Apache Cassandra C/C++ Driver

A modern, feature-rich and highly tunable C/C++ client library for Apache Cassandra® 2.1+ using exclusively Cassandra's binary protocol and Cassandra Query Language v3. This driver can also be used with other DataStax products:

• DataStax Enterprise (DSE)
• DataStax Astra

Getting the Driver

The source code is made available via GitHub. Additionally binary versions of the driver (for multiple operating systems and multiple architectures) can be obtained from our Artifactory server. Binaries are available for the following operating systems:

• Rocky Linux 8.8
• Rocky Linux 9.2
• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• Windows

The driver depends on the following libraries:

• libuv (1.x)
• OpenSSL
• zlib

The version of OpenSSL and zlib provided with each Linux distribution above can be used to build the driver. A version of libuv > 1.x is provided for Rocky Linux under the dependencies directory. Packages for all three dependencies are provided for Windows distributions.

Features

• Asynchronous API
• Simple, Prepared, and Batch statements
• Asynchronous I/O, parallel execution, and request pipelining
• Connection pooling
• Automatic node discovery
• Automatic reconnection
• Configurable load balancing
• Works with any cluster size
• Authentication
• SSL
• Latency-aware routing
• Performance metrics
• Tuples and UDTs
• Nested collections
• Retry policies
• Client-side timestamps
• Data types
• Idle connection heartbeats
• Support for materialized view and secondary index metadata
• Support for clustering key order, frozen<> and Cassandra version metadata
• Blacklist, whitelist DC, and blacklist DC load balancing policies
• Custom authenticators
• Reverse DNS with SSL peer identity verification support
• Randomized contact points
• Speculative execution
• DSE Features
  • DSE authentication
    • Plaintext/DSE
    • LDAP
    • GSSAPI (Kerberos)
  • DSE geospatial types
  • DSE proxy authentication and proxy execution
  • DSE DateRange
• Support for DataStax Astra Cloud Data Platform

Compatibility

This driver works exclusively with the Cassandra Query Language v3 (CQL3) and Cassandra's native protocol. The current version works with the following server versions:

• Apache Cassandra® versions 3.0.x, 3.11.x and 4.0.x
• DSE versions 6.8.x and 5.1.x

Both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) architectures are supported

We build and test the driver on the following platforms:

• Rocky Linux 8.8 w/ gcc 8.5.0
• Rocky Linux 9.2 w/ gcc 11.3.1
• Ubuntu 20.04 w/ gcc 9.4.0
• Ubuntu 22.04 w/ gcc 11.3.0
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019

A complete compatibility matrix for both Apache Cassandra® and DataStax Enterprise can be found here.

Disclaimer: DataStax products do not support big-endian systems.

Documentation

• Home
• API
• Getting Started
• Building

Getting Help

• Quality bug reports are welcome at the CASSCPP project of the ASF JIRA
• You can talk about the driver, ask questions and get help in the #cassandra-drivers channel on ASF Slack

Examples

The driver includes several examples in the examples directory.

A Simple Example

#include <cassandra.h>
/* Use "#include <dse.h>" when connecting to DataStax Enterpise */
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
  /* Setup and connect to cluster */
  CassFuture* connect_future = NULL;
  CassCluster* cluster = cass_cluster_new();
  CassSession* session = cass_session_new();
  char* hosts = "127.0.0.1";
  if (argc > 1) {
    hosts = argv[1];
  }

  /* Add contact points */
  cass_cluster_set_contact_points(cluster, hosts);

  /* Provide the cluster object as configuration to connect the session */
  connect_future = cass_session_connect(session, cluster);

  if (cass_future_error_code(connect_future) == CASS_OK) {
    CassFuture* close_future = NULL;

    /* Build statement and execute query */
    const char* query = "SELECT release_version FROM system.local";
    CassStatement* statement = cass_statement_new(query, 0);

    CassFuture* result_future = cass_session_execute(session, statement);

    if (cass_future_error_code(result_future) == CASS_OK) {
      /* Retrieve result set and get the first row */
      const CassResult* result = cass_future_get_result(result_future);
      const CassRow* row = cass_result_first_row(result);

      if (row) {
        const CassValue* value = cass_row_get_column_by_name(row, "release_version");

        const char* release_version;
        size_t release_version_length;
        cass_value_get_string(value, &release_version, &release_version_length);
        printf("release_version: '%.*s'\n", (int)release_version_length, release_version);
      }

      cass_result_free(result);
    } else {
      /* Handle error */
      const char* message;
      size_t message_length;
      cass_future_error_message(result_future, &message, &message_length);
      fprintf(stderr, "Unable to run query: '%.*s'\n", (int)message_length, message);
    }

    cass_statement_free(statement);
    cass_future_free(result_future);

    /* Close the session */
    close_future = cass_session_close(session);
    cass_future_wait(close_future);
    cass_future_free(close_future);
  } else {
    /* Handle error */
    const char* message;
    size_t message_length;
    cass_future_error_message(connect_future, &message, &message_length);
    fprintf(stderr, "Unable to connect: '%.*s'\n", (int)message_length, message);
  }

  cass_future_free(connect_future);
  cass_cluster_free(cluster);
  cass_session_free(session);

  return 0;
}