guarantee eventual consistency: operation result after operation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- c(1) count=1 c(3) count=2 (we have 2 adds, each with delta=1) d(2) count=null (deleted) -------------------------------------------------------------- at the end of both scenarios, the result is guaranteed to be null; note that in the second scenario, line 2 shows a snapshot where we have a state with count=2, which scenario 1 never sees this. this is fine, since even regular columns can have this situation (just consider if the counter columns were inserts/overwrites instead ) On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Jonathan Ellis <jbel...@gmail.com> wrote: > No. See comments to https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-2103 > > On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 7:29 PM, Yang <teddyyyy...@gmail.com> wrote: >> is this combination feature available , or on track ? >> >> thanks >> Yang >> > > > > -- > Jonathan Ellis > Project Chair, Apache Cassandra > co-founder of DataStax, the source for professional Cassandra support > http://www.datastax.com >
