ProducerRecord

A ProducerRecord is a fundamental class in Apache Kafka's producer API. It represents a single record intended for sending to a Kafka topic. Each ProducerRecord contains several key pieces of information. The topic name specifies which Kafka topic the record should be published to. A key is optional but highly recommended for partitioning. When a key is provided, Kafka uses it to determine which partition within the topic the record will be sent to, ensuring that all records with the same key go to the same partition. This is crucial for maintaining order for a given key. The value is the actual data being sent, which can be any serializable object. Optionally, a ProducerRecord can also include metadata such as a timestamp and partition number. The timestamp is useful for event-time processing, while explicitly setting the partition can override the default key-based partitioning. When a producer sends a ProducerRecord, it serializes the key and value into byte arrays before transmitting them to the Kafka broker. The ProducerRecord acts as a container for this data and its associated routing information, simplifying the process of publishing messages to Kafka.