Hi I am trying to use a JS library to send and receive AS3 Objects. The library is this one: https://github.com/emilkm/amfjs. It works well but only when BlazeDS (3.5) returns AcknowledgeMessage messages that it can deserialize, if Blaze returns the Object as a DSK it chokes. The problem is BlazeDS is not being consistent on the type it returns for any given method, sometimes DSK sometimes AcknowledgeMessage (for the same method call, at some point during its up time it decides to return AcknowledgeMessage). The flex application handles this no problem, but how can I force Blaze to respond correctly?
To permanently turn off small messages add this following to the required channel in the services-config.xml. The properties node needs the following entry added for every channel you want to connect to using amf.js if you are going to have both Flex and HTML clientes from the same browser:
<properties>
<serialization>
<enable-small-messages>false</enable-small-messages>
</serialization>
</properties>
Related
I am using Grails 2.2.4 and have a controller endpoint which converts a domain object list to JSON. Under load (as little as 5 concurrent requests) the marshaling performance is very poor. Taking thread dumps the threads are blocked on:
java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:291)
There is a single marhsaler registered to marshal all domain objects using reflection and introspection. Realizing that reflection and introspection is slower than direct method calls, I am still seeing unexpected behavior in that the class loader is caller every time and in turn blocking occurs. An example stacktrace is as follows:
java.lang.Thread.State: BLOCKED (on object monitor)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:291)
- waiting to lock <785e31830> (a org.grails.plugins.tomcat.ParentDelegatingClassLoader)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247)
at java.beans.Introspector.instantiate(Introspector.java:1470)
at java.beans.Introspector.findExplicitBeanInfo(Introspector.java:431)
at java.beans.Introspector.<init>(Introspector.java:380)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:167)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:230)
at java.beans.Introspector.<init>(Introspector.java:389)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:167)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:230)
at java.beans.Introspector.<init>(Introspector.java:389)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:167)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:230)
at java.beans.Introspector.<init>(Introspector.java:389)
at java.beans.Introspector.getBeanInfo(Introspector.java:167)
at org.springframework.beans.CachedIntrospectionResults.<init>(CachedIntrospectionResults.java:217)
at org.springframework.beans.CachedIntrospectionResults.forClass(CachedIntrospectionResults.java:149)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.getCachedIntrospectionResults(BeanWrapperImpl.java:324)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.getPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:727)
at org.springframework.beans.BeanWrapperImpl.getPropertyValue(BeanWrapperImpl.java:721)
at org.springframework.beans.PropertyAccessor$getPropertyValue.call(Unknown Source)
at com.ngs.id.RestDomainClassMarshaller.extractValue(RestDomainClassMarshaller.groovy:203)
...
...
A simple benchmark loading the same endpoint with the same parameters results in the loadClass call.
I was under the impression the classes would be at least cached by the class loader and not loaded on every method call to get the property to be marshaled.
The code to retrieve the property value is as follows:
BeanWrapper beanWrapper = PropertyAccessorFactory.forBeanPropertyAccess(domainObject);
return beanWrapper.getPropertyValue(property.getName());
Is there a configuration setting that is needed to ensure the classes are only loaded once? or perhaps a different way to get the property that doesn't result in class loading every time? Or perhaps a more performant way to achieve this?
Writing a custom marshaler per domain class would avoid the reflection and introspection but is going to be a lot of repeat code.
Appreciate any input.
So after much digging this is what I found out.
Using the BeanUtils.getPropertyDescriptors and getValue will always try and find a BeanInfo class describing the bean using the class loader. In this case we don't provide BeanInfo classes for our grails domain classes so this call is redundant. I found some information where you can provide a custom BeanInfoFactory to bypass this and exclude your packages but I couldn't find how to configure it with Grails.
Also searching the springframework documentation there is a configuration option you can pass Introspector.IGNORE_ALL_BEANINFO that will tell CachedIntorspectionResults to never look up the bean classes. However this was not available in version 3.1.4 of springframework which was current for grails 2.2.4. The newer versions do appear to have this option.
So, if using BeanUtils you can't by pass this initial lookup on the class loader. However subsequent loaders should be cached by CachedIntrospectionResults. Unfortunately this doesn't happen in our scenario. There looks to be a bug in the test to see if the lookup is cacheable. See more info on this below.
The fix was ultimately to fall back to use pure reflection. Rather than use:
beanWrapper.getPropertyValue(property.getName());
To use:
PropertyDescription pd = BeanUtils.getPropertyDescriptor(domainObject.getClass(), property.getName())
pd.readMethod.invoke(domainObject)
Where the pd is cached.
After fixing this the profiler still showed a lack of caching on CachedIntorspectionResults for the out of the box grails marshaller. This was due to the bad caching implementation in CachedIntrospectionResults. The work around for this was to add the correct class loader to the acceptedClassLoaders in the CachedIntrospectionResults.
public class EnhanceCachedIntrospectionResultsAcceptedClassLoadersListener implements ServletContextListener {
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
CachedIntrospectionResults.acceptClassLoader(Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getParent());
}
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
CachedIntrospectionResults.clearClassLoader(Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getParent());
Introspector.flushCaches();
}
}
Note that it was required to add the parent to the accepted class loader list rather than the current class loader. Not sure if this is specific to grails or not but this fixed the issue. I'm not sure if there may be a side effect to this fix.
In summary we went from 10 requests/sec in the original setup to 120 requests/sec after using direct reflection and fixing the CachedIntrospectionResults cache.
However the real eye opened was that if we use a 1-1 marshaller per domain class we were seeing another x2 improvement in performance over the generic marshaller where we test objects for whether they're instances of class etc. We're saving a lot of code with the generic marshaller but there's a lot more work to do to get comparable performance to writing a 1-1 marshaller.
Hopefully this will be useful to someone else who runs into this ...
I'm experiencing a discrepancy between the first compilation of a Grails app and the compilation that happens when a file changes while the app is running.
Background:
My app creates some spring beans from Spring LDAP (docs) using conf/spring/resources.groovy.
I have an LdapUser.groovy class in src/groovy (I'm using it similarly to a domain class, except it isn't in grails-app/domain as it doesn't map to a database table).
In BootStrap.groovy I register a JSON marshaller for LdapUser (using JSON.registerObjectMarshaller).
I have a controller with an index method that responds a list of LdapUser objects. This renders correctly in JSON (according to the marshaller).
With that background, here are the pieces of the problem:
When the show method, which responds a single LdapUser, gets called, I get an exception that LdapUser cannot be converted to grails.converters.JSON. (fair enough)
But, if I save the LdapUser.groovy file, thus invoking a recompile on the file while the app is running, the JSON marshaller suddenly works fine.
Before saving the LdapUser.groovy, my controller has a to an LdapUserRepo (a class instantiated via an #EnableLdapRepositories annotation on the controller), but this reference becomes null after I save LdapUser.groovy. I'm not sure how this relates to the problem, as I was also able to reproduce the problem in a controller lacking an injected LdapUserRepo (but with the annotated controllers still in the app).
I also at one point was setting an asType method on the LdapUser class, which was called as expected before the save-invoked recompile. After the recompile, however, my asType method was no longer called and the JSON marshaller was taking over. ( I was doing exception-worthy things in the asType that were throwing before recompile and not throwing after... )
My understanding of the problem is therefore:
Somehow the asType method of the LdapUser.groovy class is not being automatically generated on first compile when running the app, but is being generated on subsequent compiles.
The LdapUser class is tied to the LdapUserRepo in more ways than merely being a type the Repo uses, and the recompile is not reflecting that connection correctly.
Methods rendering lists of objects are somehow unaffected by the asType method. This leads me to believe that the JSON marshaller gets called directly on list elements (instead of via asType) when the list asType has been called (whether or not the "as" operation is implicit...).
My question then is:
what is the Grails compiler doing differently on run-app vs on compile while app is running that could be causing this behavior?
how can I restructure things to ensure it works properly out of the box?
If I need to RTFM, what would be the FM section? (My google-fu is sadly quite weak).
Note: this question is vaguely similar, but doesn't have any meaningfulness to the answer:
Grails: Defining a JSON custom marshaller as static method in domain
I have a production mobile Flex app that uses RemoteObject calls for all data access, and it's working well, except for a new remote call I just added that only fails when running with a release build. The same call works fine when running on the device (iPhone) using debug build. When running with a release build, the result handler is never called (nor is the fault handler called). Viewing the BlazeDS logs in debug mode, the call is received and send back with data. I've narrowed it down to what seems to be a data size issue.
I have targeted one specific data call that returns in the String value a string length of 44kb, which fails (release build). When I do not populate the String value (in server side Java code) on the object (just set it empty string), the result handler is called, and the object is returned, again, using the release build. This works in a debug build.
The custom object being returned in the call is a very a simple object, with getters/setters for simple types boolean, int, String, and one org.23c.dom.Document type. This same object type is used on other other RemoteObject calls (different data) and works fine (release and debug builds). I originally was returning as a Document, but, just to make sure this wasn't the problem, changed the value to be returned to a String, just to rule out XML/Dom issues in serialization.
I don't understand 1) why the release build vs. debug build behavior is different for a RemoteObject call, 2) why the calls work in debug build when sending over a somewhat large (but, not unreasonable) amount of data in a String object, but not in release build.
I have't tried to find out exactly where the failure point in size is, but, not sure that's even relevant, since 44kb isn't an unreasonable size to expect.
By turning on the Debug mode in BlazeDS, I can see the object and it's attributes being serialized and everything looks good there. The calls are received and processed appropriately in BlazeDS for both debug and release build testing.
Anyone have an idea on other things to try to debug/resolve this?
Platform testing is BlazeDS 4, Flashbuilder 4.7, Websphere 8 server, iPhone (iOS 7.1.2). Tried using multiple Flex SDK's 4.12 to the latest 4.13, with no change in behavior.
Thanks!
After a week's worth of debugging, I found the issue.
The Java type returned from the call was defined as ArrayList. Changing it to List resolved the problem.
I'm not sure why ArrayList isn't a valid return type, I've been looking at the Adobe docs, and still can't see why this isn't valid. And, why it works in Debug mode and not in Release build is even stranger. Maybe someone can shed some light on the logic here to me.
In my Windows Phone App there's a simple hierarchical model consisting of a class containing a collection of other domain objects.
In my xaml i have declared an ItemsContainer control that renders the items in the above mentioned collection as simple rectangles.
Now, at the VM level i have a structure that resembles my model with a parent VM having a collection of children VMs. Each child-VM encapsulates its own model.
Whenever the user taps the view bound to a child-VM a method of the parent-model object should be invoked taking the relevant child-model as parameter. This will in turn change some internal state that will be reflected (possibly) on all the child-views (not just the tapped one).
SO... given that i'm using the MVVM Light framework my current implementation is as follows:
Child-VM exposes a command
The command Execute method will use the messenger to notify the parent-VM of the tap event. The message (GenericMessage class) content will be the domain object encapsulated by the VM
The parent-VM executes the method of the parent-model using the message content as parameter
If the operation succeeds the parent-VM sends a new message to inform child-VMs of this fact. Once again the message content is the model object used as parameter in the method that was just invoked
Child-VMs raise a couple of PropertyChanged events that, finally, will update the bound views
It works but i fill it's a bit cumbersome. The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that when a child-view is tapped the associated VM will broadcast its encapsulated model object. Do you feel that there would be a better way of implementing such a system?
Thanks in advance for your precious help
Could you not just put the command on the parent viewmodel and pass the child viewmodel as the command parameter?
The parent view model can then just call methods on the child viewmodels to update them. I'm not sure I see the need for all these messages?
TL;DR: My OData requests seem to be hitting my custom JsonFormatter once and only once per OData GET method (per controller), which results in "stuck" (cached?) custom formatting.
I am working on a Web API project, and have implemented and registered my own JsonMediaTypeFormatter:
config.Formatters.Clear();
config.Formatters.Add(MyJsonFormatter);
'MyJsonFormatter' has custom implementations of the following:
`-> SerializerSettings
`-> ContractResolver
`-> CreateProperty
In my protected override CreateProperty(MemberInfo member, MemberSerialization memberSerialization) method, I restrict certain properties from being serialized based on user permissions.
This works great for all my API endpoints except for my OData enabled GET requests. Each controller has a GET method using the Primary Keys of the object, and an OData GET method which has a format similar to the following:
[HttpGet, Route]
public PageResult<Customer> GetOData(ODataQueryOptions<Customer> options)
{
IQueryable qCustomer = options.ApplyTo(_args.Context.Customers);
return new PageResult<Customer>(qCustomer as IEnumerable<Customer>, Request.GetNextPageLink(), Request.GetInlineCount());
}
If I put a breakpoint on my overwritten CreateProperty method, it gets hit with every API request. However, it will only get hit once per OData GET method per controller. So a subsequent call from a different user with different permissions skips my code and gives me the formatting used in the first call.
If I restart the API, I can again hit the breakpoint (once), and get my formatting permissions for the user the call was made by, but subsequent calls (no matter the user) do not hit my breakpoint. Obviously, restarting the API for every OData request is not a solution I can live with.
I have put almost a full day into researching this, and have found several posts (here, here, here, etc.) which lead me to believe I need to implement my own ODataMediaTypeFormatter.
However, if this is the case, why is it hitting my JsonFormatter breakpoint? It seems like it uses my formatter, somehow caches my format permissions for that controller, and uses them from then on.
(Secondly, creating my own ODataFormatter does not seem to be a valid option anymore, since the codebase has apparently changed since this post - CreateEdmTypeSerializer does not exist. (I'm using Microsoft ASP.NET Web API 2.1 OData, version 5.1.2).)
Question: Is there a way I can get OData to play nicely with my JsonFormatter, and run through my custom CreateProperty code for each request?
If someone can at minimum explain what is going on here, it may help to point me in the direction I need to go, but right now my brain is just melting. :P
Update: I published to IIS and found that if I recycle the app pool, the formatting seems to be refreshed. So it definitely seems that something is being cached, the question is 'what' and 'why' - do PageResults automatically get cached? How do I stop whatever is being cached from being cached?
I don't know that my question was asked very well, as at the time I didn't entirely know what I was looking for or what was going wrong... However, since then, I have found an answer and figured I would post in just in case someone else runs into my issue.
The issue I was having is that I need to not serialize specific properties in my webapi Json response based on the permissions of the caller. The problem was, the first call upon running the API worked fine, however subsequent calls were not hitting my breakpoints, and were being returned with the permissions of the first request.
The resolution I found was to override another method in my ContractResolver to disable caching for the types I didn't want cached (in this case, anything with Entity as its base class).
public class SecurityContractResolver : DefaultContractResolver
{
public override JsonContract ResolveContract(Type type)
{
if (type == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("type");
if (type.IsSubclassOf(typeof(Entity)))
return CreateContract(type); //don't use cache in base method - we need different contract resolution per user / permissions
return base.ResolveContract(type); // <-- the base class calls CreateContract and then caches the contract
}
.....
}
Seems to be working great so far. Hope this helps someone!