How can I import hbase in python?

Question

I'm trying to play around with hbase in python and I am using the cloudera repository to install the hadoop/hbase packages. It seems to work as I can access and work on the database using the shell but its not fully working within python.

I know to communicate with hbase I need thrift so I downloaded and complied it from source, I can import thrift into python but when I do from hbase import Hbase, I get module not found errors.

Does anyone know what package/module I would need to get it to work? I tried to look around easy_install and yum(I'm using centos6) and no luck. I did find an article where a person using debain installed it by doing sudo aptiutde install python-hbase I don't have that command/package, so I'm not sure how to get it(or if I have to compile from source to get it).

Also if it helps, I installed most of the base from cloudera and followed some instructions(the ones didn't require install) from http://yannramin.com/2008/07/19/using-facebook-thrift-with-python-and-hbase/

Any help/tips/suggestions would be great.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Have a look at HappyBase (see https://github.com/wbolster/happybase for info). It is the modern way to interact with HBase from Python. It covers the complete Thrift API but wraps it in a much better interface.