Using Cassandra 0.8.6, I've been trying to figure out how to use the CLI to create column families using composite keys and column names. The documentation on CompositeType seems pretty skimpy. But in the course of writing this email to ask how to do it, I figured out the proper syntax. In the hope of making it easier for the next person, I repurposed this message to document what I figured out. I'll also update the wiki. Here is the syntax:
create column family MyCF with key_validation_class = 'CompositeType(UTF8Type, IntegerType)' and comparator = 'CompositeType(DateType(reversed=true), UTF8Type)' and default_validation_class='CompositeType(UTF8Type, DateType)' and column_metadata=[ { column_name:'0:my Column Name', validation_class:LongType, index_type:KEYS} ]; One weakness of this syntax is that there doesn't seem to be a way to escape a ':' in a composite value. There's a FIXME in the code to that effect. Jim