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Tablestore:Use the atomic counter feature

Last Updated:Apr 08, 2024

If you want to use a counter for your online application, you can use the atomic counter feature. To use this feature, specify a column as an atomic counter and perform atomic counter operations on the column.

Prerequisites

  • An OTSClient instance is initialized. For more information, see Initialize a client.

  • A data table is created, and data is written to the data table.

Usage notes

  • You can implement atomic counters only on INTEGER columns.

  • If a column that is specified as an atomic counter does not exist before you write data, the default value of the column is 0. If a column that is specified as an atomic counter is not an INTEGER column, an OTSParameterInvalid error occurs.

  • You can update an atomic counter by using a positive or negative number, but you must avoid an integer overflow. If an integer overflow occurs, an OTSParameterInvalid error is returned.

  • By default, the value of an atomic counter is not returned in the response to an update row request. You can specify that the updated value of an atomic counter is returned.

  • You cannot specify a column as an atomic counter and update the column in a single update request. For example, if you set Column A to an atomic counter, you cannot perform other operations such as overwrite and delete operations on the column at the same time.

  • You can perform multiple update operations on the same row by sending a BatchWriteRow request. However, if you perform an atomic counter operation on a row, you can perform only one update operation on the row in a BatchWriteRow request.

  • Only the value of the latest version of an atomic counter can be updated. You cannot update the value of a specified version of an atomic counter. After an update operation is complete, a new version of data is inserted into the atomic counter in the row.

API operations

The API operations that you can call to use the atomic counter feature are added to the rowUpdateChange class. The following table describes the operations.

Operation

Description

RowUpdateChange increment(Column column)

Increases or decreases the value in a column by a number.

void addReturnColumn(String columnName)

Specifies the name of the column on which operations are performed to implement atomic counter. This API operation is called to return the name of the column.

void setReturnType(ReturnType returnType)

Specifies a data type to return the value of an atomic counter.

Parameters

Parameter

Description

tableName

The name of the data table.

columnName

The name of the column on which you want to perform atomic counter operations. You can specify a column only of the INTEGER type.

value

The increment or decrement in the column value.

returnType

If you set this parameter to ReturnType.RT_AFTER_MODIFY, the value of the atomic counter is returned.

Examples

The following sample code provides an example on how to use rowUpdateChange to increase the value of an atomic counter and return the increased value:

private static void incrementByUpdateRowApi(SyncClient client) {
    // Construct the primary key. 
    PrimaryKeyBuilder primaryKeyBuilder = PrimaryKeyBuilder.createPrimaryKeyBuilder();
    primaryKeyBuilder.addPrimaryKeyColumn("<PRIMARY_KEY_NAME>", PrimaryKeyValue.fromString("pk0"));
    PrimaryKey primaryKey = primaryKeyBuilder.build();
    // Specify the name of the data table. 
    RowUpdateChange rowUpdateChange = new RowUpdateChange("<TABLE_NAME>", primaryKey); 

    // Specify the price column as an atomic counter and increase the value of the atomic counter by 10. You cannot specify the timestamp. 
    rowUpdateChange.increment(new Column("price", ColumnValue.fromLong(10)));

    // Set the returnType parameter to ReturnType.RT_AFTER_MODIFY to return the value of the atomic counter. 
    rowUpdateChange.addReturnColumn("price");
    rowUpdateChange.setReturnType(ReturnType.RT_AFTER_MODIFY);

    // Initiate a request to update the row. 
    UpdateRowResponse response = client.updateRow(new UpdateRowRequest(rowUpdateChange));

    // Display the updated values. 
    Row row = response.getRow();
    System.out.println(row);
}