What is returned by a producer.send() call in the Java API?

Question

Options

• AFuture<ProducerRecord> object
• BA Boolean indicating if the call succeeded
• CFuture<RecordMetadata> object
• DUnit

• A
  4% (1)
• C
  92% (24)
• D
  4% (1)

Explanation

producer.send() in the Kafka Java API returns a Future<RecordMetadata> because sending is asynchronous - the call dispatches the record to an internal buffer and returns immediately with a future you can block on or attach a callback to. RecordMetadata contains the topic, partition, and offset where the record was actually written, which Kafka only knows after broker acknowledgment.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A (Future<ProducerRecord>) - ProducerRecord is the input type (what you send), not the result. The future holds metadata about where it landed, not a copy of what you sent.
• B (Boolean) - Kafka's async model doesn't reduce to a simple pass/fail boolean; you get structured metadata or an exception via the future.
• D (Unit) - send() is not fire-and-forget void; it explicitly returns the future so callers can optionally confirm delivery.

Memory tip: Think "send → future of where it went." You sent a ProducerRecord in, and you get back metadata about its destination (partition + offset) out - hence Future<RecordMetadata>.

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