When performing multi-key operations in the store, you can specify a range of records to operate upon. You do this using the KeyRange class. This class defines a range of String values for the key components immediately following a key that is used in a multiple get operation.

For example, suppose you were using the following keys:

/Smith/Bob/-/birthdate
/Smith/Bob/-/phonenumber
/Smith/Bob/-/image
/Smith/Bob/-/userID 
/Smith/Patricia/-/birthdate
/Smith/Patricia/-/phonenumber
/Smith/Patricia/-/image
/Smith/Patricia/-/userID 
/Smith/Richard/-/birthdate
/Smith/Richard/-/phonenumber
/Smith/Richard/-/image
/Smith/Richard/-/userID 
/Wong/Bill/-/birthdate
/Wong/Bill/-/phonenumber
/Wong/Bill/-/image
/Wong/Bill/-/userID

Given this, you could perform operations for all the records related to users Bob Smith and Patricia Smith by constructing a KeyRange. When you do this, you must identify the key components that define the upper and lower bounds of the range. You must also identify if the key components that you provide are inclusive or exclusive.

In this case, we will define the start of the key range using the string "Bob" and the end of the key range to be "Patricia". Both ends of the key range will be inclusive.

package kvstore.basicExample;

import oracle.kv.KeyRange;

...

KeyRange kr = new KeyRange("Bob", true, "Patricia", true);

You then use the KeyRange instance when you perform your multi-key operation. For example, suppose you were retrieving records from your store using KVStore.storeIterator():

package kvstore.basicExample;

...

import oracle.kv.Direction;
import oracle.kv.Key;
import oracle.kv.Value;
import oracle.kv.KeyRange;
import oracle.kv.KeyValueVersion;
import oracle.kv.RequestTimeoutException;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;

...

ArrayList<String> majorComponents = new ArrayList<String>();

...

// Define the major and minor path components for the key
majorComponents.add("Smith");

// Create the retrieval key
Key myKey = Key.createKey(majorComponents);

KeyRange kr = new KeyRange("Bob", true, "Patricia", true);

// Now retrieve the records. Note that we do not show the creation of
// the kvstore handle here.


try {
    Iterator<KeyValueVersion> i = 
        kvstore.storeIterator(Direction.FORWARD, 0,
                              myKey, kr, null);
    while (i.hasNext()) {
        Value v = i.next().getValue(); 
        // Do some work with the Value here
    }
} catch (RequestTimeoutException re) {
    // The operation was not completed within the 
    // timeout value
}