Get started with the Hazelcast C++ Client
Overview
This tutorial will get you started with the Hazelcast C++ client and show you how to manipulate a map.
This tutorial will take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, make sure you have the following:
- C++ 11 or above
- Hazelcast Cloud Account
- vcpkg and Hazelcast C++ client
- A text editor or IDE
Start a Hazelcast Cloud Cluster
- Sign up for a Hazelcast Cloud account (free trial is available).
- Log in to your Hazelcast Cloud account and start your trial by filling in the welcome questionnaire.
- A cluster is created automatically when you start your trial.
- Press the Connect Cluster dialog and switch over to the Advanced setup tab for connection information needed below.
- From the Advanced setup tab, download the keystore files and take note of your Cluster ID, Discovery Token and Password as you will need them later.
Set up a Hazelcast Client
Create a new folder and navigate to it:
mkdir hazelcast-cpp-example
cd hazelcast-cpp-example
Avoid directory names in your path that contain spaces or other non-standard characters.
Extract the keystore files you downloaded into this directory. The files you need for this tutorial are:
ca.pem
cert.pem
key.pem
Create a CMake file in this directory, named "CMakeLists.txt" as follows:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
project(HazelcastCloud)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
find_package(hazelcast-cpp-client CONFIG REQUIRED)
if(EXISTS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/example.cpp)
add_executable(example example.cpp)
target_link_libraries(example PRIVATE hazelcast-cpp-client::hazelcast-cpp-client)
endif()
You should have the following entries in the directory:
CMakeLists.txt
ca.pem
cert.pem
key.pem
vcpkg
Understand the C++ Client
The following section creates and starts a Hazelcast client with default configuration, and connects to your cluster before finally shutting down the client.
Create a C++ file named "example.cpp" and insert the following code in it:
#include <string>
#include <hazelcast/client/hazelcast_client.h>
int
main(int argc, char** argv)
{
hazelcast::client::client_config config;
// Cluster Name and Token
config.set_cluster_name("<YOUR_CLUSTER_ID>");
auto& cloud_configuration = config.get_network_config().get_cloud_config();
cloud_configuration.enabled = true;
cloud_configuration.discovery_token = "<YOUR_DISCOVERY_TOKEN>";
// configure SSL
boost::asio::ssl::context ctx(boost::asio::ssl::context::tlsv12);
try {
ctx.load_verify_file("ca.pem");
ctx.use_certificate_file("cert.pem", boost::asio::ssl::context::pem);
ctx.set_password_callback(
[&](std::size_t max_length,
boost::asio::ssl::context::password_purpose purpose) {
return "<YOUR_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD>";
});
ctx.use_private_key_file("key.pem", boost::asio::ssl::context::pem);
} catch (std::exception& e) {
std::cerr << "You should copy ca.pem, cert.pem and key.pem files to "
"the working directory, exception cause "
<< e.what() << std::endl;
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
config.get_network_config().get_ssl_config().set_context(std::move(ctx));
// Connect to your Hazelcast Cluster
auto client = hazelcast::new_client(std::move(config)).get();
// take actions
std::cout << "Welcome to your Hazelcast Cluster!" << std::endl;
// Shutdown the client connection
client.shutdown().get();
}
Compile using CMake as follows:
cmake -B build -S . -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=./vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
cmake --build build
Once complete, run the example:
./build/example
For more information about Vcpkg installation check the C++ client library.
In this tutorial we use CMake for compilation; for other options check the C++ client library.
To understand and use the client, review the C++ API documentation to discover what's possible.
Understand the Hazelcast SQL API
Hazelcast SQL API is a Calcite SQL-based interface to allow you to interact with Hazelcast much like any other datastore.
In the following example, we will create a map and insert entries into it where the keys are ids and the values are defined as an object representing a city.
#include <string>
#include <hazelcast/client/hazelcast_client.h>
void
create_mapping(hazelcast::client::hazelcast_client client);
void
insert_cities(hazelcast::client::hazelcast_client client);
void
fetch_cities(hazelcast::client::hazelcast_client client);
struct CityDTO
{
std::string cityName;
std::string country;
int population;
};
// CityDTO serializer
namespace hazelcast {
namespace client {
namespace serialization {
template<>
struct hz_serializer<CityDTO> : compact::compact_serializer
{
static void write(const CityDTO& object, compact::compact_writer& out)
{
out.write_int32("population", object.population);
out.write_string("city", object.cityName);
out.write_string("country", object.country);
}
static CityDTO read(compact::compact_reader& in)
{
CityDTO c;
c.population = in.read_int32("population");
boost::optional<std::string> city = in.read_string("city");
if (city) {
c.cityName = *city;
}
boost::optional<std::string> country = in.read_string("country");
if (country) {
c.country = *country;
}
return c;
}
static std::string type_name() { return "CityDTO"; }
};
} // namespace serialization
} // namespace client
} // namespace hazelcast
int
main(int argc, char** argv)
{
hazelcast::client::client_config config;
// Cluster Name and Token
config.set_cluster_name("<YOUR_CLUSTER_ID>");
auto& cloud_configuration = config.get_network_config().get_cloud_config();
cloud_configuration.enabled = true;
cloud_configuration.discovery_token = "<YOUR_DISCOVERY_TOKEN>";
// configure SSL
boost::asio::ssl::context ctx(boost::asio::ssl::context::tlsv12);
try {
ctx.load_verify_file("ca.pem");
ctx.use_certificate_file("cert.pem", boost::asio::ssl::context::pem);
ctx.set_password_callback(
[&](std::size_t max_length,
boost::asio::ssl::context::password_purpose purpose) {
return "<YOUR_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD>";
});
ctx.use_private_key_file("key.pem", boost::asio::ssl::context::pem);
} catch (std::exception& e) {
std::cerr << "You should copy ca.pem, cert.pem and key.pem files to "
"the working directory, exception cause "
<< e.what() << std::endl;
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
config.get_network_config().get_ssl_config().set_context(std::move(ctx));
// Connect to your Hazelcast Cluster
auto client = hazelcast::new_client(std::move(config)).get();
// take actions
create_mapping(client);
insert_cities(client);
fetch_cities(client);
// Shutdown the client connection
client.shutdown().get();
}
void
create_mapping(hazelcast::client::hazelcast_client client)
{
// Mapping is required for your distributed map to be queried over SQL.
// See: https://docs.hazelcast.com/hazelcast/latest/sql/mapping-to-maps
std::cout << "Creating the mapping...";
auto sql = client.get_sql();
auto result = sql
.execute(R"(CREATE OR REPLACE MAPPING
cities (
__key INT,
country VARCHAR,
city VARCHAR,
population INT) TYPE IMAP
OPTIONS (
'keyFormat' = 'int',
'valueFormat' = 'compact',
'valueCompactTypeName' = 'CityDTO'))")
.get();
std::cout << "OK." << std::endl;
}
void
insert_cities(hazelcast::client::hazelcast_client client)
{
auto sql = client.get_sql();
try {
sql.execute("DELETE FROM cities").get();
std::cout << "Inserting data...";
// Create mapping for the integers. This needs to be done only once per
// map.
auto result = sql
.execute(R"(INSERT INTO cities
(__key, city, country, population) VALUES
(1, 'London', 'United Kingdom', 9540576),
(2, 'Manchester', 'United Kingdom', 2770434),
(3, 'New York', 'United States', 19223191),
(4, 'Los Angeles', 'United States', 3985520),
(5, 'Istanbul', 'Türkiye', 15636243),
(6, 'Ankara', 'Türkiye', 5309690),
(7, 'Sao Paulo ', 'Brazil', 22429800))")
.get();
std::cout << "OK." << std::endl;
} catch (hazelcast::client::exception::iexception& e) {
// don't panic for duplicated keys.
std::cerr << "FAILED, duplicated keys " << e.what() << std::endl;
}
}
void
fetch_cities(hazelcast::client::hazelcast_client client)
{
std::cout << "Fetching cities...";
auto result =
client.get_sql().execute("SELECT __key, this FROM cities").get();
std::cout << "OK." << std::endl;
std::cout << "--Results of 'SELECT __key, this FROM cities'" << std::endl;
std::printf("| %-4s | %-20s | %-20s | %-15s |\n",
"id",
"country",
"city",
"population");
for (auto itr = result->iterator(); itr.has_next();) {
auto page = itr.next().get();
for (auto const& row : page->rows()) {
auto id = row.get_object<int32_t>("__key");
auto city = row.get_object<CityDTO>("this");
std::printf("| %-4d | %-20s | %-20s | %-15d |\n",
*id,
city->country.c_str(),
city->cityName.c_str(),
city->population);
}
}
std::cout
<< "\n!! Hint !! You can execute your SQL queries on your "
"cluster over the management center. \n 1. Go to 'Management Center' "
"of your Hazelcast cluster. \n 2. Open the 'SQL Browser'. \n "
"3. Try to execute 'SELECT * FROM cities'.\n";
}
The output of this code is given below:
Creating the mapping...OK.
Inserting data...OK.
Fetching cities...OK.
--Results of 'SELECT __key, this FROM cities'
| id | country | city | population |
| 2 | United Kingdom | Manchester | 2770434 |
| 6 | Turkiye | Ankara | 5309690 |
| 1 | United Kingdom | London | 9540576 |
| 7 | Brazil | Sao Paulo | 22429800 |
| 4 | United States | Los Angeles | 3985520 |
| 5 | Turkiye | Istanbul | 15636243 |
| 3 | United States | New York | 19223191 |
Ordering of the keys is NOT enforced and results may NOT correspond to insertion order.
Summary
In this tutorial, you learned how to get started with the Hazelcast C++ Client, connect to an instance, and put data into a distributed map.
Next steps
There are many things you can do with the C++ Client. For more information, such as how you can query a map with predicates and SQL, check out the client repository and the API documentation to better understand what is possible.
If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback, reach out to us via Hazelcast Community Slack. To contribute to the client, take a look at the issue list.