protected List<TCell> getVerTs(ByteBuffer tableName, ByteBuffer row, byte[] family,
    byte[] qualifier, long timestamp, int numVersions, Map<ByteBuffer, ByteBuffer> attributes)
    throws IOError {

    Table table = null;
    try {
      table = getTable(tableName);
      Get get = new Get(getBytes(row));
      addAttributes(get, attributes);
      if (null == qualifier) {
        get.addFamily(family);
      } else {
        get.addColumn(family, qualifier);
      }
      get.setTimeRange(0, timestamp);
      get.readVersions(numVersions);
      Result result = table.get(get);
      return ThriftUtilities.cellFromHBase(result.rawCells());
    } catch (IOException e) {
      LOG.warn(e.getMessage(), e);
      throw getIOError(e);
    } finally {
      closeTable(table);
    }
  }
Note: this internal interface is slightly different from public APIs in regard to handling of
the qualifier. Here we differ from the public Java API in that null != byte[0]. Rather, we
respect qual == null as a request for the entire column family. The caller (
{@link #getVerTs(ByteBuffer, ByteBuffer, ByteBuffer, long, int, Map)}) interface IS consistent
in that the column is parse like normal.
hbase-thrift/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftHBaseServiceHandler.java