Moneta: A unified interface for key/value stores
Moneta provides a standard interface for interacting with various kinds of key/value stores. Moneta supports the well-known
NoSQL and document based stores.
A short overview of the features:
- Supports a lot of backends with consistent behaviour (See below)
- Allows a full configuration of the serialization -> compression -> adapter stack using proxies (Similar to Rack middlewares)
- Configurable serialization via
Moneta::Transformer
proxy (Marshal/JSON/YAML and many more) - Configurable value compression via
Moneta::Transformer
proxy (Zlib, Snappy, LZMA, ...) - Configurable key transformation via
Moneta::Transformer
proxy
- Expiration for all stores (Added via proxy
Moneta::Expires
if not supported natively) - Atomic operations
- Atomic incrementation and decrementation for most stores (Method
#increment
and #decrement
) - Atomic creation of entries (Method
#create
) - Shared/distributed database-wide synchronization primitives
Moneta::Mutex
and Moneta::Semaphore
- Includes a simple pure-ruby key/value server (
Moneta::Server
) and client (Moneta::Adapters::Client
) - Integration with Rails, Rack/Rack-Cache, Sinatra and Ramaze.
If you are not yet convinced, you might ask why? What are the goals of the project?
- Get people started quickly with key/value stores! Therefore all the adapters are included in the gem and you are ready to go. Tilt does the
same for template languages.
- Make it easy to compare different key/value stores and benchmark them
- To hide a lot of different and maybe complex APIs behind one well-designed and simple Moneta API
- Give people a starting point or example code to start working with their favourite key/value store. Feel free to copy code, please mention Moneta then :)
- Create a reusable piece of code, since similar things are solved over and over again (Rails brings its own cache stores, and many frameworks do the same...)
- See also http://yehudakatz.com/2009/02/12/whats-the-point/
Moneta is tested thoroughly using Travis-CI.
Getting started
Install Moneta via Rubygems
$ gem install moneta
or add it to your Gemfile
gem 'moneta'
Now you are ready to go:
require 'moneta'
store = Moneta.new(:File, :dir => 'moneta')
store['key'] = 'value'
store.key?('key')
store['key']
store.close
Links
Supported backends
Out of the box, it supports the following backends. Use the backend name symbol in the Moneta constructor (e.g. Moneta.new(:Memory)
).
- Memory:
- In-memory store (
:Memory
) - LRU hash - prefer this over :Memory! (
:LRUHash
) - LocalMemCache (
:LocalMemCache
) - Memcached store (
:Memcached
, :MemcachedNative
and :MemcachedDalli
)
- Relational Databases:
- Filesystem:
- PStore (
:PStore
) - YAML store (
:YAML
) - Filesystem directory store (
:File
) - Filesystem directory store which spreads files in subdirectories using md5 hash (
:HashFile
)
- Key/value databases:
- Document databases:
- Moneta network protocols:
- Moneta key/value client (
:Client
works with Moneta::Server
) - Moneta HTTP/REST client (
:RestClient
works with Rack::MonetaRest
)
- Other
- Fog cloud storage which supports Amazon S3, Rackspace, etc. (
:Fog
) - Storage which doesn't store anything (
:Null
)
Some of the backends are not exactly based on key/value stores, e.g. the relational ones. These
are useful if you already use the corresponding backend in your application. You get a key/value
store for free then without installing any additional services and you still have the possibility
to upgrade to a real key/value store.
Backend feature matrix
NOTE: The backend matrix is much more readable on rubydoc.info than on github. Go there!
Adapter | Required gems | Multi-thread safe[1] | Multi-process safe[2] | Atomic increment[8] | Atomic create[9] | Native expires[3] | Persistent | Description |
---|
Persistent stores | |
---|
Mongo | mongo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | MongoDB database |
Redis | redis | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Redis database |
ActiveRecord | activerecord | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ActiveRecord ORM |
File | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | File store |
Sequel | sequel | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | Sequel ORM |
TokyoTyrant | tokyotyrant or ruby-tokyotyrant | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | TokyoTyrant database |
PStore | - | ✗ | ✓[10] | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | PStore store |
YAML | - | ✗ | ✓[10] | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | YAML store |
Sqlite | sqlite3 | ? | ✓[10] | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | Sqlite3 database |
Daybreak | daybreak | ✗ | (✓)[7] | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | Incredibly fast pure-ruby key/value store Daybreak |
DBM | - | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | Berkeley DB using DBM interface or NDBM (Depends on Ruby environment) |
GDBM | - | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | GDBM database |
LevelDB | leveldb | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | LevelDB database |
SDBM | - | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | SDBM database |
TDB | tdb | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | TDB database |
KyotoCabinet | kyotocabinet | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | KyotoCabinet database |
TokyoCabinet | tokyocabinet | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | TokyoCabinet database |
DataMapper | dm-core, dm-migrations | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | DataMapper ORM |
Couch | faraday, multi_json | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | CouchDB database |
HBase | hbaserb | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | HBase database |
Cassandra | cassandra | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | Cassandra distributed database |
LocalMemCache | localmemcache | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | LocalMemCache database |
Fog | fog | ? | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | Fog cloud store |
Riak | riak-client | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | Riak database |
Non persistent stores | |
---|
MemcachedDalli | dalli | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗[4] | Memcached database with Dalli library |
Memcached | dalli or memcached | ? | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗[4] | Memcached database |
MemcachedNative | memcached | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗[4] | Memcached database with native library |
Cookie | - | ✗ | (✓)[6] | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | Cookie in memory store |
LRUHash | - | ✗ | (✓)[6] | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | LRU memory store |
Memory | - | ✗ | (✓)[6] | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | Memory store |
Null | - | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | No database |
Client | - | ✗ | ✓ | ?[5] | ?[5] | ?[5] | ?[5] | Moneta client adapter |
RestClient | faraday | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ?[5] | Moneta REST client adapter |
- [1]: Make adapters thread-safe by using
Moneta::Lock
or by passing the option :threadsafe => true
to Moneta#new
. There is also Moneta::Pool
which can be used to share a store between multiple threads if the store is multi-process safe. I recommend to add the option :threadsafe
to ensure thread-safety since for example under JRuby and Rubinius even the basic datastructures are not thread safe due to the lack of a global interpreter lock (GIL). This differs from MRI where some adapters might appear thread safe already but only due to the GIL. - [2]: Share a Moneta store between multiple processes using
Moneta::Shared
(See below). - [3]: Add expiration support by using
Moneta::Expires
or by passing the option :expires => true
to Moneta#new
. - [4]: There are some servers which use the memcached protocol but which are persistent (e.g. MemcacheDB, Kai, IronCache, Roma and Flare)
- [5]: Depends on server
- [6]: Store is multi-process safe because it is an in-memory store, values are not shared between multiple processes
- [7]: Store is multi-process safe, but not synchronized automatically between multiple processes
- [8]: If a store provides atomic increment it can be used with
Moneta::Semaphore
. You can add weak #increment
support using the Moneta::WeakIncrement
proxy. - [9]: If a store provides atomic creation it can be used with
Moneta::Mutex
. You can add weak #create
support using the Moneta::WeakCreate
proxy. - [10]: Sqlite/YAML/PStore are multiprocess safe, but the performance suffers badly since the whole database file must be locked for writing. Use a key/value server if you want multiprocess concurrency!
Proxies
In addition it supports proxies (Similar to Rack middlewares) which
add additional features to storage backends:
Moneta::Proxy
and Moneta::Wrapper
proxy base classesMoneta::Expires
to add expiration support to stores which don't support it natively. Add it in the builder using use :Expires
.Moneta::Stack
to stack multiple stores (Read returns result from first where the key is found, writes go to all stores). Add it in the builder using use(:Stack) {}
.Moneta::Transformer
transforms keys and values (Marshal, YAML, JSON, Base64, MD5, ...). Add it in the builder using use :Transformer
.Moneta::Cache
combine two stores, one as backend and one as cache (e.g. Moneta::Adapters::File
+ Moneta::Adapters::Memory
). Add it in the builder using use(:Cache) {}
.Moneta::Lock
to make store thread safe. Add it in the builder using use :Lock
.Moneta::Pool
to create a pool of stores as a means of making the store thread safe. Add it in the builder using use(:Pool) {}
.Moneta::Logger
to log database accesses. Add it in the builder using use :Logger
.Moneta::Shared
to share a store between multiple processes. Add it in the builder using use(:Shared) {}
.Moneta::WeakIncrement
and Moneta::WeakCreate
to add #create
and #increment
support without atomicity (weak) to stores which don't support it.
Serializers and compressors (Moneta::Transformer
)
Supported serializers:
- BEncode (
:bencode
) - BERT (
:bert
) - BSON (
:bson
) - JSON (
:json
) - Marshal (
:marshal
) - MessagePack (
:msgpack
) - Ox (
:ox
) - TNetStrings (
:tnet
) - YAML (
:yaml
)
Supported value compressors:
- LZ4 (
:lz4
) - LZMA (
:lzma
) - LZO (
:lzo
) - Snappy (
:snappy
) - QuickLZ (
:quicklz
) - Zlib (
:zlib
)
Special transformers:
- Digests (MD5, Shas, CityHash, ...)
- Add prefix to keys (
:prefix
) - HMAC to verify values (
:hmac
, useful for Rack::MonetaCookies
)
Moneta API
The Moneta API is purposely extremely similar to the Hash API with a few minor additions.
Every method takes also a optional option hash. In order so support an identical API across stores,
Moneta does not support iteration or partial matches.
#initialize(options) options differs per-store, and is used to set up the store.
#[](key) retrieve a key. If the key is not available, return nil.
#load(key, options = {}) retrieve a key. If the key is not available, return nil.
#fetch(key, options = {}, &block) retrieve a key. If the key is not available, execute the
block and return its return value.
#fetch(key, value, options = {}) retrieve a key. If the key is not available, return the value,
#[]=(key, value) set a value for a key. If the key is already used, clobber it.
keys set using []= will never expire.
#store(key, value, options = {}) same as []=, but you can supply options.
#delete(key, options = {}) delete the key from the store and return the current value.
#key?(key, options = {}) true if the key exists, false if it does not.
#increment(key, amount = 1, options = {}) increment numeric value. This is an atomic operation
which is not supported by all stores. Returns current value.
#decrement(key, amount = 1, options = {}) increment numeric value. This is an atomic operation
which is not supported by all stores. Returns current value.
This is just syntactic sugar for incrementing with a negative value.
#create(key, value, options = {}) create entry. This is an atomic operation which is not supported by all stores.
Returns true if the value was created.
#clear(options = {}) clear all keys in this store.
#close close database connection.
#features return array of features, e.g. [:create, :expires, :increment]
#supports?(feature) returns true if store supports a given feature
Creating a Store
There is a simple interface to create a store using Moneta.new
. You will
get automatic key and value serialization which is provided by Moneta::Transformer
.
This allows you to store arbitrary Ruby objects. You can tune some options
when you call Moneta.new
. However for very fine tuning use Moneta.build
.
store = Moneta.new(:Memcached, :server => 'localhost:11211')
store['key'] = 'value'
store['hash_key'] = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
store['object_key'] = MarshallableRubyObject.new
If you want to have control over the proxies, you have to use Moneta.build
:
store = Moneta.build do
use :Expires
use :Transformer, :key => [:marshal, :base64], :value => :marshal
adapter :Memory
end
You can also directly access the underlying adapters if you don't want
to use the Moneta stack.
db = Moneta::Adapters::File.new(:dir => 'directory')
db['key'] = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
db = Moneta::Adapters::Couch.new
db['key'] = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
db = Moneta::Adapters::Mongo.new
db['key'] = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
Expiration
The Cassandra, Memcached, Redis and Mongo backends support expiration natively.
cache = Moneta::Adapters::Memcached.new
cache = Moneta.build do
adapter :Memcached
end
cache.store(key, value, :expires => 60)
cache.store(key, value, :expires => 0)
cache.store(key, value, :expires => false)
cache.load(key, :expires => 30)
cache.key?(key, :expires => 30)
cache.load(key, :expires => false)
cache.key?(key, :expires => 0)
You can add the expires feature to other backends using the Moneta::Expires
proxy. But be aware
that expired values are not deleted automatically if they are not looked up.
cache = Moneta.new(:File, :dir => '...', :expires => true)
cache = Moneta::Expires.new(Moneta::Adapters::File.new(:dir => '...'))
cache = Moneta.build do
use :Expires
adapter :File, :dir => '...'
end
Atomic operations
Atomic incrementation and raw access
The stores support the #increment
which allows atomic increments of unsigned integer values. If you increment
a non existing value, it will be created. If you increment a non integer value an exception will be raised.
store.increment('counter')
store.increment('counter')
store.increment('counter', -1)
store.increment('counter', 13)
store.increment('counter', 0)
store.decrement('counter')
store['name'] = 'Moneta'
store.increment('name')
If you want to access the counter value you have to use raw access to the datastore. This is only important
if you have a Moneta::Transformer
somewhere in your proxy stack which transforms the values e.g. with Marshal
.
store.increment('counter')
store.load('counter', :raw => true)
store.store('counter', '10', :raw => true)
store.increment('counter')
Fortunately there is a nicer way to do this using some syntactic sugar!
store.increment('counter')
store.raw['counter']
store.raw.load('counter')
store.raw['counter'] = '10'
store.increment('counter')
You can also keep the raw
store in a variable and use it like this:
counters = store.raw
counters.increment('counter')
counters['counter']
counters.load('counter')
counters['counter'] = '10'
counters.increment('counter')
Atomic create
The stores support the #create
which allows atomic creation of entries. #create
returns true
if the value was created.
store.create('key', 'value')
store.create('key', 'other value')
Shared/distributed synchronization primitives
Moneta provides shared/distributed synchronization primitives which are shared database-wide between
all clients.
Moneta::Mutex
allows a single thread to enter a critical section.
mutex = Moneta::Mutex.new(store, 'mutex_key')
mutex.synchronize do
mutex.locked?
store['counter'] += 1
end
begin
mutex.lock
mutex.locked?
ensure
mutex.unlock
end
Moneta::Semaphore
allows max_concurrent
threads to enter a critical section.
semaphore = Moneta::Semaphore.new(store, 'semaphore_counter', max_concurrent)
semaphore.synchronize do
semaphore.locked?
end
begin
semaphore.enter
semaphore.locked?
ensure
semaphore.leave
end
Weak atomic operations
If an underlying adapter doesn't provide atomic #create
or #increment
and #decrement
you can
use the proxies Moneta::WeakIncrement
and Moneta::WeakCreate
to add support without atomicity.
But then you have to ensure that the store is not shared by multiple processes and thread-safety is
provided by Moneta::Lock
.
Syntactic sugar and option merger
For raw data access as described before the class Moneta::OptionMerger
is used. It works like this:
store.with(:raw => true).load('key')
store.with(:raw => true, :only => :load).load('key')
store.with(:raw => true, :except => [:key?, :increment]).load('key')
store.raw.load('key')
substore = store.prefix('sub')
substore['key'] = 'value'
store['key']
store['subkey']
short_lived_store = store.expires(60)
short_lived_store['key'] = 'value'
Add proxies to existing store
You can add proxies to an existing store. This is useful if you want to compress only a few values for example.
compressed_store = store.with(:prefix => 'compressed') do
use :Transformer, :value => :zlib
end
store['key'] = 'this value will not be compressed'
compressed_store['key'] = 'value will be compressed'
Framework Integration
Inspired by redis-store there exist integration classes for Rails and Rack/Rack-Cache. You can also use all the Rack middlewares together with Rails and the Sinatra framework. There exist the following integration classes:
- Rack, Rails and Sinatra
Rack::Session::Moneta
is a Rack middleware to use Moneta for storing sessionsRack::MonetaStore
is a Rack middleware which places a Moneta store in the environment and enables per-request cachingRack::MonetaCookies
is a Rack middleware which uses Moneta to store cookiesRack::MonetaRest
is a Rack application which exposes a Moneta store via REST/HTTPRack::Cache::Moneta
provides meta and entity stores for Rack-Cache
- Rails
ActionDispatch::Session::MonetaStore
is a Rails middleware to use Moneta for storing sessionsActiveSupport::Cache::MonetaStore
is a Rails cache implementation which uses a Moneta store as backend
- Ramaze
Ramaze::Cache::Moneta
is integrated into the Ramaze project and allows Ramaze to use
Moneta as caching store
Rack
Session store
You can use Moneta as a Rack session store. Use it in your config.ru
like this:
require 'rack/session/moneta'
use Rack::Session::Moneta, :store => :Redis
use Rack::Session::Moneta, :store => Moneta.new(:Memory, :expires => true)
use Rack::Session::Moneta do
use :Expires
adapter :Memory
end
Moneta middleware
There is a simple middleware which places a Moneta store in the Rack environment at env['rack.moneta_store']
. It supports per-request
caching if you add the option :cache => true
. Use it in your config.ru
like this:
use Rack::MonetaStore, :Memory, :cache => true
run lambda { |env|
env['rack.moneta_store']
}
use Rack::MonetaStore do
use :Transformer, :value => :zlib
adapter :Cookie
end
run lambda { |env|
env['rack.moneta_store']
}
REST server
If you want to expose your Moneta key/value store via HTTP, you can use the Rack/Moneta REST service. Use it in your config.ru
like this:
require 'rack/moneta_rest'
map '/moneta' do
run Rack::MonetaRest.new(:Memory)
end
run Rack::MonetaRest.new do
use :Transformer, :value => :zlib
adapter :Memory
end
Rack-Cache
You can use Moneta as a Rack-Cache store. Use it in your config.ru
like this:
require 'rack/cache/moneta'
use Rack::Cache,
:metastore => 'moneta://Memory?expires=true',
:entitystore => 'moneta://Memory?expires=true'
Rack::Cache::Moneta['named_metastore'] = Moneta.build do
use :Expires
adapter :Memory
end
use Rack::Cache,
:metastore => 'moneta://named_metastore',
:entity_store => 'moneta://named_entitystore'
Cookies
Use Moneta to store cookies in Rack. It uses the Moneta::Adapters::Cookie
. You might
wonder what the purpose of this store or Rack middleware is: It makes it possible
to use all the transformers on the cookies (e.g. :prefix
, :marshal
and :hmac
for value verification).
require 'rack/moneta_cookies'
use Rack::MonetaCookies, :domain => 'example.com', :path => '/path'
run lambda { |env|
req = Rack::Request.new(env)
req.cookies
env['rack.request.cookie_hash']
req.cookies['key']
req.cookies['key'] = 'value'
req.cookies.delete('key')
[200, {}, []]
}
Rails
Session store
Add the session store in your application configuration config/environments/*.rb
.
require 'moneta'
config.cache_store :moneta_store, :store => :Memory
config.cache_store :moneta_store, :store => Moneta.new(:Memory)
config.cache_store :moneta_store, :store => Moneta.build do
use :Expires
adapter :Memory
end
Cache store
Add the cache store in your application configuration config/environments/*.rb
. Unfortunately the
Moneta cache store doesn't support matchers. If you need these features use a different server-specific implementation.
require 'moneta'
config.cache_store :moneta_store, :store => :Memory
config.cache_store :moneta_store, :store => Moneta.new(:Memory)
config.cache_store :moneta_store, :store => Moneta.build do
use :Expires
adapter :Memory
end
Advanced
Build your own key value server
You can use Moneta to build your own key/value server which is shared between
multiple processes. If you run the following code in two different processes,
they will share the same data which will also be persistet in the database shared.db
.
require 'moneta'
store = Moneta.build do
use :Transformer, :key => :marshal, :value => :marshal
use :Shared do
use :Cache do
cache do
adapter :LRUHash
end
backend do
adapter :GDBM, :file => 'shared.db'
end
end
end
end
If you want to go further, you might want to take a look at Moneta::Server
and Moneta::Adapters::Client
which
are used by Moneta::Shared
and provide the networking communication. But be aware that they are experimental
and subjected to change. They provide an acceptable performance (for being ruby only), but don't have a stable protocol yet.
You might wonder why I didn't use DRb to implement server and client -
in fact my first versions used it, but with much worse performance and it was real fun to implement the networking directly :)
There is still much room for improvement and experiments, try EventMachine,
try Kgio, ...
ToyStore ORM
If you want something more advanced to handle your objects and relations,
use John Nunemaker's ToyStore which works
together with Moneta. Assuming that Person
is a ToyStore::Object
you can
add persistence using Moneta as follows:
Person.adapter :memory, Moneta.new(:Redis)
Testing and Benchmarks
Testing is done using Travis-CI. Currently we support Ruby 1.8.7 and 1.9.3.
Benchmarks for each store are done on Travis-CI for each build. Take a look there
to compare the speed of the different key value stores for different key/value sizes and size distributions.
Feel free to add your own configurations! The impact of Moneta should be minimal since it is only a thin layer
on top of the different stores.
How to contribute?
Always feel free to open an issue on
https://github.com/minad/moneta/issues if something doesn't work
as you expect it to work. Feedback is also very welcome!
My only request about patches is that you please try
to test them before submitting.
Contribute an adapter
If you want support for another adapter you can at first at it to the list of
missing adapters at https://github.com/minad/moneta/issues/16
If you choose to implement an adapter please also add tests. Usually you
only have to add a few lines to script/generate-specs
to generate appropriate
tests for your adapter. Please check also if travis.yml needs changes, for example
if you need to start additional services.
Check if the default settings in Moneta#new are appropriate for your adapter. If
not specify a better one.
Don't forget to edit the README.md and the CHANGES.
Alternatives
Authors