List collection metadata

Gets information about the collections in a keyspace.

Ready to write code? See the examples for this method to get started. If you are new to the Data API, check out the quickstart.

Result

Python
TypeScript
Java
curl

Returns a list of CollectionDescriptor objects that describe each collection.

Returns a promise that resolves to an array of CollectionDescriptor objects that describe each collection.

Returns a List<CollectionDescriptor>, where each CollectionDescriptor object describes a collection.

The status.collections field in the response describes each collection.

Example response:

{
  "status": {
    "collections": [
      {
        "name": "student_collection",
        "options": {
          "defaultId": {
            "type": "objectId"
          },
          "vector": {
            "dimension": 1024,
            "metric": "cosine"
          }
        },
        "lexical": {
          "enabled": true,
          "analyzer": "standard"
        },
        "rerank": {
          "enabled": true,
          "service": {
            "provider": "nvidia",
            "modelName": "nvidia/llama-3.2-nv-rerankqa-1b-v2"
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "name": "book_collection",
        "options": {
          "vector": {
            "dimension": 1024,
            "metric": "cosine",
            "sourceModel": "other",
            "service": {
              "provider": "nvidia",
              "modelName": "NV-Embed-QA"
            }
          },
          "lexical": {
            "enabled": false
          },
          "rerank": {
            "enabled": false
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Parameters

Python
TypeScript
Java
curl

Use the list_collections method, which belongs to the astrapy.Database class.

Method signature

list_collections(
  *,
  keyspace: str,
  collection_admin_timeout_ms: int,
  request_timeout_ms: int,
  timeout_ms: int,
) -> list[CollectionDescriptor]

Name Type Summary

Name	Type	Summary
`keyspace`	`str`	Optional if you specified a keyspace when instantiating the `Database` object. The keyspace to inspect. Default: The database’s working keyspace.
`collection_admin_timeout_ms`	`int`	Optional. A timeout, in milliseconds, for the underlying HTTP request. If not provided, the `Database` setting is used. This parameter is aliased as `request_timeout_ms` and `timeout_ms` for convenience.

keyspace

str

Optional if you specified a keyspace when instantiating the Database object. The keyspace to inspect.

Default: The database’s working keyspace.

collection_admin_timeout_ms

int

Optional. A timeout, in milliseconds, for the underlying HTTP request. If not provided, the Database setting is used. This parameter is aliased as request_timeout_ms and timeout_ms for convenience.

Use the listCollections method, which belongs to the Db class.

Method signature

async listCollections(
  options: {
    nameOnly?: false,
    keyspace?: string,
    timeout?: number | TimeoutDescriptor,
  }
): CollectionDescriptor[]

Name Type Summary

Name	Type	Summary
`options`	`ListCollectionsOptions`	Optional. The options for this operation. See Properties of `options` for more details.

options

ListCollectionsOptions

Optional. The options for this operation. See Properties of options for more details.

Properties of `options`
Name	Type	Summary
`nameOnly`	`false`	Must be `false` or undefined to return metadata about the collections. Otherwise, only the collection names are returned.
`keyspace`	`string`	Optional if you specified a keyspace when instantiating the `Db` object. The keyspace to inspect. Default: The database’s working keyspace.
`timeout`	`number` \| `TimeoutDescriptor`	Optional. The timeout(s) to apply to this method. You can specify `requestTimeoutMs` and `collectionAdminTimeoutMs`. Details about the `timeout` parameter The `TimeoutDescriptor` object can contain these properties: `requestTimeoutMs` (`number`): The maximum time, in milliseconds, that the client should wait for each underlying HTTP request. Default: The default value for the collection. This default is 10 seconds unless you specified a different default when you initialized the `Collection` or `DataAPIClient` object. `collectionAdminTimeoutMs` (`number`): The maximum time, in milliseconds, for collection admin operations like creating, dropping, and listing collections. Default: The default value for the collection. This default is 60 seconds unless you specified a different default when you initialized the `Collection` or `DataAPIClient` object. If you specify a number instead of a `TimeoutDescriptor` object, that number will be applied to both `requestTimeoutMs` and `collectionAdminTimeoutMs`.

Use the listCollections method, which belongs to the com.datastax.astra.client.Database class.

Method signature

List<CollectionDescriptor> listCollections()

List<CollectionDescriptor> listCollections(ListCollectionOptions options)

Name Type Summary

Name	Type	Summary
`options`	`ListCollectionOptions`	Optional. The options for this operation, including the keyspace and timeouts.

options

ListCollectionOptions

Optional. The options for this operation, including the keyspace and timeouts.

Use the findCollections command.

Command signature

curl -sS -L -X POST "API_ENDPOINT/api/json/v1/KEYSPACE_NAME" \
--header "Token: APPLICATION_TOKEN" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--data '{
  "findCollections": {
    "options": {
      "explain": true
    }
  }
}'

Name Type Summary

Name	Type	Summary
`options.explain`	`true`	Must be `true` to return metadata about the collections. Otherwise, only the collection names are returned.

options.explain

true

Must be true to return metadata about the collections. Otherwise, only the collection names are returned.

Examples

The following examples demonstrate how to get collection metadata.

Python
TypeScript
Java
curl

from astrapy import DataAPIClient
from astrapy.authentication import UsernamePasswordTokenProvider
from astrapy.constants import Environment

# Get a database
client = DataAPIClient(environment=Environment.HCD)
database = client.get_database(
    "API_ENDPOINT",
    token=UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
)

# List collections
database.list_collections(keyspace="KEYSPACE_NAME")

import {
  DataAPIClient,
  UsernamePasswordTokenProvider,
} from "@datastax/astra-db-ts";

// Get a database
const client = new DataAPIClient({ environment: "hcd" });
const database = client.db("API_ENDPOINT", {
  token: new UsernamePasswordTokenProvider("USERNAME", "PASSWORD"),
});

// List collections
(async function () {
  await database.listCollections({
    nameOnly: false,
    keyspace: "KEYSPACE_NAME",
  });
})();

import com.datastax.astra.client.DataAPIClient;
import com.datastax.astra.client.DataAPIClients;
import com.datastax.astra.client.collections.definition.CollectionDescriptor;
import com.datastax.astra.client.databases.Database;
import java.util.List;

public class Example {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Get a database
    DataAPIClient client = DataAPIClients.clientHCD("USERNAME", "PASSWORD");
    Database database = client.getDatabase("API_ENDPOINT", "KEYSPACE_NAME");

    // List collections
    List<CollectionDescriptor> collectionMetadata = database.listCollections();
    collectionMetadata.stream().map(CollectionDescriptor::getOptions).forEach(System.out::println);
  }
}

curl -sS -L -X POST "API_ENDPOINT/v1/KEYSPACE_NAME" \
  --header "Token: APPLICATION_TOKEN" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
  "findCollections": {
    "options": {
      "explain": true
    }
  }
}'

Client reference

Python
TypeScript
Java
curl

For more information, see the client reference.

Client reference documentation is not applicable for HTTP.

List collection metadata

Result

Parameters

Examples

Client reference

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