Datastore mode client libraries

This page shows how to get started with the Cloud Client Libraries for the Datastore API. Client libraries make it easier to access Google Cloud APIs from a supported language. Although you can use Google Cloud APIs directly by making raw requests to the server, client libraries provide simplifications that significantly reduce the amount of code you need to write.

Read more about the Cloud Client Libraries and the older Google API Client Libraries in Client libraries explained.

Install the client library

C#

Install-Package Google.Cloud.Datastore.V1

For more information, see Setting Up a C# Development Environment.

Go

go get cloud.google.com/go/datastore

For more information, see Setting Up a Go Development Environment.

Java

If you are using Maven, add the following to your pom.xml file. For more information about BOMs, see The Google Cloud Platform Libraries BOM.

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
      <artifactId>libraries-bom</artifactId>
      <version>26.50.0</version>
      <type>pom</type>
      <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>google-cloud-datastore</artifactId>
  </dependency>

If you are using Gradle, add the following to your dependencies:

implementation platform('com.google.cloud:libraries-bom:26.50.0')

implementation 'com.google.cloud:google-cloud-datastore'

If you are using sbt, add the following to your dependencies:

libraryDependencies += "com.google.cloud" % "google-cloud-datastore" % "2.24.2"

If you're using Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse, you can add client libraries to your project using the following IDE plugins:

• Cloud Code for VS Code
• Cloud Code for IntelliJ
• Cloud Tools for Eclipse

The plugins provide additional functionality, such as key management for service accounts. Refer to each plugin's documentation for details.

Note: Cloud Java client libraries do not currently support Android.

For more information, see Setting Up a Java Development Environment.

Node.js

npm install --save @google-cloud/datastore

For more information, see Setting Up a Node.js Development Environment.

PHP

composer require google/cloud-datastore

For more information, see Using PHP on Google Cloud.

Python

pip install --upgrade google-cloud-datastore

For more information, see Setting Up a Python Development Environment.

Ruby

gem install google-cloud-datastore

For more information, see Setting Up a Ruby Development Environment.

Set up authentication

To authenticate calls to Google Cloud APIs, client libraries support Application Default Credentials (ADC); the libraries look for credentials in a set of defined locations and use those credentials to authenticate requests to the API. With ADC, you can make credentials available to your application in a variety of environments, such as local development or production, without needing to modify your application code.

For production environments, the way you set up ADC depends on the service and context. For more information, see Set up Application Default Credentials.

For a local development environment, you can set up ADC with the credentials that are associated with your Google Account:

1. Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:

   gcloud init

2. If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:

   gcloud auth application-default login

   You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

   A sign-in screen appears. After you sign in, your credentials are stored in the local credential file used by ADC.

Use the client library

The following example shows how to use the client library.

C#

using Google.Cloud.Datastore.V1;

namespace GoogleCloudSamples
{
    public class QuickStart
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Your Google Cloud Platform project ID
            string projectId = "YOUR-PROJECT-ID";

            // Instantiates a client
            DatastoreDb db = DatastoreDb.Create(projectId);

            // The kind for the new entity
            string kind = "Task";
            // The name/ID for the new entity
            string name = "sampletask1";
            KeyFactory keyFactory = db.CreateKeyFactory(kind);
            // The Cloud Datastore key for the new entity
            Key key = keyFactory.CreateKey(name);

            var task = new Entity
            {
                Key = key,
                ["description"] = "Buy milk"
            };
            using (DatastoreTransaction transaction = db.BeginTransaction())
            {
                // Saves the task
                transaction.Upsert(task);
                transaction.Commit();

                Console.WriteLine($"Saved {task.Key.Path[0].Name}: {(string)task["description"]}");
            }
        }
    }
}

Go

// Sample datastore-quickstart fetches an entity from Google Cloud Datastore.
package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"log"

	"cloud.google.com/go/datastore"
)

type Task struct {
	Description string
}

func main() {
	ctx := context.Background()

	// Set your Google Cloud Platform project ID.
	projectID := "YOUR_PROJECT_ID"

	// Creates a client.
	client, err := datastore.NewClient(ctx, projectID)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("Failed to create client: %v", err)
	}
	defer client.Close()

	// Sets the kind for the new entity.
	kind := "Task"
	// Sets the name/ID for the new entity.
	name := "sampletask1"
	// Creates a Key instance.
	taskKey := datastore.NameKey(kind, name, nil)

	// Creates a Task instance.
	task := Task{
		Description: "Buy milk",
	}

	// Saves the new entity.
	if _, err := client.Put(ctx, taskKey, &task); err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("Failed to save task: %v", err)
	}

	fmt.Printf("Saved %v: %v\n", taskKey, task.Description)
}

Java

// Imports the Google Cloud client library
import com.google.cloud.datastore.Datastore;
import com.google.cloud.datastore.DatastoreOptions;
import com.google.cloud.datastore.Entity;
import com.google.cloud.datastore.Key;

public class QuickstartSample {
  public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
    // Instantiates a client
    Datastore datastore = DatastoreOptions.getDefaultInstance().getService();

    // The kind for the new entity
    String kind = "Task";
    // The name/ID for the new entity
    String name = "sampletask1";
    // The Cloud Datastore key for the new entity
    Key taskKey = datastore.newKeyFactory().setKind(kind).newKey(name);

    // Prepares the new entity
    Entity task = Entity.newBuilder(taskKey).set("description", "Buy milk").build();

    // Saves the entity
    datastore.put(task);

    System.out.printf("Saved %s: %s%n", task.getKey().getName(), task.getString("description"));

    // Retrieve entity
    Entity retrieved = datastore.get(taskKey);

    System.out.printf("Retrieved %s: %s%n", taskKey.getName(), retrieved.getString("description"));
  }
}

Node.js

// Imports the Google Cloud client library
const {Datastore} = require('@google-cloud/datastore');

// Creates a client
const datastore = new Datastore();

async function quickstart() {
  // The kind for the new entity
  const kind = 'Task';

  // The name/ID for the new entity
  const name = 'sampletask1';

  // The Cloud Datastore key for the new entity
  const taskKey = datastore.key([kind, name]);

  // Prepares the new entity
  const task = {
    key: taskKey,
    data: {
      description: 'Buy milk',
    },
  };

  // Saves the entity
  await datastore.save(task);
  console.log(`Saved ${task.key.name}: ${task.data.description}`);
}
quickstart();

PHP

# Includes the autoloader for libraries installed with composer
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

# Imports the Google Cloud client library
use Google\Cloud\Datastore\DatastoreClient;

# Your Google Cloud Platform project ID
$projectId = 'YOUR_PROJECT_ID';

# Instantiates a client
$datastore = new DatastoreClient([
    'projectId' => $projectId
]);

# The kind for the new entity
$kind = 'Task';

# The name/ID for the new entity
$name = 'sampletask1';

# The Cloud Datastore key for the new entity
$taskKey = $datastore->key($kind, $name);

# Prepares the new entity
$task = $datastore->entity($taskKey, ['description' => 'Buy milk']);

# Saves the entity
$datastore->upsert($task);

echo 'Saved ' . $task->key() . ': ' . $task['description'] . PHP_EOL;

Python

# Imports the Google Cloud client library
from google.cloud import datastore

# Instantiates a client
datastore_client = datastore.Client()

# The kind for the new entity
kind = "Task"
# The name/ID for the new entity
name = "sampletask1"
# The Cloud Datastore key for the new entity
task_key = datastore_client.key(kind, name)

# Prepares the new entity
task = datastore.Entity(key=task_key)
task["description"] = "Buy milk"

# Saves the entity
datastore_client.put(task)

print(f"Saved {task.key.name}: {task['description']}")

Ruby

# Imports the Google Cloud client library
require "google/cloud/datastore"

# Instantiate a client
datastore = Google::Cloud::Datastore.new

# The kind for the new entity
kind = "Task"
# The name/ID for the new entity
# task_name = "sampleTask"
# The Cloud Datastore key for the new entity
task_key = datastore.key kind, task_name

# Prepares the new entity
task = datastore.entity task_key do |t|
  t["description"] = "Buy milk"
end

# Saves the entity
datastore.save task

puts "Saved #{task.key.name}: #{task['description']}"
task_key = datastore.find task_key

Additional resources

C#

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for C#:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

Go

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Go:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

Java

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Java:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

Node.js

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Node.js:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

PHP

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for PHP:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

Python

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Python:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

Ruby

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Ruby:

• API reference
• Client libraries best practices
• Issue tracker
• google-cloud-datastore on Stack Overflow
• Source code

Dependency on App Engine application

See App Engine Requirement.

Google App Engine Standard Environment Client Libraries

Integrate Firestore in Datastore mode with your App Engine Standard Environment applications by using the App Engine client libraries.

Language	Library
Go	Google App Engine SDK for Go
Java	Google App Engine SDK for Java
Python 3	Google Cloud Datastore client library or the Google Cloud NDB Client Library.
Python 2	Google Cloud NDB Client Library

Warning: For App Engine applications that are written in Python 2, the Google Datastore DB Client Library and the App Engine NDB Library are no longer recommended; use the Google Cloud NDB Client Library instead. See Migrating to Cloud NDB.

Third-party Datastore API client libraries

In addition to the Google-supported client libraries listed in the tables above, a set of third-party libraries are available.

Language	Library
Java	Objectify
PHP	Datastore Library for PHP