HBase Shell - Method to check whether a row exists in a table

README

To use this program, do the following:

1. Download the "row_existence.rb" to the server where you have HBase installed.

2. Fire up the HBase shell
   > $HBASE_HOME/bin/hbase shell

3. Load the "row_existence.rb" into the shell

  hbase(main):001:0> "directory_where_you_downloaded_the_file/row_existence.rb"
  => true

4. Invoke the newly added method "row_exists?" of Hbase::Table

  hbase(main):002:0> puts @hbase.table("mytable", nil).row_exists?("row1")

  The output will be either true or false

5. You can use this method to check whether all your records have made into HBase or not.

row_existence.rb

# A simple ruby code snippet that you can load in the IRB of HBase Shell and 
# use for checking whether a particular row exists in the table or not.
# This is just a glimpse of what one can do using Hbase shell.

require "hbase"
require "hbase/table"

# Add row_exists instance method to Hbase::Table
class Hbase::Table 
  def row_exists?(row)
    return (self.get(row) != nil)
  end
end