public final class Hint
extends java.lang.Object
Encapsulates the hinted mutation, its creation time, and the gc grace seconds param for each table involved.
- Why do we need to track hint creation time?
- We must exclude updates for tables that have been truncated after hint's creation, otherwise the result is data corruption.
- Why do we need to track gc grace seconds?
- Hints can stay in storage for a while before being applied, and without recording gc grace seconds (+ creation time),
if we apply the mutation blindly, we risk resurrecting a deleted value, a tombstone for which had been already
compacted away while the hint was in storage.
We also look at the smallest current value of the gcgs param for each affected table when applying the hint, and use
creation time + min(recorded gc gs, current gcgs + current gc grace) as the overall hint expiration time.
This allows now to safely reduce gc gs on tables without worrying that an applied old hint might resurrect any data.