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Inserting and querying
----------------------

The API to Cassandra is :ref:`CQL <cql>`, the Cassandra Query Language. To use CQL, you will need to connect to the
cluster, which can be done:

- either using cqlsh,
- or through a client driver for Cassandra.

CQLSH
^^^^^

cqlsh is a command line shell for interacting with Cassandra through CQL. It is shipped with every Cassandra package,
and can be found in the bin/ directory alongside the cassandra executable. It connects to the single node specified on
the command line. For example::

    $ bin/cqlsh localhost
    Connected to Test Cluster at localhost:9042.
    [cqlsh 5.0.1 | Cassandra 3.8 | CQL spec 3.4.2 | Native protocol v4]
    Use HELP for help.
    cqlsh> SELECT cluster_name, listen_address FROM system.local;

     cluster_name | listen_address
    --------------+----------------
     Test Cluster |      127.0.0.1

    (1 rows)
    cqlsh>

See the :ref:`cqlsh section <cqlsh>` for full documentation.

Client drivers
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A lot of client drivers are provided by the Community and a list of known drivers is provided in :ref:`the next section
<client-drivers>`. You should refer to the documentation of each drivers for more information on how to use them.