A way to filter based on the column family, column qualifier and/or the column value. Return
code is described below. This allows filters to filter only certain number of columns, then
terminate without matching ever column.
If filterRowKey returns true, filterKeyValue needs to be consistent with it.
filterKeyValue can assume that filterRowKey has already been called for the row.
If your filter returns
ReturnCode.NEXT_ROW
, it should return
ReturnCode.NEXT_ROW
until
Filter.reset()
is called just in case the caller calls
for the next row.
Concrete implementers can signal a failure condition in their code by throwing an
IOException
.