Develop Reference

Inject multiple remote EJBs in bean

In Java EE, if I have an interface:
#Remote
public interface MetaService {
ServiceData get();
}
And I have, in an ear 2 implementations:
#Stateless
public class Service1MetaService implements Calculator {
#Override
public ServiceData get() {...}
}
#Stateless
public class Service2MetaService implements Calculator {
#Override
public ServiceData get() {...}
}
I can create a bean, where:
#Stateless
public class View {
#Inject
private Instance<MetaService> metaServices;
...
}
And in View, the field metaServices will have the 2 implementations of MetaService.
I'd like similar functionality with remote beans.
So let's say, I have the above interface and implementations, but the packaging is different.
In base.jar I have the MetaService interface. This is packaged will all the subsequent applications mentioned below.
In a.ear I have the Service1MetaService implementation, while in b.ear I have the Service2MetaService implementation and in c.war I have the View class, which would like to use these implementations.
But as you would expect, the injected Instance is empty (not null tho). Is there a way to find the remote bean references in my injected Instance instance, even though these implementations are in separate applications?
One important thing is that in the View class I don't know and don't care about the number of these implementations, nor the names of the applications they are deployed in. So there is no way for me to use specific JNDI strings to get these references.
P.S.: Should I try and use technologies like JMS instead? So that I call the method add on a JMS proxy, which sends out the requests and waits for answers from all the applications that implement said interface?
P.S.: To clarify, the reason I need this is actually so that I can get data of running services on my application server(s). I updated the example interface and implementations, so that it's more clear. Also, it would be nice, if I could get these metadata synchronously, so JMS is not neccessarily prefered, however I can probably make it work.

I managed to convince myself to move away from remote EJBs. Well, it was also thanks to #chrylis-onstrike- as well, however, I'll opt for using JMS for this purpose.
The reason is that I can broadcast a request for the different services I need data from on-demand, enabling me to check for new services going online, or services failing.
Thanks to everyone who spent time trying to help me out.

If Spring can successfully intercept intra class function calls in a #Configuration class, why does it not support it in a regular bean?

I have recently noticed that Spring successfully intercepts intra class function calls in a #Configuration class but not in a regular bean.
A call like this
#Repository
public class CustomerDAO {
#Transactional(value=TxType.REQUIRED)
public void saveCustomer() {
// some DB stuff here...
saveCustomer2();
}
#Transactional(value=TxType.REQUIRES_NEW)
public void saveCustomer2() {
// more DB stuff here
}
}
fails to start a new transaction because while the code of saveCustomer() executes in the CustomerDAO proxy, the code of saveCustomer2() gets executed in the unwrapped CustomerDAO class, as I can see by looking at 'this' in the debugger, and so Spring has no chance to intercept the call to saveCustomer2.
However, in the following example, when transactionManager() calls createDataSource() it is correctly intercepted and calls createDataSource() of the proxy, not of the unwrapped class, as evidenced by looking at 'this' in the debugger.
#Configuration
public class PersistenceJPAConfig {
#Bean
public DriverManagerDataSource createDataSource() {
DriverManagerDataSource dataSource = new DriverManagerDataSource();
//dataSource.set ... DB stuff here
return dataSource;
}
#Bean
public PlatformTransactionManager transactionManager( ){
DataSourceTransactionManager transactionManager = new DataSourceTransactionManager(createDataSource());
return transactionManager;
}
}
So my question is, why can Spring correctly intercept the intra class function calls in the second example, but not in the first. Is it using different types of dynamic proxies?
Edit:
From the answers here and other sources I now understand the following:
#Transactional is implemented using Spring AOP, where the proxy pattern is carried out by wrapping/composition of the user class. The AOP proxy is generic enough so that many Aspects can be chained together, and may be a CGLib proxy or a Java Dynamic Proxy.
In the #Configuration class, Spring also uses CGLib to create an enhanced class which inherits from the user #Configuration class, and overrides the user's #Bean functions with ones that do some extra work before calling the user's/super function such as check if this is the first invocation of the function or not. Is this class a proxy? It depends on the definition. You may say that it is a proxy which uses inheritance from the real object instead of wrapping it using composition.
To sum up, from the answers given here I understand these are two entirely different mechanisms. Why these design choices were made is another, open question.

Is it using different types of dynamic proxies?
Almost exactly
Let's figure out what's the difference between #Configuration classes and AOP proxies answering the following questions:
Why self-invoked #Transactional method has no transactional semantics even though Spring is capable of intercepting self-invoked methods?
How #Configuration and AOP are related?
Why self-invoked #Transactional method has no transactional semantics?
Short answer:
This is how AOP made.
Long answer:
Declarative transaction management relies on AOP (for the majority of Spring applications on Spring AOP)
The Spring Framework’s declarative transaction management is made possible with Spring aspect-oriented programming (AOP)
It is proxy-based (§5.8.1. Understanding AOP Proxies)
Spring AOP is proxy-based.
From the same paragraph SimplePojo.java:
public class SimplePojo implements Pojo {
public void foo() {
// this next method invocation is a direct call on the 'this' reference
this.bar();
}
public void bar() {
// some logic...
}
}
And a snippet proxying it:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ProxyFactory factory = new ProxyFactory(new SimplePojo());
factory.addInterface(Pojo.class);
factory.addAdvice(new RetryAdvice());
Pojo pojo = (Pojo) factory.getProxy();
// this is a method call on the proxy!
pojo.foo();
}
}
The key thing to understand here is that the client code inside the main(..) method of the Main class has a reference to the proxy.
This means that method calls on that object reference are calls on the proxy.
As a result, the proxy can delegate to all of the interceptors (advice) that are relevant to that particular method call.
However, once the call has finally reached the target object (the SimplePojo, reference in this case), any method calls that it may make on itself, such as this.bar() or this.foo(), are going to be invoked against the this reference, and not the proxy.
This has important implications. It means that self-invocation is not going to result in the advice associated with a method invocation getting a chance to execute.
(Key parts are emphasized.)
You may think that aop works as follows:
Imagine we have a Foo class which we want to proxy:
Foo.java:
public class Foo {
public int getInt() {
return 42;
}
}
There is nothing special. Just getInt method returning 42
An interceptor:
Interceptor.java:
public interface Interceptor {
Object invoke(InterceptingFoo interceptingFoo);
}
LogInterceptor.java (for demonstration):
public class LogInterceptor implements Interceptor {
#Override
public Object invoke(InterceptingFoo interceptingFoo) {
System.out.println("log. before");
try {
return interceptingFoo.getInt();
} finally {
System.out.println("log. after");
}
}
}
InvokeTargetInterceptor.java:
public class InvokeTargetInterceptor implements Interceptor {
#Override
public Object invoke(InterceptingFoo interceptingFoo) {
try {
System.out.println("Invoking target");
Object targetRetVal = interceptingFoo.method.invoke(interceptingFoo.target);
System.out.println("Target returned " + targetRetVal);
return targetRetVal;
} catch (Throwable t) {
throw new RuntimeException(t);
} finally {
System.out.println("Invoked target");
}
}
}
Finally InterceptingFoo.java:
public class InterceptingFoo extends Foo {
public Foo target;
public List<Interceptor> interceptors = new ArrayList<>();
public int index = 0;
public Method method;
#Override
public int getInt() {
try {
Interceptor interceptor = interceptors.get(index++);
return (Integer) interceptor.invoke(this);
} finally {
index--;
}
}
}
Wiring everything together:
public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {
Foo target = new Foo();
InterceptingFoo interceptingFoo = new InterceptingFoo();
interceptingFoo.method = Foo.class.getDeclaredMethod("getInt");
interceptingFoo.target = target;
interceptingFoo.interceptors.add(new LogInterceptor());
interceptingFoo.interceptors.add(new InvokeTargetInterceptor());
interceptingFoo.getInt();
interceptingFoo.getInt();
}
Will print:
log. before
Invoking target
Target returned 42
Invoked target
log. after
log. before
Invoking target
Target returned 42
Invoked target
log. after
Now let's take a look at ReflectiveMethodInvocation.
Here is a part of its proceed method:
Object interceptorOrInterceptionAdvice = this.interceptorsAndDynamicMethodMatchers.get(++this.currentInterceptorIndex);
++this.currentInterceptorIndex should look familiar now
Here is the target
And there are interceptors
the method
the index
You may try introducing several aspects into your application and see the stack growing at the proceed method when advised method is invoked
Finally everything ends up at MethodProxy.
From its invoke method javadoc:
Invoke the original method, on a different object of the same type.
And as I mentioned previously documentation:
once the call has finally reached the target object any method calls that it may make on itself are going to be invoked against the this reference, and not the proxy
I hope now, more or less, it's clear why.
How #Configuration and AOP are related?
The answer is they are not related.
So Spring here is free to do whatever it wants. Here it is not tied to the proxy AOP semantics.
It enhances such classes using ConfigurationClassEnhancer.
Take a look at:
CALLBACKS
BeanMethodInterceptor
BeanFactoryAwareMethodInterceptor
Returning to the question
If Spring can successfully intercept intra class function calls in a #Configuration class, why does it not support it in a regular bean?
I hope from technical point of view it is clear why.
Now my thoughts from non-technical side:
I think it is not done because Spring AOP is here long enough...
Since Spring Framework 5 the Spring WebFlux framework has been introduced.
Currently Spring Team is working hard towards enhancing reactive programming model
See some notable recent blog posts:
Reactive Transactions with Spring
Spring Data R2DBC 1.0 M2 and Spring Boot starter released
Going Reactive with Spring, Coroutines and Kotlin Flow
More and more features towards less-proxying approach of building Spring applications are introduced. (see this commit for example)
So I think that even though it might be possible to do what you've described it is far from Spring Team's #1 priority for now

Because AOP proxies and #Configuration class serve a different purpose, and are implemented in a significantly different ways (even though both involve using proxies).
Basically, AOP uses composition while #Configuration uses inheritance.
AOP proxies
The way these work is basically that they create proxies that do the relevant advice logic before/after delegating the call to the original (proxied) object. The container registers this proxy instead of the proxied object itself, so all dependencies are set to this proxy and all calls from one bean to another go through this proxy. However, the proxied object itself has no pointer to the proxy (it doesn't know it's proxied, only the proxy has a pointer to the target object). So any calls within that object to other methods don't go through the proxy.
(I'm only adding this here for contrast with #Configuration, since you seem to have correct understanding of this part.)
#Configuration
Now while the objects that you usually apply the AOP proxy to are a standard part of your application, the #Configuration class is different - for one, you probably never intend to create any instances of that class directly yourself. This class truly is just a way to write configuration of the bean container, has no meaning outside Spring and you know that it will be used by Spring in a special way and that it has some special semantics outside of just plain Java code - e.g. that #Bean-annotated methods actually define Spring beans.
Because of this, Spring can do much more radical things to this class without worrying that it will break something in your code (remember, you know that you only provide this class for Spring, and you aren't going to ever create or use its instance directly).
What it actually does is it creates a proxy that's subclass of the #Configuration class. This way, it can intercept invocation of every (non-final non-private) method of the #Configuration class, even within the same object (because the methods are effectively all overriden by the proxy, and Java has all the methods virtual). The proxy does exactly this to redirect any method calls that it recognizes to be (semantically) references to Spring beans to the actual bean instances instead of invoking the superclass method.

read a bit spring source code. I try to answer it.
the point is how spring deal with the #Configurationand #bean.
in the ConfigurationClassPostProcessor which is a BeanFactoryPostProcessor, it will enhance all ConfigurationClasses and creat a Enhancer as a subClass.
this Enhancer register two CALLBACKS(BeanMethodInterceptor,BeanFactoryAwareMethodInterceptor).
you call PersistenceJPAConfig method will go through the CALLBACKS. in BeanMethodInterceptor,it will get bean from spring container.
it may be not clearly. you can see the source code in ConfigurationClassEnhancer.java BeanMethodInterceptor.ConfigurationClassPostProcessor.java enhanceConfigurationClasses

You can't call #Transactional method in same class
It's a limitation of Spring AOP (dynamic objects and cglib).
If you configure Spring to use AspectJ to handle the transactions, your code will work.
The simple and probably best alternative is to refactor your code. For example one class that handles users and one that process each user. Then default transaction handling with Spring AOP will work.
Also #Transactional should be on Service layer and not on #Repository
transactions belong on the Service layer. It's the one that knows about units of work and use cases. It's the right answer if you have several DAOs injected into a Service that need to work together in a single transaction.
So you need to rethink your transaction approach, so your methods can be reuse in a flow including several other DAO operations that are roll-able

Spring uses proxying for method invocation and when you use this... it bypasses that proxy. For #Bean annotations Spring uses reflection to find them.

Spring Async for batch insertion

I'm using spring boot. I was new to spring and started a spring project. So I didn't know about pre defined repositories (JPA, CRUD) which can be easily implemented. In case, I wanted to save a bulk data, so I use for loop and save one by one, Its taking more time. So I tried to use #Async. But it doesn't also work, is my concept wrong?
#Async has two limitation
it must be applied to public methods only
self-invocation – calling the async method from within the same class won’t work
1) Controller
for(i=0;i < array.length();i++){
// Other codes
gaugeCategoryService.saveOrUpdate(getEditCategory);
}
2) Dao implementation
#Repository
public class GaugeCategoryDaoImpl implements GaugeCategoryDao {
// Other codings
#Async
#Override
public void saveOrUpdate(GaugeCategory GaugeCategory) {
sessionFactory.getCurrentSession().saveOrUpdate(GaugeCategory);
}
}
After removing #Async , it working normally. But with that annotation it doesn't work. Is there any alternative method for time consuming? Thanks in advance.

the #Async annotation creates a thread for every time you call that method. but you need to enable it in your class using this annotation #EnableAsync
You also need to configure the asyncExecutor Bean.
You can find more details here : https://spring.io/guides/gs/async-method/

In my opinion, there are several issues with your code:
You overwrite the saveOrUpdate() method without any need to do so. A simple call to "super()" should have been enough to make #Async work.
I guess that you somewhere (within your controller class?) declare a transactional context. That one usually applies to the current thread. By using #Async, you might leave this transaction context as (because of the async DAO execution), the main thread may already be finished when saveOrUpdate() is called. And even though I currently don't know it exactly, there is a good change that the declared transaction is only valid for the current thread.
One possble fix: create an additional component like AsyncGaugeCategoryService or so like this:
#Component
public class AsyncGaugeCategoryService {
private final GaugeCategoryDao gaugeCategoryDao;
#Autowired
public AsyncGaugeCategoryService(GaugeCategoryDao gaugeCategoryDao) {
this.gaugeCategoryDao = gaugeCategoryDao;
}
#Async
#Transactional
public void saveOrUpdate(GaugeCategory gaugeCategory) {
gaugeCategoryDao.saveOrUpdate(gaugeCategory);
}
}
Then inject the service instead of the DAO into your controller class. This way, you don't need to overwrite any methods, and you should have a valid transactional context within your async thread.
But be warned that your execution flow won't give you any hint if something goes wrong while storing into the database. You'll have to check the log files to detect any problems.

EJB Priority over same binding name

Say I have an EJB with the following configuration:
package com.main.notsimulated
#Singleton
#EJB(name = "java:/sample/MainOne", beanInterface = MainOne.class)
public class MainOne {}
This ejb needs to be present for some other deployables to work. However, using this MainOne modue is not very feasable for me in a testing env. Instead, I would rather inject my own custom version at runtime.
package com.main.simulated
#Singleton
#EJB(name = "java:/sample/MainOne", beanInterface = MainOne.class)
public class MainOne {}
(Note, these are two different jar files)
Hence, my idea here is, let's try to replace the currently deployed with a custom version on the fly. The reason I want to do this is because I do not want to change the nonsimulated version at all, nor effect the consumers of the ejb in any way. i.e All that the consumer currently does is look for that particular jndi name, and performs an indejection and a casting to a particular interface.
I have looked at this post in hopes of figuring out if my MainOne Class from com.main.simulated can evict the currently instantiated MainOne class. However, the the selected answer states it is not programatically possible to start or stop an ejb. I have also looked at this post, but this is more of a practical guide as to how we can inject these beans inour calls.
Hence, my question is, can my latter implementation (com.main.simulated) somehow "replace" the other bean, and ensure the com.main.notsimulated version is never executed?

Deploying two classes, with the same binding is obviously not possible. When trying to do so, one will get a binding exception. However, contrary to my original research, programatically binding a bean is entirely possible. Hence, the solution as to how one can "hijack" an old binding, and replace it with the new is as follows: (Note, replace the class names with what you need)
package com.main.simulated
#Startup
#Singleton
public class MainOne {
#PostConstruct
private void rebindClass() throws NamingException {
final Context context = new InitialContext();
context.rebind("java:/sample/MainOne", this);
}
// other methods that will be called
}
Three important things about this class are: Removal of the #EJB annotation, the #Startup annotation and the rebind of context. The #Startup ensures the #PostConstruct method gets called when our container loads our class. When this happens, the method rebinds a class for a value. Hence, this is the hijack location.
Hope this helps someone.

Ejb returns java.lang.NullPointerException

I am newbie in cdi and these are my first steps.
I have a bean in ejb module:
#Stateless
public class TestBean {
public String getIt(){
return "test";
}
}
I have a POJO in war module (I tried with #EJB and #Inject - same result)
public class SaveAction extends Action{
#EJB
private TestBean bean;
#Override
public void execute(){
....
String test = bean.getIt(); //HERE I GET java.lang.NullPointerException
...
}
}
Both war and ejb are inside ear. In log I see
EJB5181:Portable JNDI names for EJB TestBean:
[java:global/example.com/my-ejb/TestBean!com.example.TestBean,
java:global/example.com/my-ejb/TestBean]]]
From that I conclude that bean is initialized - but I can't find it. What am I doing wrong?

CDI and other dependency injection containers don't use magic! It's just ordinary java code that cannot do more or less than any other java code written anywhere. So it is impossible for a framework to do injection when an object is instantiated directly via new:
SaveAction action = new SaveAction();
// don't expect any injection has happened - it can't! no magic!
// action.bean is still null here!
The framework does not have any idea that an object like SaveAction has been instantiated. (Therefore it would be necessary to somehow inform the framework about the newly created object - but neither the constructor nor the 'new' statement do this! Just think one minute about how you would write such a framework code! It's not possible!* ).
To make injection work, the object must be created by the container instead! Otherwise it is NOT managed! (See also chapter 3.7 of the Web Beans specification (JSR 299)).
The best way to do this is to let the container inject the object into another already managed bean. It seems this just deferes the problem, but there are some already managed beans in your application, like the servlet!
Suggestion: Make your SaveAction CDI aware (e.g. annotate it with #Default) and let it be injected into your servlet!
Tutorials:
http://middlewaremagic.com/jboss/?p=1063
http://hudson.jboss.org/jenkins/job/JBoss-AS7-Docs/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/guides/developer-getting-started-guide/target/docbook/publish/en-US/html/helloworld.html
*) In theory it should be possible using aspect oriented programming or instrumentation to manipulate the constructors of beans to notify the container if they are invoked. But that's a very complex concept with many unsolved issues I think.