I am trying to create a library which manages data. Part of it is storing stuff in databases. Since I don't know what the user of library wants to store, I am using generics. Here is my method to read a database table.
public <TEntity extends SyncableBase> List<TEntity> loadItems(Class clazz) {
List<TEntity> listToReturn = new ArrayList<TEntity>();
DatabaseHelperBase dbHelper = getDbHelper();
Dao<TEntity, Integer> dao;
try {
dao = dbHelper.getDao(clazz); //Is this approach correct?
listToReturn = dao.queryForAll(); //This doesn't work
} catch (SQLException e){
e.printStackTrace();
}
return listToReturn;
}
And somewhere in my app (which consumes this library) I call this method like so:
List<ToDoCategory> catList = mirrorservice.<ToDoCategory>loadItems(ToDoCategory.class);
No matter what I do, the empty ArrayList is returned to catList. I tried similar approach with queryForId too. That didn't work either. Meanwhile, my add is working just fine!
I suspect that there is something wrong with the way I'm creating Dao. What is the problem?
Related
how are you? I'm trying to do some dynamic method calls to get sql strings on various objects in Java (Android), but i'm stuck with some questions about performance and stability.
Context Example: Repository class onCreate method get all entity objects (tables) and call a method (getCreateTable for example) to get a sql string to execute.
Sure i can explicit call class by class caling each method, but i have other calls like "dropTables", "truncateTables" and etc, and i do not want to be repeating the same structure all the time.
public void CreateTables() {
execute(Entity1.getCreateTable());
execute(Entity2.getCreateTable());
execute(Entity3.getCreateTable());
[..]
execute(Entity50.getCreateTable());
}
public void DropTables() {
execute(Entity1.getDropTable());
execute(Entity2.getDropTable());
execute(Entity3.getDropTable());
[..]
execute(Entity50.getDropTable());
}
Until now i know i can do that in 3 diferent ways.
1) Using reflection (currently in use): Basicaly, i store all the objects class in a list, and then use the reflection to call the desired static method.But i know that reflection not always should be the first choice.
private final List<Class> entityList = new ArrayList<Class>() {
{
add(Entity1.class);
add(Entity2.class);
add(Entity3.class);
}
};
public void createTables() {
/* get all query strings */
List<String> queryList = getQueryList("createTable");
try {
for (String query : queryList) {
execute(query);
}
} catch (SQLException e) {
[...]
}
}
private List<String> getQueryList(String methodName) {
List<String> queryList = new ArrayList<>();
for (Class<?> objectClass : entityList) {
try {
Method[] ms = objectClass.getMethods();
for (Method me : ms) {
if (me.getName().equals(methodName)) {
String query = (String) me.invoke(null);
if (query != null && query.length() > 0) {
queryList.add((String) me.invoke(null));
}
break;
}
}
} catch (Exception e) {
[...]
}
}
return queryList;
}
2) Storing object instance in list: I can have a list with the objects instanced and then cast then into abstract parent class (or interface) and call the methods to get the sql string. In this case, i don't know if is a good practice to keep an list of instanced objects in memory, maybe this could be worst than use reflection depending on list size.
private final List<BaseEntity> entityList = new ArrayList<BaseEntity>() {
{
add(new Entity1(context));
add(new Entity2(context));
add(new Entity3(context));
}
};
public void createTables() {
for (BaseEntity entity : entityList) {
try {
execute(entity.getCreateTable());
} catch (Exception e) {
[...]
}
}
}
3) Storing all the strings into JSON object: I don't tested that one yet, but i'm sure with should work. I can call an "init" method to iterate over all objects and create that JSON object/array with all the sql strings (drop, create, truncate and etc).
I really appreciate if you share with me what you think about these approaches (pros and cons) or another better solution.
As pointed out in the comments, it was a clarly a bad design (it's an old project that i'm refactoring). So i decided to get away from reflection and spend some time to redesign the code itself.
I created an base super class to handle all similiar methods and let the entities/models implement only the required individual rules, so DB access is stored in only one class as a Singleton. It's far better to use interface polymorphism.
In this way, the db class handle the dinamic SQL generation to avoid repeating the same code everywhere and re-use/recycle the list of instances to improve performance.
Obs. 1: Reflection throw down performance and usually let debbuging harder. Sure it can save some time as it is fast to implement, but will disable most of the IDE features, which makes it worthless in most cases.
Obs. 2: Keeping a list of DB instances active should never be done either. It's never a good idea to have many instances access database simultaneously, it can cause DB to lock and reproduce unexpectad issues.
Obs. 3: That JSON thing... forget about it. I'm sorry to suggest something so ugly.
I'm very new to Java so it makes it hard for me to explain what I'm trying to do.
I have an abstract class that invokes several object constants like this:
public abstract class Enchantment implements Keyed {
/**
* Provides protection against environmental damage
*/
public static final Enchantment PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL = new EnchantmentWrapper("protection");
In a different file I can access this perfectly fine with Enchantment value = Enchantment.PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL;
However, I'm trying to use a string variable for this instead. Something like this:
String str = "PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL";
Enchantment value = Enchantment.str;
Obviously that won't work. So I did a bunch of research and learned I need to use reflection for this. Using this source code's docs I figured I was looking for field data. So I tried both:
Field fld = Enchantment.class.getField("PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL");
Field fld = Enchantment.class.getDeclaredField("PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL");
But these returned me a NoSuchFieldException. As I was on it, I've tried both getMethod() and getDeclaredMethod() just as well equally with no luck.
I'm now at the point that these are probably "object constants"? I'm not sure how to call them. But I'm definitely at a loss on how to get this to work now and after everything I've tried myself, I figured it was time to ask for some help here.
That one comment is spot on: you absolutely do not use reflection here.
There are only two valid reasons to use reflection:
you are creating a framework that has to deal with classes it doesn't know about
you have for some other reason to deal with classes you don't know about at compile time
But your code perfectly knows about that Enchantment class, its capabilities, and so on. Therefore reflection is the wrong approach. You figured it yourself: it is damn hard to get right, and damn right to get it wrong in some subtle ways. And when you get it wrong, it always blows up at runtime. Reflection code compiling means nothing. It always waits for you to run it to throw up in your face.
So to answer your question by not answering it: use a Map. Like:
Map<String, Enchantment> enchantmentsByConstantName = new HashMap<>();
enchantmentsByConstantName.put("PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL", PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL);
Alternatively, these constants could go into an enum, as outlined in the other answer, but in a sightly different way:
enum EnchantmentHolder {
PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL(new EnchantmentWrapper("protection")),
ANOTHER_ENCHANTMENT(...)
A_THIRD_ENCHANTMENT(...)
...;
private Enchantment enchantment;
private EnchantmentHolder(Enchantment enchantment) {
this.entchantment = entchantment;
}
public Enchantment getEntchantment() { return entchantment; }
You may want to look into enumerations if you know they're going to be constant values;
public enum Enchantment {
PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL {
public void cast() {
// do enum-specific stuff here
}
},
ANOTHER_ENCHANTMENT {
public void cast() {
// do enum-specific stuff here
}
},
A_THIRD_ENCHANTMENT{
public void cast() {
// do enum-specific stuff here
}
};
public abstract void cast();
}
enums can be treated like classes and have methods and properties. You can also convert to and from strings Enchantment.valueOf("PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL") but that's generally if you are reading from a configuration file - in code you'd reference the value directly.
Once you have the Field, you need to call Field.get(Object) with an instance (in this case the class). Something like,
Class<?> cls = Enchantment.class;
try {
Field f = cls.getField("PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL");
System.out.println(f.get(cls));
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Since you want the Enchantment, you could then test that the instance you get is assignable to Enchantment. Something like,
Class<? extends Enchantment> cls = Enchantment.class;
try {
Field f = cls.getField("PROTECTION_ENVIRONMENTAL");
Object obj = f.get(cls);
if (cls.isAssignableFrom(obj.getClass())) {
Enchantment e = cls.cast(obj);
System.out.println(e);
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
But the enum approach is better.
OK, so I have an interesting problem. I am using java/maven/spring-boot/cassandra... and I am trying to create a dynamic instantiation of the Mapper setup they use.
I.E.
//Users.java
import com.datastax.driver.mapping.annotations.Table;
#Table(keyspace="mykeyspace", name="users")
public class Users {
#PartitionKey
public UUID id;
//...
}
Now, in order to use this I would have to explicitly say ...
Users user = (DB).mapper(Users.class);
obviously replacing (DB) with my db class.
Which is a great model, but I am running into the problem of code repetition. My Cassandra database has 2 keyspaces, both keyspaces have the exact same tables with the exact same columns in the tables, (this is not my choice, this is an absolute must have according to my company). So when I need to access one or the other based on a form submission it becomes a mess of duplicated code, example:
//myWebController.java
import ...;
#RestController
public class MyRestController {
#RequestMapping(value="/orders", method=RequestMethod.POST)
public string getOrders(...) {
if(Objects.equals(client, "first_client_name") {
//do all the things to get first keyspace objects like....
FirstClientUsers users = (db).Mapper(FirstClientUsers.class);
//...
} else if(Objects.equals(client, "second_client_name") {
SecondClientUsers users = (db).Mapper(SecondClientUsers.class);
//....
}
return "";
}
I have been trying to use methods like...
Class cls = Class.forName(STRING_INPUT_VARIABLE_HERE);
and that works ok for base classes but when trying to use the Accessor stuff it no longer works because Accessors have to be interfaces, so when you do Class cls, it is no longer an interface.
I am trying to find any other solution on how to dynamically have this work and not have to have duplicate code for every possible client. Each client will have it's own namespace in Cassandra, with the exact same tables as all other ones.
I cannot change the database model, this is a must according to the company.
With PHP this is extremely simple since it doesn't care about typecasting as much, I can easily do...
function getData($name) {
$className = $name . 'Accessor';
$class = new $className();
}
and poof I have a dynamic class, but the problem I am running into is the Type specification where I have to explicitly say...
FirstClientUsers users = new FirstClientUsers();
//or even
FirstClientUsers users = Class.forName("FirstClientUsers");
I hope this is making sense, I can't imagine that I am the first person to have this problem, but I can't find any solutions online. So I am really hoping that someone knows how I can get this accomplished without duplicating the exact same logic for every single keyspace we have. It makes the code not maintainable and unnecessarily long.
Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.
Do not specify the keyspace in your model classes, and instead, use the so-called "session per keyspace" pattern.
Your model class would look like this (note that the keyspace is left undefined):
#Table(name = "users")
public class Users {
#PartitionKey
public UUID id;
//...
}
Your initialization code would have something like this:
Map<String, Mapper<Users>> mappers = new ConcurrentHashMap<String, Mapper<Users>>();
Cluster cluster = ...;
Session firstClientSession = cluster.connect("keyspace_first_client");
Session secondClientSession = cluster.connect("keyspace_second_client");
MappingManager firstClientManager = new MappingManager(firstClientSession);
MappingManager secondClientManager = new MappingManager(secondClientSession);
mappers.put("first_client", firstClientManager.mapper(Users.class));
mappers.put("second_client", secondClientManager.mapper(Users.class));
// etc. for all clients
You would then store the mappers object and make it available through dependency injection to other components in your application.
Finally, your REST service would look like this:
import ...
#RestController
public class MyRestController {
#javax.inject.Inject
private Map<String, Mapper<Users>> mappers;
#RequestMapping(value = "/orders", method = RequestMethod.POST)
public string getOrders(...) {
Mapper<Users> usersMapper = getUsersMapperForClient(client);
// process the request with the right client's mapper
}
private Mapper<Users> getUsersMapperForClient(String client) {
if (mappers.containsKey(client))
return mappers.get(client);
throw new RuntimeException("Unknown client: " + client);
}
}
Note how the mappers object is injected.
Small nit: I would name your class User in the singular instead of Users (in the plural).
(This question was closed on code review so I think I should ask here)
Let's say I have a factory like this (it's from an interview):
public class ControllersFactoryImpl implements ControllersFactory {
private final SessionKeeper sessionKeeper;
private final ScoreKeeper scoreKeeper;
public ControllersFactoryImpl(final SessionKeeper sessionKeeper, final ScoreKeeper scoreKeeper) {
this.sessionKeeper = sessionKeeper;
this.scoreKeeper = scoreKeeper;
}
#Override
public Controller makeLoginController(final int userId) {
return new LoginController(userId, sessionKeeper);
}
#Override
public Controller makePostUserScoreController(final int levelId, final String session, final int score) {
return new AddScoreController(levelId, session, score, sessionKeeper, scoreKeeper);
}
#Override
public Controller makeHighScoreController(final int levelId) {
return new HighScoreController(levelId, scoreKeeper);
}
}
since one of the requirements was to handle several call at the time (like millions) they told me that this solution could be improved because in this way we had a huge spawning of new objects (since I'm always calling new) that are doing a single stateless operation and the garbage collector could run into problems trying to clean them.
Controller is an interface that has a single method execute().
Avoiding the usage of constructor is something that is puzzling me because the only way I can think of it, is to give to the execute method a var-args argument and I don't really like that solution because the code is not really readable in that way.
Do you have any alternatives?
This is the code for the controller:
public interface Controller {
String execute();
}
And this is where the controller is used:
Controller controller = null;
try {
if (exchange.isGet()) {
final Matcher mLogin = loginPattern.matcher(path);
if (mLogin.matches()) {
controller = factory.makeLoginController(Integer.parseInt(mLogin.group(1)));
contentType = TEXT_PLAIN;
}
Matcher mHighScore = highScorePattern.matcher(path);
if (mHighScore.matches()) {
controller = factory.makeHighScoreController((Integer.parseInt(mHighScore.group(1))));
contentType = TEXT_CSV;
exchange.setContentDisposition("attachment; fileName=data.csv");
}
} else if (exchange.isPost()) {
final Matcher mScore = userScorePattern.matcher(path);
if (mScore.matches()) {
final Matcher mSession = sessionKeyPattern.matcher(httpExchange.getRequestURI().getQuery());
if (mSession.matches()) {
final Scanner s = new Scanner(httpExchange.getRequestBody());
final int score = Integer.parseInt(s.hasNext() ? s.next() : "0");
controller = factory.makePostUserScoreController(Integer.parseInt(mScore.group(1)), mSession.group(1), score);
contentType = TEXT_PLAIN;
}
}
}
if (controller != null) {
exchange.sendOk();
buildResponse(exchange, controller, contentType);
} else exchange.sendNotFound();
} catch (ExpiredSessionException e) {
exchange.sendUnauthorized();
exchange.setContentType(TEXT_PLAIN);
exchange.setContentType("Session Expired");
} catch (Exception e) {
log(e.getMessage());
httpExchange.sendResponseHeaders(500, 0);
} finally {
httpExchange.getResponseBody().close();
}
Disclaimer: I'm aware of the if-else situation but with that amount of time I didn't have the time to refactor this part.
It's possible to change the code the way you want.
private void buildResponse(Exchange exchange, Controller controller, String contentType) throws IOException {
exchange.setContentType(contentType);
exchange.setContent(controller.execute());
}
since one of the requirements was to handle several call at the time (like millions) they told me that this solution could be improved because in this way we had a huge spawning of new objects (since I'm always calling new)
This sounds like a very very premature optimization. Does the program do any real work, like reading a file or iterating something? If so, then many bigger objects get created and caring about the controller creation is ridiculous.
Anyway, there's a Scanner allocated.
Your controller is not really stateless, it's immutable at best. Its state consists e.g. of levelId, session, score, sessionKeeper, scoreKeeper.
execute method a var-args argument
This means a creation of an array... about the same overhead you wanted to avoid.
Anyway, it looks like the controller currently just complicates the design and you might be better off not using it. However, as the program grows, you may see that using a controller is a good idea as it nicely separates different actions.
I'd just try it out as is. Get millions of requests, determine the bottleneck, and redesign it in case of problems. Till you run into performance problems, keep your design as clean as possible.
Clean design means flexible design and that's the best starting point for optimizations. Code perfectly optimized for imaginary problems is a non-maintainable mess, getting slow in face of real problems and hopeless to improve.
If you really had to eliminate the controller creation, then you can't store any information in them. So you could create an
enum Controller {
LOGIN {
...
}
POST_USERS_SCORE {
...
}
HIGH_SCORE {
...
}
abstract execute(int levelId, String session, int score);
}
where each implementation would ignore the arguments it doesn't need. This is a bit messy, but not as messy as mutable design could get. With mutable controllers you could pool and recycle them, but this is rarely a good idea.
I have a method where I want to factor out some code into its own method
This is what I have:
public class TD0301AssignmentForm extends Form {
public TD0301AssignmentForm(TD0301AssignmentDAO dao, STKUser authenticatedUser) {
this.dao = dao;
this.authenticatedUser = authenticatedUser;
}
public Object insert(HttpServletRequest request) {
TD0301Assignment tdas = new TD0301Assignment();
TD0301Assignment tdas_orig = null;
Date dateNow = new Date();
try {
// Get the inuput from HTML form
tdas.setCalc_num(FormUtil.getFieldValue(request, FIELD_CALC_NUM));
processDate(request, tdas);
tdas.setCalc_dept(FormUtil.getFieldValue(request, FIELD_CALC_DEPT));
tdas.setYear_oi(Integer.toString(DateUtil.getIntYear(dateNow)));
processCalcSafetyRequirements(request, tdas);
...etc...
if (isSucces()) {
// Instantiate a base work flow instance!
WorkflowInstance wfi = new WorkflowInstance();
WorkflowInstanceDAO wfiDAO = new WorkflowInstanceDAO();
wfi.setWorkflow_class_id(tdas.getCalc_level());
wfi.setStarted_by(authenticatedUser.getBadge());
wfi.setStatus("0");
wfi.setLast_date(dateNow);
// Insert the WorkFlowInstance into the database, db sets returned sequence number into the wfi object.
wfiDAO.insert(wfi, authenticatedUser);
// Insert the TD0301Assignment into the db
tdas.setWorkflow_instance_id(wfi.getWorkflow_instance_id());
}
I'd like to remove the WorkflowInstance code out into its own method (still in this Class) like this:
if (isSucces()) {
insertWorkFlowInstance(request, tdas);
tdas.setWorkflow_instance_id(wfi.getWorkflow_instance_id());
but wfi is now marked by Eclipse as not available. Should I do something like this to fix the error so that I can still get the wfi.getWorkflow_instance_id() in the isSuccess block above? I know it removes the error, but I am trying to apply best practices.
public class TD0301AssignmentForm extends Form {
private WorkflowInstance wfi = new WorkflowInstance();
private WorkflowInstanceDAO wfiDAO = new WorkflowInstanceDAO();
Instance variables ("properties" or "fields") are not necessarily the way to go if they're not used throughout the entire class.
Variables should have the smallest scope possible--this makes code easier to reason about.
With some noise elided, and also guessing, it seems like the WorkflowInstance and WorkflowInstanceDao could be localized (names changed to match Java conventions):
public class TD0301AssignmentForm extends Form {
public Object insert(HttpServletRequest request) {
TD0301Assignment tdas = new TD0301Assignment();
try {
tdas.setCalcNum(FormUtil.getFieldValue(request, FIELD_CALC_NUM));
processDate(request, tdas);
tdas.setCalcDept(FormUtil.getFieldValue(request, FIELD_CALC_DEPT));
tdas.setYearOi(Integer.toString(DateUtil.getIntYear(dateNow)));
processCalcSafetyRequirements(request, tdas);
if (isSuccess()) {
WorkflowInstance wf = buildWorkflow(tdas);
tdas.setWorkflowInstanceId(wf.getId());
}
}
}
private buildWorkflow(TD0301Assignment tdas) {
WorkflowInstance wfi = new WorkflowInstance();
wfi.setWorkflowClassId(tdas.getCalcLevel());
wfi.setStartedBy(authenticatedUser.getBadge());
wfi.setStatus("0");
wfi.setLastDate(new Date());
WorkflowInstanceDao wfiDao = new WorkflowInstanceDao();
wfiDao.insert(wfi, authenticatedUser);
}
}
Whether or not this is appropriate depends on how/if the WorkflowInstance is used in the rest of the method snippet you show. The DAO is almost certainly able to be localized.
As methods become smaller and easier to think about, they become more testable.
For example, buildWorkflow is almost easy to test, except that the DAO is instantiated "manually". This means that testing the method will either (a) depend on having a working DAO layer, or (b) it must be mocked by a framework that can mock static utility methods (several can).
Without seeing all your code it's not easy to see exactlywhat you are trying to achieve. The reason eclipse is complaining is because it no longer has a wfi instance to play with because you've moved its local instance into your method, but creating another wfi instance is not likely to be your answer.
To get this working change the wfi to be class local and either use it's id directly or return wfi.getWorkflow_instance_id() from insertWorkFlowInstance() and then pass that value into tdas.setWorkflow_instance_id()