Tag Archives: Java EE

Java, Java EE

CDI Passivation Uncovered

9 Comments

Frequently there is confusion about passivation of contextual instances with CDI, especially when non-passivating scopes such as request scoped are injected in passivatable once.

The specification defines passivation (serialization) capabilities, allowing the container to free memory by transferring idle objects to secondary storage when required.

The temporary transfer of the state of an idle object held in memory to some form of secondary storage is called passivation.
The transfer of the passivated state back into memory is called activation.

CDI-Spec 1.2 – Chapter 6.6.1

CDI’s session and conversation scopes are the only build-in passivation capable scopes. Request and application scopes are not passivating capable. If a bean is defined with a passivating scope, it and all applied interceptors and decorators must be serializable (see CDI 1.2 Specification – 6.6.1. Passivation capable beans).

Passivation of Normal Scoped injections

When working with passivation capable scopes such as @SessionScoped, it is still possible to inject references to non-passivating scopes such as @ApplicationScoped. Application scoped beans are not passivation capable, however the injected dependencies are.

[java]
@SessionScoped
public class MySession implements Serializable {
@Inject
private MyAppData myAppData;
…
}

@ApplicationScoped
public class MyAppData {
…
}
[/java]
Continue reading CDI Passivation Uncovered →

Java EE

Pushing ahead on Concurrency for Java EE 8

1 Comment

JSR-236 has only been a half-hearted attempt at bringing asynchronous operations to the wider Java EE context, leaving many gaps or even specification bugs depending on how you see it. As of now the Concurrency Utilities for Java EE specification remains closed for Java EE 8.

One of the more painful omissions being the rather ambiguously defined CDI context propagation.

2.3.2.1 Tasks and Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI)
CDI beans can be used as tasks. Such tasks could make use of injection if they are themselves components or
are created dynamically using various CDI APIs. However, application developers should be aware of the
following when using CDI beans as tasks:

  • Tasks that are submitted to a managed instance of ExecutorService may still be running after the
    lifecycle of the submitting component. Therefore, CDI beans with a scope of @RequestScoped,
    @SessionScoped, or @ConversationScoped are not recommended to use as tasks as it cannot be guaranteed
    that the tasks will complete before the CDI context is destroyed.
  • CDI beans with a scope of @ApplicationScoped or @Dependent can be used as tasks. However, it is still
    possible that the task could be running beyond the lifecycle of the submitting component, such as when
    the component is destroyed.
  • The transitive closure of CDI beans that are injected into tasks should follow the above guidelines
    regarding their scopes.

JSR-236 Concurrency Utilities for Java EE Version 1.0 FR

This specification leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The current consensus is that the spawning thread’s request, session and conversation contexts are not propagated to the asynchronous process. Furthermore the request context is not even activated for the asynchronous operation (see discussion “inheritance of CDI scopes” for more details).
Continue reading Pushing ahead on Concurrency for Java EE 8 →

Java, Java EE

Building extensible Java EE Applications – Part 2

Leave a comment

The first part covered adapting and packaging extensible Java EE applications.

Introducing Plug-ins

This part will demonstrate how Java EE application can be extended via plug-ins.

To do so we will have to define Service provider interface(s) (SPI).

[java]
public interface CorePlugin {
public String getName();
…
}
[/java]

The applications SPI should be provided in a separate JAR decoupling plug-ins from the core application and avoid cyclic dependency issues (see the previous post for more details).
Continue reading Building extensible Java EE Applications – Part 2 →

Java, Java EE

Building extensible Java EE Applications – Part 1

2 Comments

With the advent of Java EE 6 it has become easier to build extensible applications. In this first post we will briefly explore how core components of standard applications can be customized with CDI @Specializes/@Decorator and more interestingly packaging the customized applications.

Specializes

Specialization in Java EE allows for simple customization of existing beans via inheritance. If a @Specializes bean is found on the classpath it will be injected instead of the original.

The specializing bean has to extend the original bean, it inherits all qualifiers and its name, if defined with @Named.

[java]
@RequestScoped
public class CoreService {
public void doStuff() {
System.out.println("Default implementation is doing Stuff.");
}
}

@Specializes
public class MySpezializedService extends CoreService {
@Override
public void doStuff() {
System.out.println("Spezialized implementation is doing Stuff.");
}
}
[/java]

MySpezializedService will be injected instead of MyDefaultService in any place where MyDefaultService has been defined for injection.
Continue reading Building extensible Java EE Applications – Part 1 →

Java, Java EE

Concurrency Control for CDI

9 Comments

At the moment there is no standard concurrency control mechanism for CDI managed beans, and at the time of writing it has not been taken into consideration for CDI 2.0 specification either.

The lack of any container based concurrency control, can lead to issues when working with unprotected contexts such as Application- or Session-Scoped beans.

Unlike EJB’s, where the container handles concurrency control, CDI only defines concurrency control for the conversation context.

The container ensures that a long-running conversation may be associated with at most one request at a time, by blocking or rejecting concurrent requests. If the container rejects a request, it must associate the request with a new transient conversation and throw an exception of type javax.enterprise.context.BusyConversationException from the restore view phase of the JSF lifecycle. The application may handle this exception using the JSF ExceptionHandler.
Conversation context lifecycle in Java EE – CDI Spec

Aside from this concurrency is only mentioned in conjunction with CDI EJB interaction.

Whilst all other relevant normal scoped contexts (Application- and Session- Scoped) are completely unguarded, the specification only defines a non adaptable concurrency control for conversation scoped beans. In my previous post on sychronizing access to CDI Conversations, I described how some of these limitation can be overcome.
Continue reading Concurrency Control for CDI →

Java, Java EE

CDI VooDoo – The Bean Manager and Circular Injection

Leave a comment

CDI supports circular dependency injection when at least one of the beans has a [simple_tooltip content=’standard CDI: @ApplicationScoped, @SessionScoped, @ConversationScoped, @RequestScoped’]normal scope*[/simple_tooltip], this may be useful when sharing contextual information between beans of same or different scope (e.g. MVC pattern).

The CDI BeanManager is responsible for the creation of all CDI beans and managing contextual access to all normal scoped beans.

[java]
@RequestScoped
public class Foo {
@Inject
private Bar bar;
…
}

@RequestScoped
public class Bar {
@Inject
private Foo foo;
…
}
[/java]

Continue reading CDI VooDoo – The Bean Manager and Circular Injection →