This page sets out the known TODO items for the RocksJava API, it also shows who is thinking/working on a particular topic; Through this mechanism hopefully we can avoid duplicating effort.

Some recent user requests (as of June 2017):

In order of priority:

  1. Load Options APIs to dynamically reload the options without needing a restart. ([#2898](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/pull/2898))
  2. Merge Operator API (#2282)
  3. Compaction Filter API (#2483)
  4. Ability to pass in native pointers/memory to reduce the JNI overhead
  5. Shared block cache across all column-families and instances. (#3623)
  6. Stats (Tickers and histograms) in sync with C++ API. (in-sync as of June 2017, due to #2429 and #2209)
  7. Implement Statistics.getHistogramString (#2374).

Upcoming changes to the Java API (outdated — last updated in July 2016)

  1. Adjust RocksJava Comparator implementation - We analyzed the current implementation and noticed a significant loss of performance using the current implementation. So we decided to do the following steps in order
  • Analyze which one of the comparator implementations is performing better either DirectComparator or Comparator
  • Outline a proper way to use Custom-C++-Comparators with RocksJava.
  • Remove everything but one Comparator implementation. Depending on the analysis listed above.
  • Document the performance penalties in related JavaDoc.
  • FindShortestSeparatorand FindShortSuccessor shall only do something if the Java method is implemented. What`s currently not the case.

  1. Rework WBWIIterator to use both Slice and DirectSlice (see above).

  2. Introduce final on variables/members everywhere they are immutable.

  3. Implement ldb for Java. For example, the ability to specify the Comparator which implemented in Java. @adamretter

  4. Custom merge operator for Java. At the moment it is only possible to use merge operators which are available in C++ but not implementing custom functionality solely in Java. Decision: will not be implemented.

  5. Expose an AbstractLogger. RocksDB C++ api allows to provide a custom Logger. This shall also be possible from Java side and allows to attach RocksDB logging to application logging facilities.

  6. Document the performance penalties if log level is too verbose.

  7. Port remaining functionality in db.h to RocksJava. @fyrz

  8. Update Statistics/HistogramData to 3.10 @fyrz

  9. Build isolation. Building Java API should not require building RocksDB. You should be able to use a Java API build with a separate existing RocksDB installation. The Java API native aspect will instead indirectly depend on a shared or static RocksDB lib. @adamretter

  10. Expose optimistic locking @fyrz

Planned changes for 4.x

  1. Move on to Java-8, especially because Java-7 is EOL this year.

  2. Look at Java 8 Long#unsigned operations.

  3. Consider whether we should add an UnsignedLong, UnsignedInt class types of our own to prevent users from sending invalid DBOptions.

  4. Restructure the package layout within the Java part.

  5. Implement ARM (Automatic Resource Management) e.g. try-with-resources Java 7 use via Closeable/AutoCloseable for iterators, db, write batches etc. Along with this change we will remove the auto-cleanup for c++ resources using finalize. Instead we will throw an exception if a C++ resource is going to be finalized without freeing the native handle first. DONE @adamretter

  6. Consider converting callbacks to lambda expressions