Kafka Streams API: KStream to KTable

Question

I have a Kafka topic where I send location events (key=user_id, value=user_location). I am able to read and process it as a KStream:

KStreamBuilder builder = new KStreamBuilder();

KStream<String, Location> locations = builder
        .stream("location_topic")
        .map((k, v) -> {
            // some processing here, omitted form clarity
            Location location = new Location(lat, lon);
            return new KeyValue<>(k, location);
        });

That works well, but I'd like to have a KTable with the last known position of each user. How could I do it?

I am able to do it writing to and reading from an intermediate topic:

// write to intermediate topic
locations.to(Serdes.String(), new LocationSerde(), "location_topic_aux");

// build KTable from intermediate topic
KTable<String, Location> table = builder.table("location_topic_aux", "store");

Is there a simple way to obtain a KTable from a KStream? This is my first app using Kafka Streams, so I'm probably missing something obvious.

Answer 1

Update:

In Kafka 2.5, a new method KStream#toTable() will be added, that will provide a convenient way to transform a KStream into a KTable. For details see: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-523%3A+Add+KStream%23toTable+to+the+Streams+DSL

Original Answer:

There is not straight forward way at the moment to do this. Your approach is absolutely valid as discussed in Confluent FAQs: http://docs.confluent.io/current/streams/faq.html#how-can-i-convert-a-kstream-to-a-ktable-without-an-aggregation-step

This is the simplest approach with regard to the code. However, it has the disadvantages that (a) you need to manage an additional topic and that (b) it results in additional network traffic because data is written to and re-read from Kafka.

There is one alternative, using a "dummy-reduce":

KStreamBuilder builder = new KStreamBuilder();
KStream<String, Long> stream = ...; // some computation that creates the derived KStream

KTable<String, Long> table = stream.groupByKey().reduce(
    new Reducer<Long>() {
        @Override
        public Long apply(Long aggValue, Long newValue) {
            return newValue;
        }
    },
    "dummy-aggregation-store");

This approach is somewhat more complex with regard to the code compared to option 1 but has the advantage that (a) no manual topic management is required and (b) re-reading the data from Kafka is not necessary.

Overall, you need to decide by yourself, which approach you like better:

In option 2, Kafka Streams will create an internal changelog topic to back up the KTable for fault tolerance. Thus, both approaches require some additional storage in Kafka and result in additional network traffic. Overall, it’s a trade-off between slightly more complex code in option 2 versus manual topic management in option 1.