Cassandra Collections: Set, List & Map in CQL
with Example
By : David Taylor Updated March 9, 2024
What are Cassandra Collections?
Cassandra collections are a good way for handling tasks. Multiple elements can
be stored in collections. There are limitations in Cassandra collections.
Cassandra collection cannot store data more than 64KB.
Keep a collection small to prevent the overhead of querying collection
because entire collection needs to be traversed.
If you store more than 64 KB data in the collection, only 64 KB will be able to
query, it will result in loss of data.
Table of Content:
Types of Cassandra Collections
There are mainly three types of collections that Cassandra supports:
1. Set
2. List
3. Map
Cassandra Set Collection
A Set stores group of elements that returns sorted elements when querying.
Syntax
Here is the syntax of the Set collection that store multiple email addresses for
the teacher.
Create table University.Teacher
(
id int,
Name text,
Email set<text>,
Primary key(id)
);
Example
Here is the snapshot where table “Teacher” is created with “Email” column as a
collection.
Here is the snapshot where data is being inserted in the collection.
insert into University.Teacher(id,Name,Email) values(l,'Guru99',
{'
[email protected]','
[email protected]'});
Cassandra List Collection
When the order of elements matters, the list is used.
Example
Here is the snapshot where column courses of list type id added in table
“Teacher.”
Here is the snapshot where data is being inserted in column “coursenames”.
insert into University.Teacher(id,Name,Email) values(2,'Hamilton',
{'
[email protected]'},[Data Science']);
Here is the snapshot that shows the current database state after insertion.
Cassandra Map Collection
The map is a collection type that is used to store key value pairs. As its name
implies that it maps one thing to another.
For example, if you want to save course name with its prerequisite course name,
map collection can be used.
Example
Here is the snapshot where map type is created for course name and its
prerequisite course name.
Here is the snapshot where data is being inserted in map collection type.
insert into University.Course(id,prereq) values(1,
{'DataScience':'Database', 'Neural Network':'Artificial
Intelligence'});
Summary
Cassandra collections are a good way for handling tasks. Multiple elements
can be stored in collections.
There are mainly three types of collections in Cassandra: Set, List, and Map
A Set collection stores group of elements that returns sorted elements when
querying.
The List collection is used when the order of elements matters.
The Map is a collection type that is used to store key value pairs.
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