Getting Started:
CRUD Operations with C Sharp

Creating Objects In Riak

Pinging a Riak cluster sounds like a lot of fun, but eventually someone is going to want us to do productive work. Let’s create a class to represent some data and save some objects into Riak.

The Riak .NET Client makes use of a RiakObject class to encapsulate Riak key/value objects. At the most basic, a RiakObject is responsible for identifying your object and for translating it into a format that can be easily saved to Riak.

Add the RiakClient.Models namespace to your using directive. Your usings should look like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using RiakClient;
using RiakClient.Models;

Add the Person class to the TasteOfRiak namespace:

public class Person
{
    public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

Now let’s create some people!

var people = new[]
{
    new Person {
        EmailAddress = "bashoman@basho.com",
        FirstName = "Basho",
        LastName = "Man"
    },
    new Person {
        EmailAddress = "johndoe@gmail.com",
        FirstName = "John",
        LastName = "Doe"
    }
};

foreach (var person in people)
{
    var o = new RiakObject(contributors, person.EmailAddress, person);
    var putResult = client.Put(o);

    if (putResult.IsSuccess)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Successfully saved {1} to bucket {0}", o.Key, o.Bucket);
    }
    else
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Are you *really* sure Riak is running?");
        Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", putResult.ResultCode, putResult.ErrorMessage);
    }
}

In this sample, we create a collection of Person objects and then save each Person to Riak.

Before saving, we need to create a RiakObject that encapsulates the bucket, key, and object to be saved. Once we’ve created a RiakObject from our Person object, we can save it to Riak using Client.Put().

Once again, we check the response from Riak. If things are successful, you’ll see a helpful message letting you know that your object has been saved to Riak. If things didn’t go as planned, there will be an error message displaying the result code and a helpful error message.

Reading from Riak

Let’s find a person!

var result = client.Get(contributors, "bashoman@basho.com");
if (result.IsSuccess)
{
    bashoman = result.Value.GetObject<Person>();
    Console.WriteLine("I found {0} in {1}", bashoman.EmailAddress, contributors);
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong!");
    Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", result.ResultCode, result.ErrorMessage);
}

We use RiakClient.Get to retrieve an object from Riak. This returns a RiakResult<RiakObject> which, like other RiakResults, helpfully encapsulates the communication with Riak.

After verifying that we’ve been able to communicate with Riak and that we have a successful result, we use GetObject<T> to deserialize our object.

Modifying Existing Data

Let’s say that Basho Man has decided to be known as Riak Man:

bashoman.FirstName = "Riak";

var o = new RiakObject(contributors, bashoman.EmailAddress, bashoman);
var updateResult = client.Put(o);
if (updateResult.IsSuccess)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Successfully updated {0} in {1}", bashoman.EmailAddress, contributors);
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong!");
    Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", updateResult.ResultCode, updateResult.ErrorMessage);
}

Updating an object involves creating a new RiakObject then using RiakClient.Put to save the existing object.

Deleting Data

var deleteResult = client.Delete(contributors, "johndoe@gmail.com");
if (deleteResult.IsSuccess)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Successfully got rid of John Doe");
}
else
{
    Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong!");
    Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", deleteResult.ResultCode, deleteResult.ErrorMessage);
}

Just like other operations, we check the results that have come back from Riak to make sure the object was successfully deleted.

The Riak .NET Client has a lot of additional functionality that makes it easy to build rich, complex applications with Riak. Check out the documentation to learn more about working with the Riak .NET Client and Riak.