Cassandra Hector: how to insert a null value as a column value?

Question

A frequently used case with Cassandra stores data in the column names of a dynamically created column family. In this situation, the string values ​​themselves are not needed, and it is common practice to store zeros there. However, when dealing with Hector, there seems to be no way to insert a null value because Hector HColumnImpl does an explicit null check in the column constructor:

public HColumnImpl(N name, V value, long clock, Serializer<N> nameSerializer, Serializer<V> valueSerializer) { this(nameSerializer, valueSerializer); notNull(name, "name is null"); notNull(value, "value is null"); this.column = new Column(nameSerializer.toByteBuffer(name)); this.column.setValue(valueSerializer.toByteBuffer(value)); this.column.setTimestamp(clock); } 

Are there any ways to insert zeros through Hector? If not, what is the best practice in a situation where you don't need column values ​​and only their names are needed?

Answer 1

Try using an empty byte [], i.e. new byte[0];