Kafka using Java Programming

Introduction to Kafka Programming

In the previous section, we learned to create a topic, writing to a topic , and reading from the topic using Command Line Interface. The commands that a producer and consumer use to read/write messages from/to the Kafka topics.

In this section, the users will again learn to read and write messages to the Kafka topics through java code. It is expected that the users are having a basic knowledge of java.

There are few requirements which need to be fulfilled while working with Apache Kafka:

1. An IDE tool such as Notepad, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, etc.
2. JDK 1.8 is required
3. A build tool such as Gradle, Maven3, etc.

In this tutorial, we will use IntelliJ IDEA as well as Maven3 build tool for learning Apache Kafka.

What is Maven?

A maven is a build tool used mainly for Java projects. Although, it can be used to build and handle projects written in other languages also, such as Scala, Ruby, etc. Maven focuses on how a project is built, and what are its dependencies. Maven allows users to add the repositories to the java code. Maven repositories will help Kafka users to develop their projects on Kafka.

To know more about Maven, visit our 'Maven Tutorial'.

Before moving to the next section, i.e., the installation section, the user should know the following:

Group Id: It is the name of our application which should be created following the java package naming rules. The group id is used to uniquely identify each application or group.

Artifact Id: An artifact id is the name of the jar file. Maven will package our application to this jar file with the name specified by the user.

Version: It is the version number created by the user for its application or group id.