Clustering Keys in Cassandra

On a given physical node, rows for a given partition key are stored in the order induced by the clustering keys, making the retrieval of rows in that clustering order particularly efficient. http://cassandra.apache.org/doc/cql3/CQL.html#createTableStmt What kind of ordering is induced by clustering keys?

Suppose your clustering keys are

k1 t1, k2 t2, ..., kn tn

where ki is the ith key name and ti is the ith key type. Then the order data is stored in is lexicographic ordering where each dimension is compared using the comparator for that type.

So (a1, a2, ..., an) < (b1, b2, ..., bn) if a1 < b1 using t1 comparator, or a1=b1 and a2 < b2 using t2 comparator, or (a1=b1 and a2=b2) and a3 < b3 using t3 comparator, etc..

This means that it is efficient to find all rows with a certain k1=a, since the data is stored together. But it is inefficient to find all rows with ki=x for i > 1. In fact, such a query isn't allowed - the only clustering key constraints that are allowed specify zero or more clustering keys, starting from the first with none missing.

For example, consider the schema

create table clustering (
    x text,
    k1 text,
    k2 int,
    k3 timestamp,
    y text,
    primary key (x, k1, k2, k3)
);

If you did the following inserts:

insert into clustering (x, k1, k2, k3, y) values ('x', 'a', 1, '2013-09-10 14:00+0000', '1');
insert into clustering (x, k1, k2, k3, y) values ('x', 'b', 1, '2013-09-10 13:00+0000', '1');
insert into clustering (x, k1, k2, k3, y) values ('x', 'a', 2, '2013-09-10 13:00+0000', '1');
insert into clustering (x, k1, k2, k3, y) values ('x', 'b', 1, '2013-09-10 14:00+0000', '1');

then they are stored in this order on disk (the order select * from clustering where x = 'x' returns):

 x | k1 | k2 | k3                       | y
---+----+----+--------------------------+---
 x |  a |  1 | 2013-09-10 14:00:00+0000 | 1
 x |  a |  2 | 2013-09-10 13:00:00+0000 | 1
 x |  b |  1 | 2013-09-10 13:00:00+0000 | 1
 x |  b |  1 | 2013-09-10 14:00:00+0000 | 1

k1 ordering dominates, then k2, then k3.