RethinkDB client drivers are responsible for serializing queries, sending them to the server using the ReQL wire protocol, and receiving responses from the server and returning them to the calling application. This process takes the following steps:

• Open a connection
• Perform a handshake
• Serialize the query
• Send the message
• Receive responses

Initial steps

ReQL types and commands are defined in the ql2.proto file.

For a JavaScript version of the file, run make js-driver in the rethinkdb repo, and retrieve the JSON version of the file in build/packages/js/proto-def.js. Alternatively you may grab the equivalent file from rethinkdbdash.

The ql2.proto file is well-commented, showing arguments and output for each command.

Open a connection

Open a TCP connection to the server on the driver port. The default port is 28015.

Perform a handshake

With version V1_0 of the protocol, the handshake protocol has changed from previous versions.

Version V1_0

1. The client sends the “magic number” (0x34c2bdc3) for the protocol version, as a 32-bit little-endian integer (4 bytes).

    SEND c3 bd c2 34
   

2. On success, the server sends a null-terminated JSON response, indicating success, minimum and maximum protocol versions, and the server version.

    {
        "success": true,
        "min_protocol_version": 0,
        "max_protocol_version": 0,
        "server_version": "2.3.0"
    }
   

   On failure, the server sends a null-terminated error string (not JSON).

    ERROR: Received an unsupported protocol version. This port is for RethinkDB queries. Does your client driver version not match the server?
   

3. The client sends the protocol version, authentication method, and authentication as a null-terminated JSON response. RethinkDB currently supports only one authentication method, SCRAM-SHA-256, as specified in IETF RFC 7677 and RFC 5802. The RFC is followed with the exception of error handling (RethinkDB uses its own higher level error reporting rather than the e= field). RethinkDB does not support channel binding and clients should not request this. The value of "authentication" is the “client-first-message” specified in RFC 5802 (the channel binding flag, optional SASL authorization identity, username (n=), and random nonce (r=).

    {
        "protocol_version": 0,
        "authentication_method": "SCRAM-SHA-256",
        "authentication": "n,,n=user,r=rOprNGfwEbeRWgbNEkqO"
    }
   

4. The server sends a null-terminated JSON response with a "success" value of either true or false. On true, then "authentication" will contain the “server-first-message” containing the iteration count (i=), salt (s=) and a concatenation of the client nonce with its own nonce.

    {
        "success": true,
        "authentication": "r=rOprNGfwEbeRWgbNEkqO%hvYDpWUa2RaTCAfuxFIlj)hNlF$k0,
          s=W22ZaJ0SNY7soEsUEjb6gQ==,i=4096"
    }
   

   On false, the server will send an error and error code.

    {
        "success": false,
        "error": "You mucked up.",
        "error_code": 12
    }
   

   A ReqlAuthError should be thrown if the error code is between 10 and 20 (inclusive).

5. The client sends the null-terminated JSON “client-final-message” with the same nonce and the ClientProof computed as specified by the RFC.

    {
        "authentication": "c=biws,r=rOprNGfwEbeRWgbNEkqO%hvYDpWUa2RaTCAfuxFIlj)hNlF$k0,
          p=dHzbZapWIk4jUhN+Ute9ytag9zjfMHgsqmmiz7AndVQ="
    }
   

6. The server sends a null-terminated JSON response with a "success" value of either true or false. On true, then "authentication" will contain the “server-final-message” with the ServerSignature value. The client should compute a ServerSignature as specified in the RFC and verify the values are identical.

    {
        "success": true,
        "authentication": "v=6rriTRBi23WpRR/wtup+mMhUZUn/dB5nLTJRsjl95G4="
    }
   

   On false, the server will send an error and error code as above.

Note: It is possible to optimize the handshake by sending message #3 immediately after #1 without waiting for the server response, and read messages #2 and #4 afterward, handling them as appropriate.

Versions V0_3 and V0_4

Note: these versions do not support RethinkDB users and permissions, and may be deprecated in a future release. When communicating with RethinkDB 2.3 or later, the authentication key will be compared to the admin user account password.

1. Send the protocol version, as a 32-bit little-endian integer (4 bytes). Note: All instructions below assume a protocol of V0_3 or higher. The current protocol as of RethinkDB 2.0 is V0_4.
2. Send the length of the authorization key, as a 32-bit little-endian integer (4 bytes). Send 0 if there is no authorization key.
3. Send the authorization key as an ASCII string. If there is no authorization key, skip this step.
4. Send the protocol type, as a 32-bit little-endian integer (4 bytes). Protocol types are defined in the Protocol enum in ql2.proto. New drivers should use JSON, 0x7e6970c7.

The server will respond with a null-terminated ASCII string describing the result of the handshake. If the string is "SUCCESS", the client may proceed to stage 2 and begin sending queries. Any other string indicates an error. The server will close the connection, and the driver should report this error to the user.

Example 1: No auth key

Example 2: Auth key

Serializing queries

Your driver should assign each query a unique 8-byte token per connection. (The official RethinkDB drivers implement this as an unsigned 8-byte little-endian counter per connection.) The server will send responses to queries using this token as an identifier so the response can be matched to its query. The token can also be used to request more data for the query if all the results were not returned in the first response.

A simple example

The next section will explain how to build complex queries. For now, we will just send the string "foo" (r.expr("foo")) to the server.

Sending a query to the server takes the following steps:

• Serialize the query as UTF8-encoded JSON
• Send the following data to the server:
  • The 8-byte unique query token
  • The size of the JSON-serialized, UTF8-encoded query, as a 4-byte little-endian integer
  • The wrapped query message (QueryType, serialized query and options)

The wrapped query message sent to the server is an array of three elements:

[ QueryType, query, options ]

The next section will go into more detail, but in our example the QueryType is 1 (or START, as we’ll see later), the query is simply the string "foo" and there are no options.

[ 1, "foo", {} ]

So, the data we send to the server is as follows:

Once the query is sent, you can read the response object back from the server. The response object takes the following form:

• The 8-byte unique query token
• The length of the response, as a 4-byte little-endian integer
• The JSON-encoded response

When you parse the response string as JSON, you get the object:

{
    t: 1,         // protodef.Response.ResponseType.SUCCESS_ATOM
    r: ["foo"]    // the response is the string 'foo"
}

Where t:1 means that the response is a value, and r: ["foo"] the string "foo".

Queries in detail

ReQL is a domain specific language expressed in the host language. The three official drivers follow a very similar syntax; you should stick to that model as closely as your chosen language allows. Typically you are free to use either a prefix or infix notation, or mix the two.

Internally, queries are represented as trees. A query of:

r.db("blog").table("users").filter({name: "Michel"})

is represented by this tree:

ReQL commands

ReQL commands are represented as a list of two or three elements.

[<command>, [<arguments>], {<options>}]

• <command> is the integer representing the command, from ql2.proto
• <arguments> is a list of all arguments. Each argument is itself a query (a command list, or data).
• <options> are the command’s optional arguments. This element may be left out if the command has no optional arguments given.

Thus, this is how our previous query is represented:

r.db("blog").table("users").filter({name: "Michel"});

FILTER = 39     // from ql2.proto
TABLE = 15
DB = 14

r.db("blog") =>
    [14, ["blog"]]

r.db("blog").table("users") =>
    [15, [[14, ["blog"]], "users"]]

r.db("blog").table("users").filter({name: "Michel"}) =>
    [39, [[15, [[14, ["blog"]], "users"]], {"name": "Michel"}]]

Implementation considerations

If you want to use a prefix notation, you just need to implement all the commands on a module. If you want to use an infix notation, you should implement all the functions on a class “term” and some prefix commands on the module.

You can only check arity of the methods to a certain extent. If an ARGS term is one of the argument, only the server can effectively verify that enough arguments are provided (or not too many). The arity errors reported by the server suppose a prefix notation. Things may change if the solution in #2463 is implemented.

ReQL data

A datum (the singular of data) is any value that can be represented in JSON: booleans, numbers, strings, objects, arrays and null. They are sent to the server in JSON form.

Arrays, however, are a special case: since ReQL commands (as described above) are sent as arrays, you must send data arrays as arguments to the MAKE_ARRAY command. So the array

[10, 20, 30]

Would be sent to the server as

// MAKE_ARRAY = 2 (from ql2.proto)

[2, [10, 20, 30]]

ReQL pseudo types

Some native ReQL data types have no direct JSON representations. These are implemented as pseudo types, JSON objects with the special key $reql_type$. The three official ReQL drivers convert date and binary types to pseudo types.

Date pseudo type

{
    $reql_type: "TIME",
    epoch_time: <timestamp>,
    timezone: <string>
}

The epoch_time field is a Unix timestamp, the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970, with millisecond precision. The timezone field is a string in the format [+-]HH:MM, indicating the offset from UTC. UTC is +00:00; PST is -08:00; and so on.

Binary pseudo type

{
    $reql_type$: "BINARY",
    data: <string>
}

The data field is a Base64-encoded string of the binary object.

Anonymous functions

A good article by Bill Rowan explains anonymous functions (or lambda functions) in the drivers. The article covers why anonymous functions are useful and how they work. Here, we’ll just focus on how to serialize anonymous functions.

When the driver finds an anonymous function, it returns a query object like this one:

// FUNC = 69, MAKE_ARRAY = 2 (from ql2.proto)

[69, [[2, [p1, p2, ...]], function body]]

The parameters are represented as values <p1>, <p2>, etc.; the values are arbitrary, but must be unique per query to avoid collisions. Within the function body the values are referred to with the query term VAR, defined as 10 in ql2.proto. So the value of parameter 1 is retrieved with [10, [1]].

Take the function:

function(x, y, z) {
    return r.add(x, y, z)
}

The function would be serialized as:

[FUNC, 
 [[MAKE_ARRAY, [1, 2, 3]],
  [ADD,
   [[VAR, [1]],
    [VAR, [2]],
    [VAR, [3]]]]]]

// FUNC = 69, MAKE_ARRAY = 2, ADD = 24, VAR = 10 (from ql2.proto)

[69, [[2, [1, 2, 3]], [24, [[10, [1]], [10, [2]], [10, [3]]]]]]

Implementation details

Serializing functions depends heavily on your driver’s language. The JavaScript driver does it this way:

• Look at how many arguments the function takes (num_args)
• Create that many VAR terms
• Call the function with those terms
• Serialize the result as the function body

If your driver uses infix notation, you must make sure that the VAR term implements all the ReQL methods.

Serializing IMPLICIT_VAR (r.row)

The IMPLICIT_VAR term is equivalent to the row command in the official JavaScript and Python drivers. It’s useful for languages where anonymous functions are too verbose.

If you support IMPLICIT_VAR in your driver, then every time you parse the argument of a function you should check if the method can take a function. If it can, you should look for an IMPLICIT_VAR term (i.e., row). If you find one, wrap the argument in a function that takes one parameter:

[69, [[2, [1]], argument]]

If you do not find one, treat the argument normally.

In the case of nested functions, the IMPLICIT_VAR term is ambiguous, and should not be used. Your driver should either throw an error or let the server return an error.

Serializing BINARY

Binary objects created with r.binary can be serialized in two different ways.

If the argument is a ReQL term (not including a datum), serialize it using the standard term:

[BINARY, argument]

If the language’s native binary format is used, use the pseudotype serialization described above.

{
    $reql_type$: "BINARY",
    data: <base64 string>
}

Serializing FUNCALL (r.do)

The r.do() command is serialized with the FUNCALL term.

[FUNCALL, [function], arguments]

Take the do command:

r.do(10, 20, function (x, y) {
  return r.add(x, y);
})

This would be serialized as:

[FUNCALL,
  [FUNC,
    [[MAKE_ARRAY, [1, 2]],
      [ADD,
        [[VAR, [1]],
         [VAR, [2]]]]]],
  10,
  20]

// FUNCALL = 64, FUNC = 69, MAKE_ARRAY = 2, ADD = 24, VAR = 10

[64, [69, [[2, [1, 2]], [24, [[10, [1]], [10, [2]]]]]], 10, 20]

Note that while r.do() takes the function as its last argument, FUNCALL serializes the function as its first argument.

Send the message

Because you can keep chaining commands (or calling them in prefix notation), you need a command to signify the end of the chain and send the query to the server. This command is run in the official drivers.

Wrapping queries

Once the run command is processed, the serialized query needs to be wrapped in the message sent to the server. The complete message takes the form:

[ QueryType, query, options ]

The query types are defined in ql2.proto. When a query is first sent to the server, it will be sent with a QueryType of START (1). The options (sometimes referred to as “global optargs”) are options passed to the run command itself; see the run documentation for a complete list. (Commands sent to the server are snake_case, not camelCase.)

The full list of QueryType values is as follows:

• 1 START: Start a new query.
• 2 CONTINUE: Continue a query that returned SUCCESS_PARTIAL (see Receive responses).
• 3 STOP: Stop a query that is still executing.
• 4 NOREPLY_WAIT: Wait for noreply operations to finish. The server will return a WAIT_COMPLETE response.
• 5 SERVER_INFO: Ask for server information. The server will return a SERVER_INFO response.

CONTINUE and STOP should be sent on the same connection with the same token generated for that query’s START message.

Sending queries

To recap, sending a query to the server takes the following steps:

• Serialize the query as UTF8-encoded JSON
• Send the following data to the server:
  • The 8-byte unique query token
  • The size of the JSON-serialized, UTF8-encoded wrapped query, as a 4-byte little-endian integer
  • The wrapped query message (QueryType, serialized query and options)

The token is a unique integer per connection. Keeping a counter per connection is a simple way to implement it.

So, our initial example query of:

r.db("blog").table("users").filter({name: "Michel"})

is sent as follows on the wire:

Wrapping the DB query option

If the db option is passed to the run command, its value must be a DB term. The query:

r.table("users").run({db: "blog"});

should be sent as as if the argument to db was r.db("blog"):

[1,[15,["users"]],{"db":[14,["blog"]]}]

Receive responses

Responses from the server take the following form:

• The 8-byte unique query token the response corresponds to
• The size of the JSON-encoded response, as a 4-byte little-endian integer
• The JSON-encoded Response object

The Response object will have the following fields:

• t: the ResponseType, as defined in ql2.proto
• r: data from the result, as a JSON array
• b: a backtrace if t is an error type; this field will not be present otherwise
• p: a profile if the global optarg profile: true was specified; this field will not be present otherwise
• n: an optional array of ResponseNote values, as defined in ql2.proto

Response types

These will be numeric values, corresponding to the types in ql2.proto.

• 1 SUCCESS_ATOM: The whole query has been returned and the result is in the first (and only) element of r.
• 2 SUCCESS_SEQUENCE: Either the whole query has been returned in r, or the last section of a multi-response query has been returned.
• 3 SUCCESS_PARTIAL: The query has returned a stream, which may or may not be complete. To retrieve more results for the query, send a CONTINUE message (see below).
• 4 WAIT_COMPLETE: This ResponseType indicates all queries run in noreply mode have finished executing. r will be empty.
• 5 SERVER_INFO: The response to a SERVER_INFO request. The data will be in the first (and only) element of r.
• 16 CLIENT_ERROR: The server failed to run the query due to a bad client request. The error message will be in the first element of r.
• 17 COMPILE_ERROR: The server failed to run the query due to an ReQL compilation error. The error message will be in the first element of r.
• 18 RUNTIME_ERROR: The query compiled correctly, but failed at runtime. The error message will be in the first element of r.

Response notes

The n field, if present, will be an array of one or more ResponseNote values, giving further information about the kind of the stream being returned. These will be numeric values, corresponding to the notes in ql2.proto.

All of the response notes involve changefeeds; read Changefeeds in RethinkDB for more detailed information.

• 1 SEQUENCE_FEED: The stream is a changefeed.
• 2 ATOM_FEED: The stream is a point changefeed, i.e., returning changes from a single document.
• 3 ORDER_BY_LIMIT_FEED: The stream is a changefeed generated with an order_by().limit() query.
• 4 UNIONED_FEED: The stream is a union of multiple changefeed types that cannot be collapsed to a single type, e.g., r.table('test').changes().union(r.table('test').get(0).changes()).
• 5 INCLUDES_STATES: The stream is a changefeed that includes states notes, e.g., `{state: ‘initializing’}.

Multipart responses

Streams and feeds are lazily-computed sequences, and return a ResponseType of SUCCESS_PARTIAL (3), with currently available data in the r array. When the driver receives a feed or stream, it should return a cursor (or an object with a cursor-like interface). N.B.: SUCCESS_SEQUENCE and SUCCESS_PARTIAL responses should be both be represented as cursors. Depending on the size of the query results and the time it takes to return them, you may receive either one SUCCESS_SEQUENCE result, or one or more SUCCESS_PARTIAL results followed by a final SUCCESS_SEQUENCE result.

To retrieve more data for the cursor, the driver should send a query with a QueryType of CONTINUE on the same connection with the same token. As with other queries, this must be sent with the query token, the size of the query, and the query itself, simply [2].

You will receive another response of either type SUCCESS_PARTIAL, indicating there is still more data available, or SUCCESS_SEQUENCE if you have reached the end of the stream. (This will never be returned for a feed.) Note that these ResponseTypes can be returned without data (an empty array as the r value). A driver can send CONTINUE to fetch the next batch of a sequence as soon as the response is received.

To close a cursor and stop receiving data from the stream or feed, send a query with a QueryType of STOP on the same connection with the same token.

Notes on connections

Starting with RethinkDB 2.0 (V0_4), the server will process multiple queries in parallel rather than sequentially, and there is no guarantee that a read following a write on the same connection will “see” the results of the write as long as it’s successful. (Previous versions of the server would process multiple queries on the same connection sequentially.)

You should not release a connection in the pool as soon as you receive a response. Only release the connection when you receive a response of a type other than SUCCESS_PARTIAL.

Get help

You can ask questions and get notes on changes introduced in new versions of RethinkDB on the RethinkDB-Dev Google Group. You can also visit the RethinkDB IRC Channel, where core developers and other driver developers frequently hang out. Also, you can ask questions on Stack Overflow using the tag “rethinkdb.”