RESTful interaction

Basics

First make sure HBase's Startgate is running (from your HBase directory):

$ ./bin/hbase rest start -p 9191
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO util.VersionInfo: HBase 0.94.2
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO util.VersionInfo: Subversion https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/hbase/branches/0.94 -r 1395367
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO util.VersionInfo: Compiled by jenkins on Sun Oct  7 19:11:01 UTC 2012
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO jvm.JvmMetrics: Initializing JVM Metrics with processName=rest, sessionId=main
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO hbase.metrics: new MBeanInfo
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO mortbay.log: Logging to org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerAdapter(org.mortbay.log) via org.mortbay.log.Slf4jLog
2012-10-29 14:29:26.620 java[22215:1903] Unable to load realm info from SCDynamicStore
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO mortbay.log: jetty-6.1.26
12/10/29 14:29:26 INFO mortbay.log: Started [email protected]:9191

Then, using httpie or curl you can interact with HBase as follows.

Schema

Explore a table's schema:

$ http http://localhost:9191/rdf/schema
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: no-cache
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 250
Content-Type: text/plain

{
NAME = > 'rdf', IS_META = > 'false', IS_ROOT = > 'false', COLUMNS = > [{
	NAME = > 'G', BLOCKSIZE = > '65536', BLOOMFILTER = > 'NONE', MIN_VERSIONS = > '0', KEEP_DELETED_CELLS = > 'false', ENCODE_ON_DISK = > 'true', BLOCKCACHE = > 'true', COMPRESSION = > 'NONE', VERSIONS = > '3', REPLICATION_SCOPE = > '0', TTL = > '2147483647', DATA_BLOCK_ENCODING = > 'NONE', IN_MEMORY = > 'false'
}, {
	NAME = > 'O', BLOCKSIZE = > '65536', BLOOMFILTER = > 'NONE', MIN_VERSIONS = > '0', KEEP_DELETED_CELLS = > 'false', ENCODE_ON_DISK = > 'true', BLOCKCACHE = > 'true', COMPRESSION = > 'NONE', VERSIONS = > '3', REPLICATION_SCOPE = > '0', TTL = > '2147483647', DATA_BLOCK_ENCODING = > 'NONE', IN_MEMORY = > 'false'
}, {
	NAME = > 'P', BLOCKSIZE = > '65536', BLOOMFILTER = > 'NONE', MIN_VERSIONS = > '0', KEEP_DELETED_CELLS = > 'false', ENCODE_ON_DISK = > 'true', BLOCKCACHE = > 'true', COMPRESSION = > 'NONE', VERSIONS = > '3', REPLICATION_SCOPE = > '0', TTL = > '2147483647', DATA_BLOCK_ENCODING = > 'NONE', IN_MEMORY = > 'false'
}]
}

Retrieve a row

To retrieve a row by its key (for example http://mhausenblas.info/#i):

$ http http://localhost:9191/rdf/http%3A%2F%2Fmhausenblas.info%2F%23i Accept:application/json
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Type: application/json
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

{
    "Row": [
        {
            "Cell": [
                {
                    "$": "aHR0cDovL2V4YW1wbGUub3Jn", 
                    "column": "Rzo=", 
                    "timestamp": 1351372113753
                }, 
                {
                    "$": "aHR0cDovL3NjaGVtYS5vcmcvUGVyc29u", 
                    "column": "Tzox", 
                    "timestamp": 1351372247689
                }, 
                {
                    "$": "aHR0cDovL3htbG5zLmNvbS9mb2FmLzAuMS9QZXJzb24=", 
                    "column": "Tzoy", 
                    "timestamp": 1351372555296
                }, 
                {
                    "$": "TWljaGFlbA==", 
                    "column": "Tzoz", 
                    "timestamp": 1351373497310
                }, 
                {
                    "$": "aHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMTk5OS8wMi8yMi1yZGYtc3ludGF4LW5zI3R5cGU=", 
                    "column": "UDox", 
                    "timestamp": 1351372243242
                }, 
                {
                    "$": "aHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMTk5OS8wMi8yMi1yZGYtc3ludGF4LW5zI3R5cGU=", 
                    "column": "UDoy", 
                    "timestamp": 1351372547894
                }, 
                {
                    "$": "aHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC8wMS9yZGYtc2NoZW1hI2xhYmVs", 
                    "column": "UDoz", 
                    "timestamp": 1351373490159
                }
            ], 
            "key": "aHR0cDovL21oYXVzZW5ibGFzLmluZm8vI2k="
        }
    ]
}