Hydra

Hydra is a JVM based DispatcherComposer Engine.

Basically, you define the tasks to be performed and the input required for each of those tasks. From then on Hydra takes over - It creates the dependency graph, performs tasks in required order and composes the final output.

For each task to be performed, the input can be composed on any of the initial input parameters or output from already completed tasks. Same is the case with final response.

Glossary

Dispatcher

Dispatcher is the top-level orchestrator. A Hydra Dispatcher execution comprises of -

• Already realized, initial map of parameters - Map<String, Object>
• An unordered map of Tasks to be performed - Map<String, Task>
• A response curator - Composer

Hydra provides a default implementation of Dispatcher (DefaultDispatcher) which can be initialized with or without a Executor

DefaultDispatcher allows for the use of a Object context (which is used to instantiate a DefaultComposer on the fly) as the response curator.

Task

A Task is a combination of a Composer and a Callable

• The Composer is the input curator for the Callable.
• Output from call() of this Callable is the response of this Task.

Hydra provides a default implementation of Task (DefaultTask) which is initialized with -

• A Callable class that is instantiated on the fly. This class needs to have a single argument constructor which is used to instantiate it with a Composer output.
• A Composer or a Object context (which is used to instantiate a DefaultComposer on the fly)

Composer

A Composer composes the given structure (Map, List, String or Number) based on previously realized values.

Hydra provides a default implementation of Composer (DefaultComposer) which can take a nested collection and can extract out required dependencies and Expressions that need to be realized.

Expressions to be parsed are represented by sandwiching a String between {{ and }} and are converted to DefaultExpression.

Examples -

1. {{$someVar}}
2. {{$someMap.someKey}}

Expression

An Expression is a string representation of a data-path.

Hydra provides a default implementation of Expression (DefaultExpression) which represents an expression as String.

Every variable in the expression starts with a $.

An Expression can be marked as optional by starting it with #. An optional expression means that null is a valid output. And an exception faced while realizing this expression will also respond back with null.

Examples:

1. someConstant or 1.0 or 1 are static expressions with no variables
2. $someVar is a variable expression that returns the value of someVar
3. $someMap.someKey is a variable expression that returns value of someKey from someMap
4. $someMap.someKey[$someList[0]] is a complex expression depending on more than 1 variable
5. #someMap.someKey is an optional expression and will return null if someMap is null or if someMap.someKey is null or non-existent.

Quick Usage

Add following to <repositories/> section of pom.xml -

<repository>
  <id>clojars</id>
  <name>Clojars repository</name>
  <url>https://clojars.org/repo</url>
</repository>

Add following to <dependencies/> section of your pom.xml -

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.flipkart.hydra</groupId>
  <artifactId>hydra-dispatcher</artifactId>
  <version>1.2</version>
</dependency>

You can now, call Dispatcher using following code

// Already resolved list of parameters
Map<String, Object> initialParams = ...;

// Map of tasks to be dispatched (mapped to the keys that will store the task response)
Map<String, Task> tasks = ...;

// Final response that needs to be realized
Map<String, Object> response = ...;

// Dispatcher Call
Dispatcher dispatcher = new DefaultDispatcher();
Object output = dispatcher.execute(initialParams, tasks, response);

Example

Description

• We already have an Employee Name.
• Assuming all employees have unique names, we want to fetch -
  • Employee ID (provided by EmployeeIdentificationService)
  • Employee Joining Date (provided by EmployeeInfoService)
• Now using Employee ID, we want to fetch -
  • His department (provided by EmployeeDepartmentService)
  • His salary (provided by EmployeeSalaryService)
    • This information might be confidential and hence can throw UnauthorizedException
    • We don't want to fail in this case
  • His city (provided as part of response by EmployeeLocationService)
  • His complete address (provided as part of response by EmployeeLocationService)
  • Lat/Lng of all components of his address
• Now we want to respond back with all this information

Steps

Create the initial set of parameters -

Map<String, Object> initialParams = new HashMap<>();
initialParams.put("employeeName", "John Doe");

Create a list of Tasks to be performed -

Task 1 - Fetching employeeID from employeeName

Expression expression1 = new DefaultExpression("{{$employeeName}}");
Composer composer1 = new DefaultComposer(expression1, true);
Task employeeIDTask = new DefaultTask(EmployeeIdentificationService.class, composer1);

Task 2 - Fetching joiningDate from employeeName

// Short notation for creating expression on the fly
Composer composer2 = new DefaultComposer("{{$employeeName}}");
Task joiningDateTask = new DefaultTask(EmployeeInfoService.class, composer2);

Task 3 - Fetching department from employeeID

// Short notation for creating composer on the fly
Task departmentTask = new DefaultTask(EmployeeDepartmentService.class, "{{$employeeID}}");

Task 4 - Fetching salary from employeeID

Task salaryTask = new DefaultTask(EmployeeSalaryService.class, "{{$employeeID}}");

Task 5 - Fetching location from employeeName

Task locationTask = new DefaultTask(EmployeeLocationService.class, "{{$employeeName}}");

Task 6 - Fetching latlng for all components of location

// MultiTask for executing callable once for each value of the provided looping composer
// Composer can use $__key and $__value while iterating
// We also need to provide a ExecutorService to MultiTask
Task latLngTask = new DefaultMultiTask(executor, LatLngService.class, "{{$location}}", "{{$__value}}");

Finally collecting all Tasks in a Map

Map<String, Task> tasks = new HashMap<>();
tasks.put("joiningDate", joiningDateTask);
tasks.put("salary", salaryTask);
tasks.put("department", departmentTask);
tasks.put("employeeID", employeeIDTask);
tasks.put("location", locationTask);
tasks.put("latlng", latLngTask);

Create the response curator

Map<String, Object> responseContext = new HashMap<>();
responseContext.put("employeeName", "{{$employeeName}}");
responseContext.put("employeeID", "{{$employeeID}}");
responseContext.put("department", "{{$department}}");
responseContext.put("salary", "{{#$salary}}"); // Optional data - will not fail on null value
responseContext.put("city", "{{$location.city}}"); // Using expressions to extract part of data
responseContext.put("address", "{{$(join, $(values, $location))}}"); // Using provided data access functions
responseContext.put("latlng", "{{$latlng}}");

// This recursively iterates over the responseContext and parses any expression that it finds.
Composer response = new DefaultComposer(responseContext);

Create a ExecutorService

private static final ExecutorService executor = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();

Dispatch

// Passing Optional Parameter (ExecutorService) so we can use the same for MultiTask
Dispatcher dispatcher = new DefaultDispatcher(executor);
Object output = dispatcher.execute(initialParams, tasks, response);

Code for this example can be seen here.

Salient Points

• Easy to use interfaces
• Auto creation/resolution of dependencies graph
• Notation to express variables/expressions

Changes

The change log can be found here

Contribution, Bugs and Feedback

For bugs, questions and discussions please use the Github Issues. Please follow the contribution guidelines when submitting pull requests.

License

Copyright 2015 Flipkart Internet, pvt ltd.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.