Delete

Jump to the Code block for a combined complete example.

Setup

The following examples will use the setup below to illustrate single record deletion in an Aerospike database.

import com.aerospike.client.AerospikeClient;
import com.aerospike.client.policy.WritePolicy;
import com.aerospike.client.Key;

// Establishes a connection to the server
AerospikeClient client = new AerospikeClient("127.0.0.1", 3000);

// Creates a key with the namespace "sandbox", set "ufodata", and user key 5001
Key key = new Key("sandbox", "ufodata", 5001);

Policies

Just as Create and Update, Delete utilizes write policies that can be defined per command.

The following example creates a write policy that enables durable deletes.

// Can use a previously defined write policy or create a new one
WritePolicy deletePolicy = new WritePolicy();
deletePolicy.durableDelete = true;

Note

Record deletion can also be controlled through expiration, a write policy that defines the time-to-live (ttl), or number of seconds a record will live before being removed by the server. The default ttl is to live forever.

Refer to Data Retention for more information.

Delete a record

Default policy

Aerospike deletes a record efficiently by only dropping the primary index entry. The record space on device is recovered during garbage collection.

The following example shows how to delete a record using the default write policy.

Caution

Using the default write policy could result in having previously persisted versions of deleted objects resurrected upon a cold restart of the namespace. See Durable Deletes below for more information on preventing zombie records.

// Delete record with default write policy
client.delete(null, key);

// Close the connection to the server
client.close();

Note

Updating a bin value to null, when it is the only bin in the record, deletes the record. See Delete a Bin for information on setting a bin value to null.

Durable deletes

When a command results in deletion of a record and the durable delete write policy is set to true, a tombstone record is written to disk to prevent previous versions of the record from returning during a cold restart. Refer to Durable Deletes for more information.

The following example uses the write policy set above to durably delete a record.

// Durably delete a record with the write policy
client.delete(deletePolicy, key);

// Close the connection to the server
client.close();

Code block

Expand this section for a single code block to durably delete a record

import com.aerospike.client.AerospikeClient;
import com.aerospike.client.policy.WritePolicy;
import com.aerospike.client.Key;

// Establishes a connection to the server
AerospikeClient client = new AerospikeClient("127.0.0.1", 3000);

// Creates a key with the namespace "sandbox", set "ufodata", and user key 5001
Key key = new Key("sandbox", "ufodata", 5001);

// Can use a previously defined write policy or create a new one
WritePolicy deletePolicy = new WritePolicy();
deletePolicy.durableDelete = true;

// Durably delete a record with the write policy
client.delete(deletePolicy, key);

// Close the connection to the server
client.close();