The modern-cpp-kafka API is a layer of C++ wrapper based on librdkafka (the C part only), with high quality, but more friendly to users.
- By now, modern-cpp-kafka is compatible with librdkafka v2.4.0.
KAFKA is a registered trademark of The Apache Software Foundation and
has been licensed for use by modern-cpp-kafka. modern-cpp-kafka has no
affiliation with and is not endorsed by The Apache Software Foundation.
The librdkafka is a robust high performance C/C++ library, widely used and well maintained.
Unfortunately, to maintain C++98 compatibility, the C++ interface of librdkafka is not quite object-oriented or user-friendly.
Since C++ is evolving quickly, we want to take advantage of new C++ features, thus making life easier for developers. And this led us to create a new C++ API for Kafka clients.
Eventually, we worked out the modern-cpp-kafka, -- a header-only library that uses idiomatic C++ features to provide a safe, efficient and easy to use way of producing and consuming Kafka messages.
-
Header-only
- Easy to deploy, and no extra library required to link
-
Ease of Use
-
Interface/Naming matches the Java API
-
Object-oriented
-
RAII is used for lifetime management
-
librdkafka's polling and queue management is now hidden
-
-
Robust
-
Verified with kinds of test cases, which cover many abnormal scenarios (edge cases)
-
Stability test with unstable brokers
-
Memory leak check for failed client with in-flight messages
-
Client failure and taking over, etc.
-
-
-
Efficient
-
No extra performance cost (No deep copy introduced internally)
-
Much better (2~4 times throughput) performance result than those native language (Java/Scala) implementation, in most commonly used cases (message size: 256 B ~ 2 KB)
-
-
Just include the
include/kafka
directory for your project -
The compiler should support C++17
-
Or, C++14, but with pre-requirements
-
Need boost headers (for
boost::optional
) -
For GCC compiler, it needs optimization options (e.g.
-O2
)
-
-
-
Dependencies
-
librdkafka headers and library (only the C part)
- Also see the requirements from librdkafka
-
rapidjson headers: only required by
addons/KafkaMetrics.h
-
kafka::Properties Class Reference
-
It is a map which contains all configuration info needed to initialize a Kafka client, and it's the only parameter needed for a constructor.
-
The configuration items are key-value pairs, -- the type of key is always
std::string
, while the type for a value could be one of the followings-
std::string
-
Most items are identical with librdkafka configuration
-
But with exceptions
-
Default value changes
Key String Default Description log_level
5
Default was 6
from librdkafkaclient.id
random string No default from librdkafka group.id
random string (for KafkaConsumer
only) No default from librdkafka -
Additional options
Key String Default Description enable.manual.events.poll
false
To poll the (offset-commit/message-delivery callback) events manually max.poll.records
500
(for KafkaConsumer
only) The maximum number of records that a single call topoll()
would return -
Ignored options
Key String Explanation enable.auto.offset.store
modern-cpp-kafka will save the offsets in its own way auto.commit.interval.ms
modern-cpp-kafka will only commit the offsets within each poll()
operation
-
-
-
std::function<...>
- For kinds of callbacks
Key String Value Type log_cb
LogCallback
(std::function<void(int, const char*, int, const char* msg)>
)error_cb
ErrorCallback
(std::function<void(const Error&)>
)stats_cb
StatsCallback
(std::function<void(const std::string&)>
)oauthbearer_token_refresh_cb
OauthbearerTokenRefreshCallback
(std::function<SaslOauthbearerToken(const std::string&)>
) -
Interceptors
- To intercept thread start/exit events, etc.
Key String Value Type interceptors
Interceptors
-
-
std::string brokers = "192.168.0.1:9092,192.168.0.2:9092,192.168.0.3:9092"; kafka::Properties props ({ {"bootstrap.servers", {brokers}}, {"enable.idempotence", {"true"}}, });
-
kafka::Properties props; props.put("bootstrap.servers", brokers); props.put("enable.idempotence", "true");
- Note:
bootstrap.servers
is the only mandatory property for a Kafka client
kafka::clients::producer::KafkaProducer Class Reference
Here's a very simple example to see how to send a message with a KafkaProducer
.
#include <kafka/KafkaProducer.h>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main()
{
using namespace kafka;
using namespace kafka::clients::producer;
// E.g. KAFKA_BROKER_LIST: "192.168.0.1:9092,192.168.0.2:9092,192.168.0.3:9092"
const std::string brokers = getenv("KAFKA_BROKER_LIST"); // NOLINT
const Topic topic = getenv("TOPIC_FOR_TEST"); // NOLINT
// Prepare the configuration
const Properties props({{"bootstrap.servers", brokers}});
// Create a producer
KafkaProducer producer(props);
// Prepare a message
std::cout << "Type message value and hit enter to produce message..." << std::endl;
std::string line;
std::getline(std::cin, line);
ProducerRecord record(topic, NullKey, Value(line.c_str(), line.size()));
// Prepare delivery callback
auto deliveryCb = [](const RecordMetadata& metadata, const Error& error) {
if (!error) {
std::cout << "Message delivered: " << metadata.toString() << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << "Message failed to be delivered: " << error.message() << std::endl;
}
};
// Send a message
producer.send(record, deliveryCb);
// Close the producer explicitly(or not, since RAII will take care of it)
producer.close();
}
-
The
send()
is an unblocked operation unless the message buffering queue is full. -
Make sure the memory block for
ProducerRecord
'skey
is valid until thesend
is called. -
Make sure the memory block for
ProducerRecord
'svalue
is valid until the message delivery callback is called (unless thesend
is with optionKafkaProducer::SendOption::ToCopyRecordValue
). -
It's guaranteed that the message delivery callback would be triggered anyway after
send
, -- a producer would even be waiting for it before close. -
At the end, we could close Kafka client (i.e.
KafkaProducer
orKafkaConsumer
) explicitly, or just leave it to the destructor.
The message for the KafkaProducer is called ProducerRecord
, it contains Topic
, Partition
(optional), Key
and Value
. Both Key
& Value
are const_buffer
, and since there's no deep-copy for the Value
, the user should make sure the memory block for the Value
be valid, until the delivery callback has been executed.
In the previous example, we don't need to worry about the lifecycle of Value
, since the content of the line
keeps to be available before closing the producer, and all message delivery callbacks would be triggered before finishing closing the producer.
A trick is capturing the shared pointer (for the memory block of Value
) in the message delivery callback.
std::cout << "Type message value and hit enter to produce message... (empty line to quit)" << std::endl;
// Get input lines and forward them to Kafka
for (auto line = std::make_shared<std::string>();
std::getline(std::cin, *line);
line = std::make_shared<std::string>()) {
// Empty line to quit
if (line->empty()) break;
// Prepare a message
ProducerRecord record(topic, NullKey, Value(line->c_str(), line->size()));
// Prepare delivery callback
// Note: Here we capture the shared pointer of `line`, which holds the content for `record.value()`
auto deliveryCb = [line](const RecordMetadata& metadata, const Error& error) {
if (!error) {
std::cout << "Message delivered: " << metadata.toString() << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << "Message failed to be delivered: " << error.message() << std::endl;
}
};
// Send the message
producer.send(record, deliveryCb);
}
The option KafkaProducer::SendOption::ToCopyRecordValue
could be used for producer.send(...)
, thus the memory block of record.value()
would be copied into the internal sending buffer.
std::cout << "Type message value and hit enter to produce message... (empty line to quit)" << std::endl;
// Get input lines and forward them to Kafka
for (std::string line; std::getline(std::cin, line); ) {
// Empty line to quit
if (line.empty()) break;
// Prepare a message
ProducerRecord record(topic, NullKey, Value(line.c_str(), line.size()));
// Prepare delivery callback
auto deliveryCb = [](const RecordMetadata& metadata, const Error& error) {
if (!error) {
std::cout << "Message delivered: " << metadata.toString() << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << "Message failed to be delivered: " << error.message() << std::endl;
}
};
// Send the message (deep-copy the payload)
producer.send(record, deliveryCb, KafkaProducer::SendOption::ToCopyRecordValue);
}
Besides the payload
(i.e. value()
), a ProducerRecord
could also put extra info in its key()
& headers()
.
Headers
is a vector of Header
which contains kafka::Header::Key
(i.e. std::string
) and kafka::Header::Value
(i.e. const_buffer
).
const kafka::Topic topic = "someTopic";
const kafka::Partition partition = 0;
const std::string key = "some key";
const std::string value = "some payload";
const std::string category = "categoryA";
const std::size_t sessionId = 1;
{
kafka::clients::producer::ProducerRecord record(topic,
partition,
kafka::Key{key.c_str(), key.size()},
kafka::Value{value.c_str(), value.size()});
record.headers() = {{
kafka::Header{kafka::Header::Key{"Category"}, kafka::Header::Value{category.c_str(), category.size()}},
kafka::Header{kafka::Header::Key{"SessionId"}, kafka::Header::Value{&sessionId, sizeof(sessionId)}}
}};
std::cout << "ProducerRecord: " << record.toString() << std::endl;
}
By default, KafkaProducer
would be constructed with enable.manual.events.poll=false
configuration.
That means, a background thread would be created, which keeps polling the events (thus calls the message delivery callbacks)
Here we have another choice, -- using enable.manual.events.poll=true
, thus the MessageDelivery callbacks would be called within member function pollEvents()
.
- Note: in this case, the send() will be an unblocked operation even if the message buffering queue is full, -- it would throw an exception (or return an error code with the input reference parameter), instead of blocking there.
// Prepare the configuration (with "enable.manual.events.poll=true")
const Properties props({{"bootstrap.servers", {brokers}},
{"enable.manual.events.poll", {"true" }}});
// Create a producer
KafkaProducer producer(props);
std::cout << "Type message value and hit enter to produce message... (empty line to finish)" << std::endl;
// Get all input lines
std::list<std::shared_ptr<std::string>> messages;
for (auto line = std::make_shared<std::string>(); std::getline(std::cin, *line) && !line->empty();) {
messages.emplace_back(line);
}
while (!messages.empty()) {
// Pop out a message to be sent
auto payload = messages.front();
messages.pop_front();
// Prepare the message
ProducerRecord record(topic, NullKey, Value(payload->c_str(), payload->size()));
// Prepare the delivery callback
// Note: if fails, the message will be pushed back to the sending queue, and then retries later
auto deliveryCb = [payload, &messages](const RecordMetadata& metadata, const Error& error) {
if (!error) {
std::cout << "Message delivered: " << metadata.toString() << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << "Message failed to be delivered: " << error.message() << ", will be retried later" << std::endl;
messages.emplace_back(payload);
}
};
// Send the message
producer.send(record, deliveryCb);
// Poll events (e.g. message delivery callback)
producer.pollEvents(std::chrono::milliseconds(0));
}
kafka::Error
might occur at different places while sending a message,
-
A
kafka::KafkaException
would be triggered ifKafkaProducer
fails to call thesend
operation. -
Delivery
kafka::Error
could be fetched via the delivery-callback. -
The
kafka::Error::value()
for failures-
Local errors
-
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__UNKNOWN_TOPIC
-- The topic doesn't exist -
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__UNKNOWN_PARTITION
-- The partition doesn't exist -
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__INVALID_ARG
-- Invalid topic (topic is null or the length is too long (>512)) -
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__MSG_TIMED_OUT
-- No ack received within the time limit -
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_INVALID_MSG_SIZE
-- The message size conflicts with local configurationmessage.max.bytes
-
-
Broker errors
-
Typical errors are
-
Invalid message:
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_CORRUPT_MESSAGE
,RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_MSG_SIZE_TOO_LARGE
,RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_INVALID_REQUIRED_ACKS
,RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_UNSUPPORTED_FOR_MESSAGE_FORMAT
,RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_RECORD_LIST_TOO_LARGE
. -
Topic/Partition not exist:
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_UNKNOWN_TOPIC_OR_PART
, -- automatic topic creation is disabled on the broker or the application is specifying a partition that does not exist. -
Authorization failure:
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_TOPIC_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED
,RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR_CLUSTER_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED
-
-
The enable.idempotence=true
configuration is highly RECOMMENDED.
kafka::Properties props;
props.put("bootstrap.servers", brokers);
props.put("enable.idempotence", "true");
// Create an idempotent producer
kafka::clients::producer::KafkaProducer producer(props);
- Note: please refer to the document from librdkafka for more details.
kafka::clients::consumer::KafkaConsumer Class Reference
#include <kafka/KafkaConsumer.h>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <signal.h>
#include <string>
std::atomic_bool running = {true};
void stopRunning(int sig) {
if (sig != SIGINT) return;
if (running) {
running = false;
} else {
// Restore the signal handler, -- to avoid stuck with this handler
signal(SIGINT, SIG_IGN); // NOLINT
}
}
int main()
{
using namespace kafka;
using namespace kafka::clients::consumer;
// Use Ctrl-C to terminate the program
signal(SIGINT, stopRunning); // NOLINT
// E.g. KAFKA_BROKER_LIST: "192.168.0.1:9092,192.168.0.2:9092,192.168.0.3:9092"
const std::string brokers = getenv("KAFKA_BROKER_LIST"); // NOLINT
const Topic topic = getenv("TOPIC_FOR_TEST"); // NOLINT
// Prepare the configuration
const Properties props({{"bootstrap.servers", {brokers}}});
// Create a consumer instance
KafkaConsumer consumer(props);
// Subscribe to topics
consumer.subscribe({topic});
while (running) {
// Poll messages from Kafka brokers
auto records = consumer.poll(std::chrono::milliseconds(100));
for (const auto& record: records) {
if (!record.error()) {
std::cout << "Got a new message..." << std::endl;
std::cout << " Topic : " << record.topic() << std::endl;
std::cout << " Partition: " << record.partition() << std::endl;
std::cout << " Offset : " << record.offset() << std::endl;
std::cout << " Timestamp: " << record.timestamp().toString() << std::endl;
std::cout << " Headers : " << toString(record.headers()) << std::endl;
std::cout << " Key [" << record.key().toString() << "]" << std::endl;
std::cout << " Value [" << record.value().toString() << "]" << std::endl;
} else {
std::cerr << record.toString() << std::endl;
}
}
}
// No explicit close is needed, RAII will take care of it
consumer.close();
}
-
By default, the
KafkaConsumer
is constructed with propertyenable.auto.commit=true
-
It means it will automatically commit previously polled offsets on each poll (and the final close) operations.
- Note: the internal offset commit is asynchronous, which is not guaranteed to succeed. Since the operation is supposed to be triggered (again) at a later time (within each
poll
), thus the occasional failure doesn't matter.
- Note: the internal offset commit is asynchronous, which is not guaranteed to succeed. Since the operation is supposed to be triggered (again) at a later time (within each
-
-
subscribe
could take a topic list. It's a block operation, and would wait for the consumer to get partitions assigned. -
poll
must be called periodically, thus to trigger kinds of callback handling internally. In practice, it could be put in awhile loop
.
The KafkaConsumer
could specify the RebalanceCallback
while it subscribes the topics, and the callback will be triggered while partitions are assigned or revoked.
// The consumer would read all messages from the topic and then quit.
// Prepare the configuration
const Properties props({{"bootstrap.servers", {brokers}},
// Emit RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__PARTITION_EOF event
// whenever the consumer reaches the end of a partition.
{"enable.partition.eof", {"true"}},
// Action to take when there is no initial offset in offset store
// it means the consumer would read from the very beginning
{"auto.offset.reset", {"earliest"}}});
// Create a consumer instance
KafkaConsumer consumer(props);
// Prepare the rebalance callbacks
std::atomic<std::size_t> assignedPartitions{};
auto rebalanceCb = [&assignedPartitions](kafka::clients::consumer::RebalanceEventType et, const kafka::TopicPartitions& tps) {
if (et == kafka::clients::consumer::RebalanceEventType::PartitionsAssigned) {
assignedPartitions += tps.size();
std::cout << "Assigned partitions: " << kafka::toString(tps) << std::endl;
} else {
assignedPartitions -= tps.size();
std::cout << "Revoked partitions: " << kafka::toString(tps) << std::endl;
}
};
// Subscribe to topics with rebalance callback
consumer.subscribe({topic}, rebalanceCb);
TopicPartitions finishedPartitions;
while (finishedPartitions.size() != assignedPartitions.load()) {
// Poll messages from Kafka brokers
auto records = consumer.poll(std::chrono::milliseconds(100));
for (const auto& record: records) {
if (!record.error()) {
std::cerr << record.toString() << std::endl;
} else {
if (record.error().value() == RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__PARTITION_EOF) {
// Record the partition which has been reached the end
finishedPartitions.emplace(record.topic(), record.partition());
} else {
std::cerr << record.toString() << std::endl;
}
}
}
}
Once the KafkaConsumer is configured with enable.auto.commit=false
, the user has to find out the right places to call commitSync(...)
/commitAsync(...)
.
// Prepare the configuration
Properties props({{"bootstrap.servers", {brokers}}});
props.put("enable.auto.commit", "false");
// Create a consumer instance
KafkaConsumer consumer(props);
// Subscribe to topics
consumer.subscribe({topic});
while (running) {
auto records = consumer.poll(std::chrono::milliseconds(100));
for (const auto& record: records) {
std::cout << record.toString() << std::endl;
}
if (!records.empty()) {
consumer.commitAsync();
}
}
consumer.commitSync();
// No explicit close is needed, RAII will take care of it
// consumer.close();
-
Normally,
kafka::KafkaException
will be thrown if an operation fails. -
But if the
poll
operation fails, thekafka::Error
would be embedded in thekafka::clients::consumer::ConsumerRecord
. -
There're 2 cases for the
kafka::Error::value()
-
Success
-
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__NO_ERROR
(0
), -- got a message successfully -
RD_KAFKA_RESP_ERR__PARTITION_EOF
(-191
), -- reached the end of a partition (no message got)
-
-
Failure
-
We're free to set callbacks in Properties
with a kafka::clients::ErrorCallback
, kafka::clients::LogCallback
, or kafka::clients::StatsCallback
.
// Prepare the configuration
Properties props({{"bootstrap.servers", {brokers}}});
// To print out the error
props.put("error_cb", [](const kafka::Error& error) {
// https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code
std::cerr << "\033[1;31m" << "[" << kafka::utility::getCurrentTime() << "] ==> Met Error: " << "\033[0m";
std::cerr << "\033[4;35m" << error.toString() << "\033[0m" << std::endl;
});
// To enable the debug-level log
props.put("log_level", "7");
props.put("debug", "all");
props.put("log_cb", [](int /*level*/, const char* /*filename*/, int /*lineno*/, const char* msg) {
std::cout << "[" << kafka::utility::getCurrentTime() << "]" << msg << std::endl;
});
// To enable the statistics dumping
props.put("statistics.interval.ms", "1000");
props.put("stats_cb", [](const std::string& jsonString) {
std::cout << "Statistics: " << jsonString << std::endl;
});
-
Number of Background Threads within a Kafka Client
-
N threads for the message transmission (towards N brokers).
-
2 (for
KafkaProducer
) / 3 (forKafkaConsumer
) threads to handle internal operations, timers, consumer group operations, etc. -
1 thread for (message-delivery/offset-commit) callback events polling, -- the thread only exists while the client is configured with
enable.manual.events.poll=false
(the default config)
-
-
Which Thread Handles the Callbacks
-
consumer::RebalanceCallback
: the thread which callsconsumer.poll(...)
-
consumer::OffsetCommitCallback
-
While
enable.manual.events.poll=false
: the thread which callsconsumer.pollEvents(...)
-
While
enable.manual.events.poll=true
: the background (events polling) thread
-
-
producer::Callback
-
While
enable.manual.events.poll=false
: the thread which callsproducer.pollEvents(...)
-
While
enable.manual.events.poll=true
: the background (events polling) thread
-
-
-
Specify library locations with environment variables
Environment Variable Description LIBRDKAFKA_INCLUDE_DIR
librdkafka headers LIBRDKAFKA_LIBRARY_DIR
librdkafka libraries GTEST_ROOT
googletest headers and libraries BOOST_ROOT
boost headers and libraries SASL_LIBRARYDIR
/SASL_LIBRARY
[optional] for SASL connection support RAPIDJSON_INCLUDE_DIRS
addons/KafkaMetrics.h
requires rapidjson headers -
Build commands
-
cd empty-folder-for-build
-
cmake path-to-project-root
(following options could be used with-D
)Build Option Description BUILD_OPTION_USE_TSAN=ON
Use Thread Sanitizer BUILD_OPTION_USE_ASAN=ON
Use Address Sanitizer BUILD_OPTION_USE_UBSAN=ON
Use Undefined Behavior Sanitizer BUILD_OPTION_CLANG_TIDY=ON
Enable clang-tidy checking BUILD_OPTION_GEN_DOC=ON
Generate documentation as well BUILD_OPTION_DOC_ONLY=ON
Only generate documentation BUILD_OPTION_GEN_COVERAGE=ON
Generate test coverage, only support by clang currently -
make
-
make install
(to installtools
)
-
-
Kafka cluster setup
-
To run the binary, the test runner requires following environment variables
Environment Variable Descrioption Example KAFKA_BROKER_LIST
The broker list for the Kafka cluster export KAFKA_BROKER_LIST=127.0.0.1:29091,127.0.0.1:29092,127.0.0.1:29093
KAFKA_BROKER_PIDS
The broker PIDs for test runner to manipulate export KAFKA_BROKER_PIDS=61567,61569,61571
KAFKA_CLIENT_ADDITIONAL_SETTINGS
Could be used for addtional configuration for Kafka clients export KAFKA_CLIENT_ADDITIONAL_SETTINGS="security.protocol=SASL_PLAINTEXT;sasl.kerberos.service.name=...;sasl.kerberos.keytab=...;sasl.kerberos.principal=..."
-
The environment variable
KAFKA_BROKER_LIST
is mandatory for integration/robustness test, which requires the Kafka cluster. -
The environment variable
KAFKA_BROKER_PIDS
is mandatory for robustness test, which requires the Kafka cluster and the privilege to stop/resume the brokers.
Test Type KAFKA_BROKER_LIST
KAFKA_BROKER_PIDS
tests/unit - - tests/integration Required - tests/robustness Required Required -