User-defined types

Quick overview

Ordered set of named, typed fields, e.g. { street: '1 Main St', zip: 12345}.

• row.getUdtValue() / boundStatement.setUdtValue().
• positional or named getters and setters: udtValue.getString("street"), udtValue.setInt(1, 12345)...
• getting hold of the UserDefinedType:
  • statement or session metadata, or udtValue.getType().
  • UserDefinedTypeBuilder (not recommended, dangerous if you build a type that doesn't match the database schema).
• creating a value from a type: userDefinedType.newValue().

---

CQL user-defined types are ordered sets of named, typed fields. They must be defined in a keyspace:

CREATE TYPE ks.type1 (
  a int,
  b text,
  c float);

And can then be used as a column type in tables, or a field type in other user-defined types in that keyspace:

CREATE TABLE ks.collect_things (
  pk int,
  ck1 text,
  ck2 text,
  v frozen<type1>,
  PRIMARY KEY (pk, ck1, ck2)
);

CREATE TYPE ks.type2 (v frozen<type1>);

Fetching UDTs from results

The driver maps UDT columns to the UdtValue class, which exposes getters and setters to access individual fields by index or name:

Row row = session.execute("SELECT v FROM ks.collect_things WHERE pk = 1").one();

UdtValue udtValue = row.getUdtValue("v");
int a = udtValue.getInt(0);
String b = udtValue.getString("b");
Float c = udtValue.getFloat(2);

Using UDTs as parameters

Statements may contain UDTs as bound values:

PreparedStatement ps =
  session.prepare(
      "INSERT INTO ks.collect_things (pk, ck1, ck2, v) VALUES (:pk, :ck1, :ck2, :v)");

To create a new UDT value, you must first have a reference to its UserDefinedType. There are various ways to get it:

• from the statement's metadata

  UserDefinedType udt = (UserDefinedType) ps.getVariableDefinitions().get("v").getType();
  

• from the driver's schema metadata:

  UserDefinedType udt =
      session.getMetadata()
          .getKeyspace("ks")
          .flatMap(ks -> ks.getUserDefinedType("type1"))
          .orElseThrow(() -> new IllegalArgumentException("Missing UDT definition"));
  

• from another UDT value:

  UserDefinedType udt = udtValue.getType();
  

Note that the driver‘s official API does not expose a way to build UserDefinedType instances manually. This is because the type’s internal definition must precisely match the database schema; if it doesn‘t (for example if the fields are not in the same order), you run the risk of inserting corrupt data, that you won’t be able to read back. There is still a way to do it with the driver, but it's part of the internal API:

// Advanced usage: make sure you understand the risks
import com.datastax.oss.driver.internal.core.type.UserDefinedTypeBuilder;

UserDefinedType udt =
    new UserDefinedTypeBuilder("ks", "type1")
        .withField("a", DataTypes.INT)
        .withField("b", DataTypes.TEXT)
        .withField("c", DataTypes.FLOAT)
        .build();

Note that a manually created type is detached.

Once you have the type, call newValue() and set the fields:

UdtValue udtValue = udt.newValue().setInt(0, 1).setString(1, "hello").setFloat(2, 2.3f);

// Or as a one-liner for convenience:
UdtValue udtValue = udt.newValue(1, "hello", 2.3f);

And bind your UDT value like any other type:

BoundStatement bs =
    ps.boundStatementBuilder()
        .setInt("pk", 1)
        .setString("ck1", "1")
        .setString("ck2", "1")
        .setUdtValue("v", udtValue)
        .build();
session.execute(bs);