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Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:58:06 -0800
From: Todd Fast <todd@conga.com>
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Subject: Delete doesn't remove row key?
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I added a row with a single column to my 1.0.8 single-node cluster:

     RowKey: aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa
     => (column=test, value=hi, timestamp=...)

I immediately deleted the row using both the CLI and CQL:

     del Foo[lexicaluuid('aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa')];
     delete from Foo using consistency all where 
KEY=aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa

In either case, the column "test" is gone but the empty row key still 
remains, and the row count reflects the presence of this phantom row.

I've tried nodetool compact/repair/flush/cleanup/scrub/etc. and nothing 
removes the row key.

How do I get rid of it?

BTW, I saw this little tidbit in the describe output:

     Row cache size / save period in seconds / keys to save : 0.0/0/all

Does "all" here mean to keep the keys for empty rows? If so, how do I 
change that behavior?

     ColumnFamily: "Foo"
     "..."
       Key Validation Class: org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.UUIDType
       Default column value validator: 
org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.UTF8Type
       Columns sorted by: org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.UTF8Type
       Row cache size / save period in seconds / keys to save : 0.0/0/all
       Row Cache Provider: 
org.apache.cassandra.cache.ConcurrentLinkedHashCacheProvider
       Key cache size / save period in seconds: 200000.0/14400
       GC grace seconds: 864000000
       Compaction min/max thresholds: 4/32
       Read repair chance: 0.1
       Replicate on write: true
       Bloom Filter FP chance: default
       Built indexes: []
       Compaction Strategy: 
org.apache.cassandra.db.compaction.SizeTieredCompactionStrategy

Todd