💫 Aerospike URL - Turn connection string into Aerospike DB client
Tags: go, database, opensource, tutorial
Published: 2023-08-23 20:49:48

✌️ Hello devs!

In this blog post, I would like to share my recent open-source initiative that has been built to provide developers with another way to connect to the Aerospike DB.

## 🔗 Aerospike URL
You can go ahead and check the repo:
{% embed https://github.com/tiptophelmet/aerospike-url %}

Published Go package is here as well:
https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/tiptophelmet/aerospike-url

---

## 🤠 Motivation

During my work with various in-memory key-value stores like Redis and Memcached I always had an option to connect using URL connection string like `redis://myusername:mypassword@redis.example.com:6379/1` or `memcached://memcached.example.com:11211`.

This way I can provide a whole URL connection string from an environment variable, like `REDIS_URL` or `MEMCACHED_CONN_STRING`, directly when initializing DB client. It's an architectural requirement I should stick to.

I discovered Aerospike DB and its hybrid model of storing indexes in RAM, while still persisting data on a disk. 

It matched product business needs and I started looking for an option to connect using URL & I discovered the official Aerospike Go Client supports only 3 options for establishing a DB connection: 
- [aerospike.NewClient](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6#NewClient)
- [aerospike.NewClientWithPolicy](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6#NewClientWithPolicy)
- [aerospike.NewClientWithPolicyAndHost](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6#NewClientWithPolicyAndHost)

No way! I still needed to connect to Aerospike using URL.
Given my requirement and time estimates - I decided to create a new Go package that would solve my task!

---

## 💡 How it works

**TL;DR**
💫 Adjust & pass this URL into [aerospikeurl.Parse](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/tiptophelmet/aerospike-url#Parse) and your connection will be up & running:
`aerospike://aerouser001:aerouserpassw123@127.0.0.1:3000/my-aerospike-namespace?auth_mode=auth_mode_internal&timeout=10s&idle_timeout=3s&max_error_rate=50`

---

Specify `user:passw` after `aerospike://`, after `@` specify  Aerospike host `127.0.0.1:3000`, then put your [Aerospike namespace](https://docs.aerospike.com/server/architecture/data-model#namespaces) `/my-aerospike-namespace`.

Query parameters are [aerospike.ClientPolicy](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6#ClientPolicy) properties.

If query parameters are specified, client is created using [aerospike.NewClientWithPolicy](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6#NewClientWithPolicy), otherwise [aerospike.NewClient](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6#NewClient).

---

## 📄 Example

```
package main

import (
	"fmt"

	aerospikeurl "github.com/tiptophelmet/aerospike-url"
	aero "github.com/aerospike/aerospike-client-go/v6"
)

// Use aerospikeurl to build Aerospike client from URL
func buildClientFromURL(url string) *aero.Client {
	clientFactory, err := aerospikeurl.Parse(url)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	client, err := clientFactory.BuildClient()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	return client
}

// This is only for this example.
// Please handle errors properly.
func panicOnError(err error) {
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
}

// Use Aerospike client as usual
func main() {
	url := "aerospike://aerouser001:aerouserpassw123@127.0.0.1:3000/my-aerospike-namespace?auth_mode=auth_mode_internal&timeout=10s&idle_timeout=3s&max_error_rate=50"

	client := buildClientFromURL(url)
	defer client.Close()

	key, err := aero.NewKey("test", "aerospike", "key")
	panicOnError(err)

	// define some bins with data
	bins := aero.BinMap{
		"bin1": 42,
		"bin2": "An elephant is a mouse with an operating system",
		"bin3": []interface{}{"Go", 2009},
	}

	// write the bins
	err = client.Put(nil, key, bins)
	panicOnError(err)

	// read it back!
	rec, err := client.Get(nil, key)
	panicOnError(err)

	fmt.Printf("Record bins: %v", rec.Bins)

	// delete the key, and check if key exists
	existed, err := client.Delete(nil, key)
	panicOnError(err)

	fmt.Printf("Record existed before delete? %v\n", existed)
}
```

---

## 🏷️ Project stage
Aerospike URL is in its early stage and suggestions are welcome! 
Feel free to create issues or pull requests in [the Github repo](https://github.com/tiptophelmet/aerospike-url)