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Using avro and the schema registry

Zoe has good support for Avro and the schema registry. It makes it easy to consume and display avro data nicely as normal json objects or as a table (--output table). It is also easy to produce Avro data from json files as an input.

Consuming Avro data

In order to consume avro data from Kafka, it is enough to set the necessary deserializers properties in the props section of the cluster config :

clusters:

  my-cluster:
    props:
      bootstrap.servers: my-cluster.example.com:9094
      key.deserializer: org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringDeserializer
      value.deserializer: io.confluent.kafka.serializers.KafkaAvroDeserializer
      schema.registry.url: http://my-registry.example.com

Then, it's possible to consume avro data using the following command :

zoe -v -c my-cluster topics consume input -n 10

With the above command :

  • Zoe consumes data from the input topic and deserializes it using the key.deserializer and value.deserializer.
  • It transforms the data into json (to be able to apply eventual filters)

Producing Avro data

To produce Avro data from a json input using the produce command, it is necessary to set :

  • The registry property that points to the schema registry instance. Zoe uses this property to fetch the avro schema needed to transform the json data into avro.
  • The required serializer properties of the producer in the props section of the cluster config.
  • In addition, you need to set the subject name of the topic in the topic's configuration.

A good enough configuration for producing avro data may look like the following :

clusters:

  my-cluster:
    props:
      bootstrap.servers: my-cluster.example.com:9094
      key.serializer: org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringSerializer
      value.serializer: io.confluent.kafka.serializers.KafkaAvroSerializer
      value.subject.name.strategy: io.confluent.kafka.serializers.subject.TopicRecordNameStrategy
    registry: https://my-registry.example.com
    topics:
      my-topic:
        name: long-topic-name
        subject: long-topic-name-com.adevinta.schemas.v1.Example

With the configuration above, you can execute the following command :

zoe -v --cluster my-cluster \
    topics produce \
    --from-file data.json \
    --topic my-topic \
    --key-path 'id'

The command above would do the following :

  • It fetches the avro schema registered under the subject name long-topic-name-com.adevinta.schemas.v1.Example in the schema registry instance pointed at by the registry property in the configuration.
  • It uses the schema to transform the json data in data.json into avro GenericRecord instances.
  • Writes the generic records into long-name-topic (aliased by my-topic).

Interacting with the registry

You can also interact with the schema registry using the zoe schemas command. Here is a non exhaustive list of what you can do :

  • List avro schemas registered into the registry
  • Describe a specific Avro schema
  • Deploy an avro schema into the registry from an .avsc or .avdl file.

Where to go from here

  • There is a hands on tutorial on using zoe with avro at : guides/avro.
  • Learn more about interacting with the registry with : zoe schemas --help