Provides an HBase Thrift service. This directory contains a Thrift interface definition file for an HBase RPC service and a Java server implementation.

## What is Thrift?

> "Thrift is a software framework for scalable cross-language services development. It combines a software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Erlang, Perl, Haskell, C#, Cocoa, Smalltalk, and OCaml."

## Description

Important note: We tried to deprecate this Thrift interface and replace it with the Interface defined over in the thrift2 package only this package will not die. Folks keep adding to it and fixing it up so its around for another while until someone takes command and drives this package out of existence replacing it w/ an Interface that better matches the hbase API (this package was modelled on old HBase API long since dropped).

The org.apache.hadoop.hbase.thrift.generated.Hbase.Iface HBase API is defined in the file Hbase.thrift (Click the former to see the thrift generated documentation of thrift interface). A server-side implementation of the API is in {@link org.apache.hadoop.hbase.thrift.ThriftServer}. The generated interfaces, types, and RPC utility files reside in the org.apache.hadoop.hbase.thrift.generated package.

To start ThriftServer, use:

      ./bin/hbase-daemon.sh start thrift

To stop, use:

      ./bin/hbase-daemon.sh stop thrift

These are the command line arguments the Thrift server understands in addition to `start` and `stop`:

`-b, --bind`
  Address to bind the Thrift server to. Not supported by the Nonblocking and HsHa server [default: `0.0.0.0`]
`-p, --port`
  Port to bind to [default: `9090`]
`-f, --framed`
  Use framed transport (implied when using one of the non-blocking servers)
`-c, --compact`
  Use the compact protocol [default: binary protocol]
`-h, --help`
  Displays usage information for the Thrift server
`-threadpool`
  Use the TThreadPoolServer. This is the default.
`-hsha`
  Use the THsHaServer. This implies the framed transport.
`-nonblocking`
  Use the TNonblockingServer. This implies the framed transport.

### Details

HBase currently uses version 0.9.0 of Apache Thrift.

The files were generated by running the commands under the hbase checkout dir:

      thrift -strict --gen java:hashcode ./hbase-server/src/main/resources/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/Hbase.thrift
      # Move the generated files into place their expected location under hbase
      mv gen-java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/generated/* hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/generated/
      # Remove the gen-java file made by thrift
      rm -rf gen-java

The 'thrift' binary is the Thrift compiler, and it is distributed as a part of the Thrift package. Additionally, specific language runtime libraries are a part of the Thrift package. A version of the Java runtime is included in HBase via Maven.