Connection context API

Availability

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2023.1.1]

Rationale

Orbeon Forms can perform internal service connections that run on different threads than the incoming service thread. In case information related to the incoming service thread needs to be passed downstream, an implementation of this interface can be used. For example, information can be retrieved and set from and to ThreadLocals.

Use of this API is expected to be fairly rare.

API

Java interface

The following describes the Java interface you need to implement:

package org.orbeon.connection;

import java.net.URI;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 * Interface for a provider that can provide a connection context. Orbeon Forms can perform internal
 * service connections that run on different threads than the incoming service thread. In case information
 * related to the incoming service thread needs to be passed downstream, an implementation of this interface
 * can be used. For example, information can be retrieved and set from and to `ThreadLocal`s.
 *
 * @tparam Context The type of the context object, defined by the implementation
 */
public interface ConnectionContextProvider<Context extends Object> {

    /**
     * Get context information. This method is called on the incoming service thread.
     *
     * The returned object must not keep references to `Thread` or other mutable data, as the calling thread
     * can be returned to a thread pool before `pushContext()` is called.
     *
     * This can be called multiple times for the same request, for example if multiple outgoing connections
     * are made.
     *
     * In addition, this can be called once and followed by multiple calls to `pushContext()`/`popContext()`,
     * for example when saving a document with multiple attachments.
     *
     * Conversely, this might be called but not followed by any calls to `pushContext()`/`popContext()`, for
     * example if an error happens before the outgoing connection is made.
     *
     * @param extension immutable extension map, reserved for the future, currently empty and not `null`
     * @return instance of context information or `null`
     */
    Context getContext(Map<String, Object> extension);

    /**
     * Push context information. This method is called on the outgoing connection thread.
     *
     * If `getContext()` returned `null`, this method is not called.
     *
     * @param ctx       instance of context information, as returned by `getContext()`; not `null`
     * @param url       URI containing information about the connection
     * @param method    HTTP method name (`GET`, `PUT`, etc.)
     * @param headers   HTTP headers
     * @param extension immutable extension map, reserved for the future, currently empty and not `null`
     */
    void pushContext(
        Context ctx,
        URI url,
        String method,
        Map<String, String[]> headers,
        Map<String, Object> extension
    );

    /**
     * Pop context information. This method is called on the outgoing connection thread. The purpose is to
     * allow cleanup of resources allocated by `pushContext()`. For example, a `ThreadLocal` can be removed.
     *
     * If `getContext()` returned `null`, this method is not called.
     *
     * This is guaranteed to be called after the outgoing connection is done, even if an exception is thrown.
     *
     * @param ctx instance of context information, as returned by `getContext()`; not `null`
     */
    void popContext(Context ctx);
}

Registering a provider

The connection context API uses the standard Java ServiceLoader API with a provider name of org.orbeon.connection.ConnectionContextProvider.

The provider must:

• be a public class

• have a public no-arguments constructor

• implement the ConnectionContextProvider Java interface

To enable a provider with Orbeon Forms:

• create your provider as per the standard Java ServiceLoader

• create a JAR file containing the code or your provider

• place your JAR file under the Orbeon Forms WEB-INF/lib directory

The Orbeon Forms log files will log errors if any when starting if the provider was found but could not be instantiated.

For example, implement an instance of the interface above, and register it with Orbeon Forms by adding a file called:

META-INF/services/org.orbeon.connection.ConnectionContextProvider

The file contains a single line with the fully-qualified name of the implementation class, for example:

com.example.MyConnectionContextProvider

This file and directory hierarchy are placed within the web application in a JAR file under WEB-INF/lib.

See also

• File scan API

• Form Runner APIs