Is it possible to send an initial value? - spring-webflux

I have a web method that returns a flux object when it will be time (it's linked to a pub/sub).
Would it at least be possible, only for the first call, to return a default?
public Flux<String> receiveStream() {
return myReactiveService.getData() //here can I return a value at start? //.map(...);

It is not that easy to do it "only for the first call". Each request is supposed to get its own sequence of Strings, unless you take specific steps to change that. And that is at two levels:
- WebFlux: each request leads to a separate invocation of the controller method, so the Flux is newly instantiated
- Reactor: most Flux are "cold", ie they don't generate data until they're subscribed to, and each subscription regenerates a separate dataset.
So even if you returned a cached Flux, it would probably still serve each request separately.
There is a way to share() a long-lived Flux so that later newcomers only see data that becomes available after they've subscribed to the shared Flux, which could help with the "only the first request" aspect of your requirement.
Assuming getData() by itself is cold (ie simply calling it doesn't trigger any meaningful processing):
AtomicReference<Flux<String>> sharedStream = new AtomicReference<>();
public Flux<String> receiveStream() {
Flux<String> result = sharedStream.get();
if (result == null) {
Flux<String> coldVersionWithInit = myReactiveService
.getData()
.startWith(FIRST_VALUE)
.map(...);
Flux<String> hotVersion = coldVersionWithInit.share();
if (sharedStream.compareAndSet(null, hotVersion))
result = hotVersion;
else
result = sharedStream.get();
}
return result;
}

i think what you are looking for is Flux#defaultIfEmpty

Related

Chaining Reactive Asynchronus calls in spring

I’m very new to the SpringReactor project.
Until now I've only used Mono from WebClient .bodyToMono() steps, and mostly block() those Mono's or .zip() multiple of them.
But this time I have a usecase where I need to asynchronously call methods in multiple service classes, and those multiple service classes are calling multiple backend api.
I understand Project Reactor doesn't provide asynchronous flow by default.
But we can make the publishing and/or subscribing on different thread and make code asynchronous
And that's what I am trying to do.
I tried to read the documentation here reactor reference but still not clear.
For the purpose of this question, I’m making up this imaginary scenario. that is a little closer to my use case.
Let's assume we need to get a search response from google for some texts searched under images.
Example Scenario
Let's have an endpoint in a Controller
This endpoint accepts the following object from request body
MultimediaSearchRequest{
Set<String> searchTexts; //many texts.
boolean isAddContent;
boolean isAddMetadata;
}
in the controller, I’ll break the above single request object into multiple objects of the below type.
MultimediaSingleSearchRequest{
String searchText;
boolean isAddContent;
boolean isAddMetadata;
}
This Controller talks to 3 Service classes.
Each of the service classes has a method searchSingleItem.
Each service class uses a few different backend Apis, but finally combines the results of those APIs responses into the same type of response class, let's call it MultimediaSearchResult.
class JpegSearchHandleService {
public MultimediaSearchResult searchSingleItem
(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req){
return comboneAllImageData(
getNameApi(req),
getImageUrlApi(req),
getContentApi(req) //dont call if req.isAddContent false
)
}
}
class GifSearchHandleService {
public MultimediaSearchResult searchSingleItem
(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req){
return comboneAllImageData(
getNameApi(req),
gitPartApi(req),
someRandomApi(req),
soemOtherRandomApi(req)
)
}
}
class VideoSearchHandleService {
public MultimediaSearchResult searchSingleItem
(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req){
return comboneAllImageData(
getNameApi(req),
codecApi(req),
commentsApi(req),
anotherApi(req)
)
}
}
In the end, my controller returns the response as a List of MultimediaSearchResult
Class MultimediaSearchResponse{
List< MultimediaSearchResult> results;
}
If I want to use this all asynchronously using the project reactor. how to achieve it.
Like calling searchSingleItem method in each service for each searchText asynchronously.
Even within the services call each backend API asynchronously (I’m already using WebClient and converting response bodyToMono for backend API calls)
First, I will outline a solution for the upper "layer" of your scenario.
The code (a simple simulation of the scenario):
public class ChainingAsyncCallsInSpring {
public Mono<MultimediaSearchResponse> controllerEndpoint(MultimediaSearchRequest req) {
return Flux.fromIterable(req.getSearchTexts())
.map(searchText -> new MultimediaSingleSearchRequest(searchText, req.isAddContent(), req.isAddMetadata()))
.flatMap(multimediaSingleSearchRequest -> Flux.merge(
classOneSearchSingleItem(multimediaSingleSearchRequest),
classTwoSearchSingleItem(multimediaSingleSearchRequest),
classThreeSearchSingleItem(multimediaSingleSearchRequest)
))
.collectList()
.map(MultimediaSearchResponse::new);
}
private Mono<MultimediaSearchResult> classOneSearchSingleItem(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return Mono.just(new MultimediaSearchResult("1"));
}
private Mono<MultimediaSearchResult> classTwoSearchSingleItem(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return Mono.just(new MultimediaSearchResult("2"));
}
private Mono<MultimediaSearchResult> classThreeSearchSingleItem(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return Mono.just(new MultimediaSearchResult("3"));
}
}
Now, some rationale.
In the controllerEndpoint() function, first we create a Flux that will emit every single searchText from the request. We map these to MultimediaSingleSearchRequest objects, so that the services can consume them with the additional metadata that was provided with the original request.
Then, Flux::flatMap the created MultimediaSingleSearchRequest objects into a merged Flux, which (as opposed to Flux::concat) ensures that all three publishers are subscribed to eagerly i.e. they don't wait for one another. It works best on this exact scenario, when several independent publishers need to be subscribed to at the same time and their order is not important.
After the flat map, at this point, we have a Flux<MultimediaSearchResult>.
We continue with Flux::collectList, thus collecting the emitted values from all publishers (we could also use Flux::reduceWith here).
As a result, we now have a Mono<List<MultimediaSearchResult>>, which can easily be mapped to a Mono<MultimediaSearchResponse>.
The results list of the MultimediaSearchResponse will have 3 items for each searchText in the original request.
Hope this was helpful!
Edit
Extending the answer with a point of view from the service classes as well. Assuming that each inner (optionally skipped) call returns a different type of result, this would be one way of going about it:
public class MultimediaSearchResult {
private Details details;
private ContentDetails content;
private MetadataDetails metadata;
}
public Mono<MultimediaSearchResult> classOneSearchSingleItem(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return Mono.zip(getSomeDetails(req), getContentDetails(req), getMetadataDetails(req))
.map(tuple3 -> new MultimediaSearchResult(
tuple3.getT1(),
tuple3.getT2().orElse(null),
tuple3.getT3().orElse(null)
)
);
}
// Always wanted
private Mono<Details> getSomeDetails(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return Mono.just(new Details("details")); // api call etc.
}
// Wanted if isAddContent is true
private Mono<Optional<ContentDetails>> getContentDetails(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return req.isAddContent()
? Mono.just(Optional.of(new ContentDetails("content-details"))) // api call etc.
: Mono.just(Optional.empty());
}
// Wanted if isAddMetadata is true
private Mono<Optional<MetadataDetails>> getMetadataDetails(MultimediaSingleSearchRequest req) {
return req.isAddMetadata()
? Mono.just(Optional.of(new MetadataDetails("metadata-details"))) // api call etc.
: Mono.just(Optional.empty());
}
Optionals are used for the requests that might be skipped, since Mono::zip will fail if either of the zipped publishers emit an empty value.
If the results of each inner call extend the same base class or are the same wrapped return type, then the original answer applies as to how they can be combined (Flux::merge etc.)

How to manually update a kotlin flow

I'm trying to update the source of a Flow in Kotlin and I'm not sure if this is the right approach and if it's possible with Flow at all.
I have a database containing posts for a user and this returns me a Flow<List<Post>>.
Now when I select another user I want the flow of the database to return me the posts of the newly selected user:
lateinit var userPosts: Flow<List<Post>>
private set
fun getPostsForUser(user: User) {
userPosts = database.getAllPostsForUser(user)
}
But the flow never gets updated with the data of the new selected user. Is Flow still the right choice in this case and if yes, how can I update the flow with the new posts?
I know how to do it manually with fetching data from the database and emitting it using LiveData, but I would like to avoid handling the update of posts everytime the user posts something new or a post is deleted.
I think maybe you're collecting one flow, and then setting a user, which changes the flow in the property, but not any existing previous flow that's already being collected. I'm not sure how else to explain what's happening.
It may be error-prone to have a public Flow property that is reliant on some other function that takes a parameter. You could return a Flow directly from the function so there is no ambiguity about the behavior. The fragment requests a Flow for a specific User and immediately gets it.
distinctUntilChanged() will prevent it from emitting an unchanged list that results from other changes in the repo.
fun getPostsForUser(user: User) Flow<List<Post>> =
database.getAllPostsForUser(user).distinctUntilChanged()
If you do want to use your pattern, I think it you could do it like this. This allows there to only ever be one Flow so it's safe to start collecting it early. Changing the user will change which values it's publishing. Although this is more complicated than above, it has the advantage of not requiring a data refresh on screen rotations and other config changes.
private val mutableUserPosts = MutableStateFlow<List<Post>>(emptyList())
val userPosts: Flow<List<Post>> = mutableUserPosts
private var userPostsJob: Job? = null
var user: User? = null
set(value) {
field = value
userPostsJob?.cancel()
value ?: return
userPostsJob = database.getAllPostsForUser(value)
.onEach { mutableUserPosts.emit(it) }
.launchIn(viewModelScope)
}
Or as Joffrey suggests, it's simpler with a User Flow if you don't mind using the unstable API function flatMapLatest. The user property here could be dropped if you don't mind exposing a public mutable flow where the value should be set externally. Or if you use this pattern repeatedly, you could make operator extension functions for StateFlow/MutableStateFlow to use it as a property delegate.
private val userFlow = MutableStateFlow<User?>(null)
var user: User?
get() = userFlow.value
set(value) {
userFlow.value = value
}
val userPosts: Flow<List<Post>> = userFlow.flatMapLatest { user ->
if (user == null) emptyFlow() else database.getAllPostsForUser(user)
}
This might be helpful for someone...
When you are collecting a flow downstream and in some situations, you need an updated flow or a completely different flow than before, Use flatmapLatest() function.
Example:
There is a flow of search results in an app. When a user enters a search text flow automatically should update with the latest data according to searched chars.
Place the query text in a StateFlow as,
private var _userSearchText = MutableStateFlow("")
val userSearchText = _userSearchText.asStateFlow()
as the user enters text just update the Stateflow as,
fun setUserNameSearchText(data: String) {
_userSearchText.value = data
}
and your flow collecting like,
val response = userSearchText.flatMapLatest {
searchRepository.getResults(it)
.cachedIn(viewModelScope)
}
Stateflow will trigger the API calls automatically. It will notify all the observers on them.
PS: Open to improving...

Spring webflux : consume mono or flux from request

I have a resource API that handles an object (Product for example).
I use PUT to update this object in the database.
And I want to return just en empty Mono to the user.
There is my code :
public Mono<ServerResponse> updateProduct(ServerRequest request){
Mono<Product> productReceived = request.bodyToMono(Product.class);
Mono<Product> result = productReceived.flatMap(item -> {
doSomeThing(item);
System.out.println("Called or not called!!");
return Mono.just(productService.product);
}).subscribe();
return ok()
.contentType(APPLICATION_JSON)
.body(Mono.empty(), Product.class);
}
The problem is my method doSomeThing() and the println are not called.
NB: I use subscribe but doesn't work.
Thanks.
I had a similar issue when I was new to Webflux. In short, you can't call subscribe on the request body and asynchronously return a response because the subscription might not have enough time to read the body. You can see a full explanation of a similar issue here.
To make your code work, you should couple the response with your logic stream. It should be something like the following:
public Mono<ServerResponse> updateProduct(ServerRequest request){
return request
.bodyToMono(Product.class)
.flatMap(item -> {
doSomeThing(item);
System.out.println("Called or not called!!");
return Mono.just(productService.product);
})
.then(ServerResponse.ok().build());
}

What happens when flux is returned from spring web controller?

I am comparatively new to reactive APIs and was curious about what was happening behind the scenes when we return a Flux from a web controller.
According to spring-web documentation
Reactive return values are handled as follows:
A single-value promise is adapted to, similar to using DeferredResult. Examples include Mono (Reactor) or Single (RxJava).
A multi-value stream with a streaming media type (such as application/stream+json or text/event-stream) is adapted to, similar to using ResponseBodyEmitter or SseEmitter. Examples include Flux (Reactor) or Observable (RxJava). Applications can also return Flux or Observable.
A multi-value stream with any other media type (such as application/json) is adapted to, similar to using DeferredResult<List<?>>.
I created two APIs as below:
#GetMapping("/async-deferredresult")
public DeferredResult<List<String>> handleReqDefResult(Model model) {
LOGGER.info("Received async-deferredresult request");
DeferredResult<List<String>> output = new DeferredResult<>();
ForkJoinPool.commonPool().submit(() -> {
LOGGER.info("Processing in separate thread");
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < 10000 ; i++) {
list.add(String.valueOf(i));
}
output.setResult(list);
});
LOGGER.info("servlet thread freed");
return output;
}
#GetMapping(value = "/async-flux",produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
public Flux<String> handleReqDefResult1(Model model) {
LOGGER.info("Received async-deferredresult request");
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
list.stream();
for (int i = 0; i < 10000 ; i++) {
list.add(String.valueOf(i));
}
return Flux.fromIterable(list);
}
So the exception was that both APIs should behave same as multi-value stream(Flux) should have similar behavior to that of a returning a DeferredResult. But in API where deferred result was returned, whole list was printed in one go on browser where as in API where Flux was returned the numbers where printed sequentially(one by one).
What exactly is happening when I am returning Flux from controller ?
When we return a Flux from a service endpoint many things can happen. But I assume you want to know what is happening when Flux observed as stream of events from client of this endpoint.
Scenario One: By adding 'application/json' as the content type of the endpoint Spring will communicate to the client to expect JSON body.
#GetMapping(value = "/async-flux", produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE)
public Flux<String> handleReqDefResult1(Model model) {
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < 10000; i++) {
list.add(String.valueOf(i));
}
return Flux.fromIterable(list);
}
The output at the client will be the whole set of numbers in one go. And once the response delivered the connection will be closed. Even though you have used Flux as the response type, you are still bound the laws of how HTTP over TCP/IP works. The endpoint got a HTTP request, execute the logic and respond with HTTP response containing final result.
As a result, you do not see the real value of a reactive api.
Scenario Two: By adding 'application/stream+json' as the content type of the endpoint, Spring starts to treat the resulting events of the Flux stream as individual JSON items. When an item is emitted is gets serialised, the HTTP response buffer is flushed, and the connection from the server to client keep open up until the event sequence get completed.
To get that working we can slightly modify your original code as follows.
#GetMapping(value = "/async-flux",produces = MediaType.APPLICATION_STREAM_JSON_VALUE)
public Flux<String> handleReqDefResult1(Model model) {
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < 10000 ; i++) {
list.add(String.valueOf(i));
}
return Flux.fromIterable(list)
// we have 1 sec delay to demonstrate the difference of behaviour.
.delayElements(Duration.ofSeconds(1));
}
This time we can see the real value of reactive api endpoint where it is able to deliver results to it's client as date get available.
You can find more details about how to build reactive REST APIs at
https://medium.com/#senanayake.kalpa/building-reactive-rest-apis-in-java-part-1-cd2c34af55c6
https://medium.com/#senanayake.kalpa/building-reactive-rest-apis-in-java-part-2-bd270d4cdf3f

Spring WebFlux Web Client - Iterating paged REST API

I need to get the items from all pages of a pageable REST API. I also need to start processing items, as soon as they are available, not needing to wait for all the pages to be loaded. In order to do so, I'm using Spring WebFlux and its WebClient, and want to return Flux<Item>.
Also, the REST API I'm using is rate limited, and each response to it contains headers with details on the current limits:
Size of the current window
Remaining time in the current window
Request quota in window
Requests left in current window
The response to a single page request looks like:
{
"data": [],
"meta": {
"pagination": {
"total": 10,
"current": 1
}
}
}
The data array contains the actual items, while the meta object contains pagination info.
My current solution first does a "dummy" request, just to get the total number of pages, and the rate limits.
Mono<T> paginated = client.get()
.uri(uri)
.exchange()
.flatMap(response -> {
HttpHeaders headers = response.headers().asHttpHeaders();
Limits limits = new Limits();
limits.setWindowSize(headers.getFirst("X-Window-Size"));
limits.setWindowRemaining(headers.getFirst("X-Window-Remaining"));
limits.setRequestsQuota(headers.getFirst("X-Requests-Quota");
limits.setRequestsLeft(headers.getFirst("X-Requests-Remaining");
return response.bodyToMono(Paginated.class)
.map(paginated -> {
paginated.setLimits(limits);
return paginated;
});
});
Afterwards, I emit a Flux containing page numbers, and for each page, I do a REST API request, each request being delayed enough so it doesn't get past the limit, and return a Flux of extracted items:
return paginated.flatMapMany(paginated -> {
return Flux.range(1, paginated.getMeta().getPagination().getTotal())
.delayElements(Duration.ofMillis(paginated.getLimits().getWindowRemaining() / paginated.getLimits().getRequestsQuota()))
.flatMap(page -> {
return client.get()
.uri(pageUri)
.retrieve()
.bodyToMono(Item.class)
.flatMapMany(p -> Flux.fromIterable(p.getData()));
});
});
This does work, but I'm not happy with it because:
It does initial "dummy" request to get the number of pages, and then
repeats the same request to get the actual data.
It gets rate limits only with the initial request, and assumes the
limits won't change (eg, that it's the only one using the API) -
which may not be true, in which case it will get an error that it
exceeded the limit.
So my question is how to refactor it so it doesn't need the initial request (but rather get limits, page numbers and data from the first request, and continue through all pages, while updating (and respecting) the limits.
I think this code will do what you want. The idea is to make a flux that make a call to your resource server, but in the process to handle the response, to add a new event on that flux to be able to make the call to next page.
The code is composed of:
A simple wrapper to contains the next page to call and the delay to wait before executing the call
private class WaitAndNext{
private String next;
private long delay;
}
A FluxProcessor that will make HTTP call and process the response:
FluxProcessor<WaitAndNext, WaitAndNext> processor= DirectProcessor.<WaitAndNext>create();
FluxSink<WaitAndNext> sink=processor.sink();
processor
.flatMap(x-> Mono.just(x).delayElement(Duration.ofMillis(x.delay)))
.map(x-> WebClient.builder()
.baseUrl(x.next)
.defaultHeader("Accept","application/json")
.build())
.flatMap(x->x.get()
.exchange()
.flatMapMany(z->manageResponse(sink, z))
)
.subscribe(........);
I split the code with a method that only manage response: It simply unwrap your data AND add a new event to the sink (the event beeing the next page to call after the given delay)
private Flux<Data> manageResponse(FluxSink<WaitAndNext> sink, ClientResponse resp) {
if (resp.statusCode()!= HttpStatus.OK){
sink.error(new IllegalStateException("Status code invalid"));
}
WaitAndNext wn=new WaitAndNext();
HttpHeaders headers=resp.headers().asHttpHeaders();
wn.delay= Integer.parseInt(headers.getFirst("X-Window-Remaining"))/ Integer.parseInt(headers.getFirst("X-Requests-Quota"));
return resp.bodyToMono(Item.class)
.flatMapMany(p -> {
if (p.paginated.current==p.paginated.total){
sink.complete();
}else{
wn.next="https://....?page="+(p.paginated.current+1);
sink.next(wn);
}
return Flux.fromIterable(p.getData());
});
}
Now we just need to initialize the system by calling for the retrieval of the first page with no delay:
WaitAndNext wn=new WaitAndNext();
wn.next="https://....?page=1";
wn.delay=0;
sink.next(wn);