DeferredResult in spring mvc - spring

Question

I have one class that extends DeferredResults and extends Runnable as shown below
public class EventDeferredObject<T> extends DeferredResult<Boolean> implements Runnable {
private Long customerId;
private String email;
#Override
public void run() {
RestTemplate restTemplate=new RestTemplate();
EmailMessageDTO emailMessageDTO=new EmailMessageDTO("dineshshe#gmail.com", "Hi There");
Boolean result=restTemplate.postForObject("http://localhost:9080/asycn/sendEmail", emailMessageDTO, Boolean.class);
this.setResult(result);
}
//Constructor and getter and setters
}
Now I have controller that return the object of the above class,whenever new request comes to controller we check if that request is present in HashMap(That stores unprocessed request at that instance).If not present then we are creating object of EventDeferredObject class can store that in HashMap and call start() method on it.If this type request is already present then we will return that from HashMap.On completion on request we will delete that request from HashMap.
#RequestMapping(value="/sendVerificationDetails")
public class SendVerificationDetailsController {
private ConcurrentMap<String , EventDeferredObject<Boolean>> requestMap=new ConcurrentHashMap<String , EventDeferredObject<Boolean>>();
#RequestMapping(value="/sendEmail",method=RequestMethod.POST)
public EventDeferredObject<Boolean> sendEmail(#RequestBody EmailDTO emailDTO)
{
EventDeferredObject<Boolean> eventDeferredObject = null;
System.out.println("Size:"+requestMap.size());
if(!requestMap.containsKey(emailDTO.getEmail()))
{
eventDeferredObject=new EventDeferredObject<Boolean>(emailDTO.getCustomerId(), emailDTO.getEmail());
requestMap.put(emailDTO.getEmail(), eventDeferredObject);
Thread t1=new Thread(eventDeferredObject);
t1.start();
}
else
{
eventDeferredObject=requestMap.get(emailDTO.getEmail());
}
eventDeferredObject.onCompletion(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
if(requestMap.containsKey(emailDTO.getEmail()))
{
requestMap.remove(emailDTO.getEmail());
}
}
});
return eventDeferredObject;
}
}
Now this code works fine if there no identical request comes to that stored in HashMap. If we give number of different request at same time code works fine.

Answer 1

Well, I do not know if I understood correctly, but I think you might have race conditions in the code, for example here:
if(!requestMap.containsKey(emailDTO.getEmail()))
{
eventDeferredObject=new EventDeferredObject<Boolean>(emailDTO.getCustomerId(), emailDTO.getEmail());
requestMap.put(emailDTO.getEmail(), eventDeferredObject);
Thread t1=new Thread(eventDeferredObject);
t1.start();
}
else
{
eventDeferredObject=requestMap.get(emailDTO.getEmail());
}
think of a scenario in which you have two requests with the same key emailDTO.getEmail().
Request 1 checks if there is a key in the map, does not find it and puts it inside.
Request 2 comes some time later, checks if there is a key in the map, finds it, and
goes to fetch it; however just before that, the thread started by request 1 finishes and another thread, started by onComplete event, removes the key from the map. At this point,
requestMap.get(emailDTO.getEmail())
will return null, and as a result you will have a NullPointerException.
Now, this does look like a rare scenario, so I do not know if this is the problem you see.
I would try to modify the code as follows (I did not run it myself, so I might have errors):
public class EventDeferredObject<T> extends DeferredResult<Boolean> implements Runnable {
private Long customerId;
private String email;
private ConcurrentMap ourConcurrentMap;
#Override
public void run() {
...
this.setResult(result);
ourConcurrentMap.remove(this.email);
}
//Constructor and getter and setters
}
so the DeferredResult implementation has the responsibility to remove itself from the concurrent map. Moreover I do not use the onComplete to set a callback thread, as it seems to me an unnecessary complication. To avoid the race conditions I talked about before, one needs to combine somehow the verification of the presence of an entry with its fetching into one atomic operation; this is done by the putIfAbsent method of ConcurrentMap. Therefore I change the controller into
#RequestMapping(value="/sendVerificationDetails")
public class SendVerificationDetailsController {
private ConcurrentMap<String , EventDeferredObject<Boolean>> requestMap=new ConcurrentHashMap<String , EventDeferredObject<Boolean>>();
#RequestMapping(value="/sendEmail",method=RequestMethod.POST)
public EventDeferredObject<Boolean> sendEmail(#RequestBody EmailDTO emailDTO)
{
EventDeferredObject<Boolean> eventDeferredObject = new EventDeferredObject<Boolean>(emailDTO.getCustomerId(), emailDTO.getEmail(), requestMap);
EventDeferredObject<Boolean> oldEventDeferredObject = requestMap.putIfAbsent(emailDTO.getEmail(), eventDeferredObject );
if(oldEventDeferredObject == null)
{
//if no value was present before
Thread t1=new Thread(eventDeferredObject);
t1.start();
return eventDeferredObject;
}
else
{
return oldEventDeferredObject;
}
}
}
if this does not solve the problem you have, I hope that at least it might give some idea.