hessian with dependency injection

Using Hessian with Dependency Injection pattern creates services which are simpler, protocol-independent and more easily tested. The Dependency Injection pattern (aka inversion of control) gives Resin the responsibility of configuring and assembling the service, protocol, and client.

Demo

Files in this tutorial

Service Implementation

Service Implementation

Configuring the Service

Client

Hessian Client using Dependency Injection

Files in this tutorial

WEB-INF/classes/example/GreetingAPI.java	Interface for the greeting service.
WEB-INF/classes/example/GreetingImpl.java	The service implementation as a Java object
WEB-INF/resin-web.xml	Configures the environment
WEB-INF/classes/example/GreetingClientServlet.java	Client Servlet

Service Implementation

GreetingAPI.java

package example;

public interface GreetingAPI {
  public String hello();
}

Service Implementation

The Greeting implementation is a plain Java class that implements the MatchService API. Making the service a plain class offers a number of advantages:

Simplicity: It can concentrate on its business logic because it doesn't need to implement any protocol-dependent code.
Independence: It can be reused more easily because it isn't tied to a distributed framework (e.g. in contrast to EJB).
Testability: It is more easily tested since the test harness doesn't need to implement the protocol or its stubs. The harness can just test the service as a plain old Java object.

GreetingImpl.java

package example;

public class GreetingImpl implements GreetingAPI {
  private String _greeting = "Hello, world";

  public void setGreeting(String greeting)
  {
    _greeting = greeting;
  }

  public String greeting()
  {
    return _greeting;
  }
}

Configuring the Service

URL-based services can use the servlet configuration to define the service. The service class can use Resin IoC to inject its own dependencies.

resin-web.xml

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <servlet-mapping url-pattern="/hessian/greeting"
                   servlet-class="example.GreetingImpl">
    <protocol type="hessian"/>
    
    <init>
      <greeting>Hello from resin-web.xml</greeting>
    </init>
  </servlet-mapping>

</web-app>

Client

Configuring the client servlet with Dependency Injection allows for a simpler and more general client. The following client can use any proxy/stub which implements the GreetingAPI without change, for example:

Hessian proxy
Burlap proxy
EJB local object stub
JMX proxy
Java bean instance

Using the Dependency Injection pattern, the servlet doesn't care how the proxy is implemented, or how the greeting service is discovered.

GreetingClientServlet.java

import javax.webbeans.In;

public class GreetingClientServlet extends GenericServlet {
  @In private GreetingAPI _greeting;

  public void service(ServletRequest req, ServletResponse res)
    throws IOException, ServletException
  {
    PrintWriter out = res.getWriter();

    out.println("Hello: " + _greeting.greeting());
  }
}

Hessian Client using Dependency Injection

The following code defines the client in the resin.web.xml. The servlet defined above will inject the GreetingAPI directly with the WebBeans @In annotation. Because the GreetingAPI is unique, there's no need to give it a name.

resin-web.xml

<web-app xmlns="http://caucho.com/ns/resin">

  <web-service-client class="example.GreetingAPI"
                      url="hessian:${webApp.url}/hessian/greeting"/>

  <servlet-mapping url-pattern="/client/greeting"
                   servlet-class="example.GreetingClientServlet"/>

</web-app>

Demo