rocksdb-query

rocksdb-query stores and queries Haskell data types in RocksDB. It sits on top of rocksdb-haskell-jprupp and adds three things:

• Keys and values are any types with a cereal Serialize instance.

• Empty type classes tie each key type to its value type, so the compiler stops you from reading a value of the wrong type.

• Prefix queries fetch every record whose key starts with a short key, as a list or as a conduit stream.

• API documentation

• Changelog

• Report a bug

Contents

• Why rocksdb-query
• Design principles
• Installation
• Quick start
• Tutorial: modelling a schema
• Concepts
• Usage guide
• API overview
• Designing keys
• Development
• Related projects
• License

Why rocksdb-query

RocksDB is a key-value store of bytes. Real programs store records, and the code in between is repetitive: encode the key, call get, decode the value, and remember which kind of value lives under which kind of key. That last part is where bugs hide. If you read a key as the wrong type, the bytes may still decode, into nonsense, and you find out much later.

rocksdb-query turns that knowledge into types. You declare once that orders live under order keys, and from then on the compiler checks every read and write. It also gives you prefix queries, which is how a key-value store answers questions like “all the orders of this customer” without a query language.

It was written for Haskoin, whose indices of the Bitcoin block chain are all modelled this way. It is small on purpose: about thirty functions, all thin wrappers over rocksdb-haskell-jprupp.

Design principles

• The schema is in the types. A KeyValue key value instance says what is stored under a key type. Reads and writes that disagree do not compile.
• You own the bytes. Serialization is a Serialize instance that you control. That matters, because the byte order of keys decides what a prefix query returns and in which order.
• Sorted keys instead of indices. RocksDB has no secondary indices. A key that starts with what you look records up by turns a lookup into a seek and a short scan. Prefix queries make that pattern a one-liner.
• Corrupt data is a bug. If your program cannot decode data it wrote, it stops with error instead of handing you a Left to ignore. Carrying on would only spread the damage.
• Stay thin. Opening, tuning, snapshots and iterators remain rocksdb-haskell-jprupp’s job. This library adds types, not a new way to use RocksDB.

Installation

System library

You need the RocksDB C library, as for rocksdb-haskell-jprupp:

sudo apt-get install librocksdb-dev   # Debian and Ubuntu
sudo dnf install rocksdb-devel        # Fedora
brew install rocksdb                  # macOS with Homebrew

Step by step with Stack

1. Install Stack and RocksDB (above).

2. Create a project and enter it:

   stack new orders simple
   cd orders
   

3. Add cereal, data-default, rocksdb-haskell-jprupp and rocksdb-query to build-depends in orders.cabal.

4. Put the quick start program in src/Main.hs and run it with stack run. It creates a database in /tmp/orders and prints the records it reads back.

With Cabal

build-depends:
    base
  , cereal
  , data-default
  , rocksdb-haskell-jprupp
  , rocksdb-query

You open and close the database with rocksdb-haskell-jprupp, and write the Serialize instances with cereal.

With Stack

The package is in Stackage nightly snapshots. Otherwise add it to stack.yaml:

extra-deps:
  - rocksdb-query-0.6.1
  - rocksdb-haskell-jprupp-2.6.1

Quick start

Orders keyed by customer, then by order number:

{-# LANGUAGE DeriveGeneric #-}
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-}

import Data.Default (def)
import Data.Serialize (Serialize (..))
import Data.Word (Word32)
import Database.RocksDB (Config (..), withDB)
import Database.RocksDB.Query
import GHC.Generics (Generic)

data OrderKey
  = OrderKey Word32 Word32 -- customer, order
  | OrderKeyS Word32 -- customer only: a prefix of OrderKey
  deriving (Show, Generic)

data Order = Order {item :: String, qty :: Int}
  deriving (Show, Generic)

instance Serialize Order

-- The short key must serialize to a prefix of the full key, so write this
-- instance by hand instead of deriving it.
instance Serialize OrderKey where
  put (OrderKey c o) = put c >> put o
  put (OrderKeyS c) = put c
  get = OrderKey <$> get <*> get

instance Key OrderKey

instance KeyValue OrderKey Order

main :: IO ()
main = withDB "/tmp/orders" def {createIfMissing = True} $ \db -> do
  insert db (OrderKey 1 100) (Order "apple" 3)
  writeBatch
    db
    [ insertOp (OrderKey 1 101) (Order "pear" 1),
      insertOp (OrderKey 2 200) (Order "plum" 7)
    ]

  retrieve db (OrderKey 1 100) >>= print
  -- Just (Order {item = "apple", qty = 3})

  matchingAsList db (OrderKeyS 1) >>= mapM_ print
  -- (OrderKey 1 100,Order {item = "apple", qty = 3})
  -- (OrderKey 1 101,Order {item = "pear", qty = 1})

  remove db (OrderKey 2 200)

Tutorial: modelling a schema

A small library system stores books and loans. This tutorial goes through the decisions behind its keys.

1. List the questions

Before writing any type, list how the data will be read:

• get a book by its id;
• list the loans of a member, newest first;
• list every book on a shelf.

Each question becomes a key whose leading fields are what you look things up by.

2. One tag byte per key type

The keys share one column family, so each type starts with its own byte, which guarantees that a prefix of one type never matches keys of another:

data BookKey = BookKey Word32 -- book id

instance Serialize BookKey where
  put (BookKey b) = putWord8 0x01 >> put b
  get = getWord8 >>= guard . (== 0x01) >> BookKey <$> get

instance Key BookKey
instance KeyValue BookKey Book

3. Keys that sort the way you read

Loans are listed per member, newest first. The key starts with the member, then an inverted time, so that a larger time sorts first:

data LoanKey
  = LoanKey Word32 Word64 Word32 -- member, maxBound - time, book
  | LoanKeyS Word32 -- member only

instance Serialize LoanKey where
  put (LoanKey m t b) = putWord8 0x02 >> put m >> put t >> put b
  put (LoanKeyS m) = putWord8 0x02 >> put m
  get = getWord8 >>= guard . (== 0x02) >> LoanKey <$> get <*> get <*> get

instance Key LoanKey
instance KeyValue LoanKey ()

The value is (): everything is in the key. That is common for indices.

4. Keep data and indices in step

A loan changes the book and adds an index entry. Write both in one batch, so a crash can never leave one without the other:

lend :: DB -> Word32 -> Word32 -> Word64 -> Book -> IO ()
lend db member book now b =
  writeBatch db
    [ insertOp (BookKey book) b {onLoan = True},
      insertOp (LoanKey member (maxBound - now) book) ()
    ]

5. Read

loans <- matchingAsList db (LoanKeyS member)    -- newest first
page2 <- take 20 <$> matchingSkipAsList db (LoanKeyS member) lastKey

The same approach answers the shelf question with a ShelfKey shelf book index.

Concepts

Typed keys

Key and KeyValue have no methods. They are declarations:

instance Key OrderKey             -- OrderKey can be deleted
instance KeyValue OrderKey Order  -- values under OrderKey are Orders

retrieve, insert and the queries need KeyValue; remove and deleteOp need only Key. Reading a key as a value type you did not declare for it is a type error, rather than a decoding failure at run time.

Prefix queries

RocksDB keeps keys sorted by their bytes, so all keys that start with the same bytes sit next to each other. A query with a short key seeks to the first key at or after its encoding and reads until a key no longer starts with it.

cereal encodes unsigned integers (Word32, Word64) in big-endian order, so those key parts sort in numeric order. Signed integers do not: negative numbers sort after positive ones.

Decoding errors

If a key or value in the database cannot be decoded, these functions call error. That means the instance used to read disagrees with the one used to write, or two key types share the same prefix.

Usage guide

Reading and writing

insert db key value
mvalue <- retrieve db key
remove db key

Batches

All the operations in a batch are applied atomically:

writeBatch db [insertOp k1 v1, insertOp k2 v2, deleteOp k3]

Prefix queries

Function	Returns
matchingAsList	every match, as a list
firstMatching	the first match
matching	every match, as a conduit, on your iterator

The conduit version reads lazily, so it suits prefixes with many matches:

import Conduit
import Database.RocksDB (withIter)

total <- withIter db $ \it ->
  runConduit $ matching it (OrderKeyS 1) .| mapC (qty . snd) .| sumC

Pagination

The Skip variants start inside the prefix at a given key, or the next one after it:

page2 <- take 20 <$> matchingSkipAsList db (OrderKeyS 1) (OrderKey 1 lastSeen)

Column families

Each function has a CF variant that takes a ColumnFamily:

withDBCF dir cfg [("orders", cfg)] $ \db -> do
  let [orders] = columnFamilies db
  insertCF db orders (OrderKey 1 100) (Order "apple" 3)
  matchingAsListCF db orders (OrderKeyS 1)

API overview

Default column family	Column family variant
retrieve	retrieveCF
insert, remove	insertCF, removeCF
insertOp, deleteOp	insertOpCF, deleteOpCF
matchingAsList, matchingSkipAsList	matchingAsListCF, matchingSkipAsListCF
firstMatching, firstMatchingSkip	firstMatchingCF, firstMatchingSkipCF
matching, matchingSkip	use an iterator from withIterCF

writeBatch takes operations for any column family. Everything is in Database.RocksDB.Query.

Designing keys

• Start every key type with a distinct tag byte when several types share a column family, so that their prefixes never overlap:

  put (OrderKey c o) = putWord8 0x01 >> put c >> put o
  put (OrderKeyS c) = putWord8 0x01 >> put c
  

• Give the short key the same leading fields, in the same order, as the full key. get only needs to decode the full key.

• Use fixed-width, big-endian numbers (Word32, Word64) for parts you sort or range over. Variable-length encodings do not sort numerically.

• To read newest first, store an inverted value, such as maxBound - time.

Development

git clone https://github.com/jprupp/rocksdb-query.git
cd rocksdb-query

stack build                        # build the library
stack test                         # run the tests
stack haddock --no-haddock-deps    # build the API documentation

With stack --nix, the nix section of stack.yaml provides RocksDB.

package.yaml is the source of the package description. Change it rather than rocksdb-query.cabal, which hpack generates.

The tests are in test/Spec.hs and use hspec.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome.

• Keep the style of the code around your change.
• Add tests for the behaviour you change.
• Describe the change in CHANGELOG.md, which follows Keep a Changelog.

Related projects

• rocksdb-haskell-jprupp is the RocksDB binding underneath.
• haskoin-node and haskoin-store store their headers and indices with this library.

License

rocksdb-query is released under the MIT License.