Inserting and querying

The API to Cassandra is 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 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 the next section <client-drivers>. You should refer to the documentation of each drivers for more information on how to use them.