Record Structure

Aerospike stores data in namespaces (databases in RDBMS) that contain sets (tables) of records uniquely identified using a key hash (20-byte RIPEMD-160) digest. An in-memory primary index over these digest values allows fast access to records.

Records comprise one or more bins, which are named, strongly-typed containers that contain both atomic (string, integer, bytes) and complex (map, list) data types. Records also contain these metadata values to track version and expiration or time-to-live (TTL):

• generation — The number of record modifications.
• ttl— The seconds remaining until the record expires ( default = 0; never expire).
  • ttl resets on record writes or touch().
  • Expired records are collected by the server.

Structure

Records contain:

• key: namespace, set, digest, key
• metadata: generation, ttl
• bins: key-value pairs of data

For example:

array(3) {
  ["key"]=>
  array(4) {
    ["digest"]=> 
    string(40) "436??b?0%c#c?"
    ["namespace"]=>
    string(10) "infosphere"
    ["set"]=>
    string(10) "characters"
    ["key"]=>
    NULL
  }
  ["metadata"]=>
  array(2) {
    ["generation"]=>
    int(2)
    ["ttl"]=>
    int(1337)
  }
  ["bins"]=>
  array(2) {
    ["name"]=>
    string(13) "Philip J. Fry"
    ["jobs"]=>
    array(4) {
      [0]=>
      string(19) "Delivery Boy (1999)"
      [1]=>
      string(19) "Delivery Boy (3000)"
      [2]=>
      string(5) "Pilot"
      [3]=>
      string(14) "The Mighty One"
    }
  }
}

In this example, $record["key"]["digest"] is present and $record["key"]["key"] is NULL. digest is the unique identifier of the record, and the string or integer input hashed to produce it may or may not be stored with the record, depending on the option Aerospike::OPT_POLICY_KEY.