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Namespaces

Namespace is a thin layer around FoundationDB's powerful directory concept. Namespaces are a recommended approach for administering applications. Each application should create or open at least one directory to manage its subspaces. Namespaces are identified by hierarchical paths analogous to the paths in a Unix-like file system.

The hierarchy between directories is denoted by joining them with a dot(.) character. Let's assume that you have different microservices and want to isolate their databases. You can create a namespace for each microservice under the production namespace.

If you have three microservices named users, orders and products, your namespace hierarchy might look like the following:

  • production.users
  • production.orders
  • production.products

All data structures used by these namespaces will be isolated.

Note: Redis data structures are not stored under namespaces. Currently, namespaces cover only ZMap data structure.

Commands​

NAMESPACE CREATE​

NAMESPACE CREATE creates a new namespace with the given hierarchy.

Syntax

NAMESPACE CREATE <namespace-hierarchy>

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE CREATE global.users

NAMESPACE REMOVE​

NAMESPACE REMOVE removes the given namespace hierarchy. It's the equivalent of DROP DATABASE command in other databases. So you should be careful when start typing this command. The result is irreversible.

Syntax

NAMESPACE REMOVE <namespace-hierarchy>

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE REMOVE global.users
OK

Error Cases

You cannot remove the default namespace:

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE REMOVE global
(error) ERR Cannot remove the default namespace: 'global'

NAMESPACE CURRENT​

NAMESPACE CURRENT command returns the current namespace in use for the session. The default namespace is in use if the client doesn't set a different namespace by calling NAMESPACE USE command.

Syntax

NAMESPACE CURRENT

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE CURRENT
global

NAMESPACE USE​

NAMESPACE USE sets an existing namespace to be used by the session.

Syntax

NAMESPACE USE <namespace-hierarchy>

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE USE global.users
OK

Error Cases

It returns NOSUCHNAMESPACE error if the namespace doesn't exist:

127.0.0.1:5484> namespace use global.clients
(error) NOSUCHNAMESPACE No such namespace: global.clients

NAMESPACE EXISTS​

NAMESPACE EXISTS checks a namespace whether exists or not.

Syntax

NAMESPACE EXISTS <namespace-hierarchy>

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE EXISTS global.users
(integer) 1

It returns 1 for existing namespaces and 0 for non-existing ones.

NAMESPACE LIST​

NAMESPACE LIST lists the namespaces under the given hierarchy.

Syntax

NAMESPACE LIST <namespace-hierarchy>

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE LIST
1) global

It can take an optional parameter of namespace hierarchy.

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE LIST global
1) users

Error Cases

It returns NOSUCHNAMESPACE error if the given hierarchy is invalid:

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE LIST global.clients
(error) NOSUCHNAMESPACE No such namespace: global.clients

NAMESPACE MOVE​

NAMESPACE MOVE moves the rightmost namespace to another location in the given hierarchy.

Syntax

NAMESPACE MOVE <old-namespace-hierarchy> <new-namespace-hierarchy>

Example

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE MOVE global.users staging.users
OK

Let's check the result:

127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE LIST global
(empty array)
127.0.0.1:5484> NAMESPACE LIST staging
1) users