Hi,

On 30.04.2009, at 16:44, Eugen Reiswich wrote:


First, why are you starting the bundles in one of the bundles?
Because my serviceimpl bundles are never started by Eclipse (in case I reuse them in my RCP application). If I do add them to the Eclipse launch-configuration they remain as resolved but are never activated. Therefore they never register a service which is needed within my application. The lazy loading concept does only activate a bundle if one of it's classes is needed. As my application only uses the service-interfaces (which are in a separate bundle) and never the serviceimpls these bundles are never activated.


Second, as Peter points out, OSGi is a dynamic environment. So, to make this robust, not error prone and not difficult to maintain, you should be using service trackers to get your services. e.g.

But that's exactly what causes all the trouble. If I use service tracker I have no idea at what point in time all required services are registred in the registry. So what can happen is that I start my application, try to use a service and the service is not available because it's not registered yet. What I do not want is e.g. to display an error message with something like "please wait another 5 or maybe more seconds, till the service is registered". I want to ensure a stable environment after my application is started.

protected void ensureServices(BundleContext context) {
ServiceTracker tracker = new ServiceTracker(context, IMyService.class.getCannonicalName(), null);
        tracker.open();
Object myService = tracker.waitForService(60 * 1000); // wait 60 seconds for the service to initialize
        if (myService == null) {
                //  shutdown
        }
}

You expect the service to be initialized at the least after 60 seconds. But how do you know that the service will be registered within the 60 sec for sure? The ServiceTracker can still return NULL after 60 seconds. Or am I wrong?

My third point is that you shouldn't block the Activator.start() method, so you'd do:

public void start(final BundleContext context) {
        new Thread(new Runnable() {
                public void run() {
                        ensureServices(context);
                }
        }).start();
}


But that's the only way how I can for now ensure that all services are started in a correct order. We have some service dependencies which have to be resolved in a correct order. This is really error prone but I don't know how to avoid this problem (see my issues with the service tracker)


You create a lot of software for a function that is handled fully invisible by DS, iPOJO, Spring, dep. manager etc. You're fighting OSGi, you do not leverage it ...


DS, iPOJO and Spring DM are useful tools, but in my opinion they are really complex. We have used Spring for a long time in several projects and are no longer interested in configuring our application with XML-files.

You can use iPOJO with annotations or with an API. XML is just one possibility. And now, it seems that you can use DS with annotations too.

Clement


I know that what we are doing in our application is bad, but that's why I am looking for a better solution.

Kind regards,
Eugen

Am Apr 30, 2009 um 15:41  schrieb Hal Hildebrand:

First, why are you starting the bundles in one of the bundles? For one, the frameworks are usually persistent - Equinox certainly is. So, what you'll find is that the second time you start up the process - assuming you don't clean the installation- the bundles will already be started. So, this is a bad thing to do right off the bat.

Second, as Peter points out, OSGi is a dynamic environment. So, to make this robust, not error prone and not difficult to maintain, you should be using service trackers to get your services. e.g.


protected void ensureServices(BundleContext context) {
ServiceTracker tracker = new ServiceTracker(context, IMyService.class.getCannonicalName(), null);
        tracker.open();
Object myService = tracker.waitForService(60 * 1000); // wait 60 seconds for the service to initialize
        if (myService == null) {
                //  shutdown
        }
}

My third point is that you shouldn't block the Activator.start() method, so you'd do:

public void start(final BundleContext context) {
        new Thread(new Runnable() {
                public void run() {
                        ensureServices(context);
                }
        }).start();
}


There are more sophisticated things you can do as well, but they all ground out to much the same thing as above - i.e. looking in the registry for a service, timing out.

On Apr 30, 2009, at 12:46 AM, Eugen Reiswich wrote:

Hi OSGi-devs,

I have the following problem with osgi services. We develop basically applications where dynamic is not an issue. So what I would like to make sure in my application is that all services are registred properly at start up - if not, the application will be shut down. In addition to that I want to reuse my bundles in RCP applications so any concept must also be applicable for RCP applications.

Say I have two bundles:
1. org.mycompany.service (contains a service interface)
2. org.mycompany.serviceimpl (contains the service implementation and registers withing his activator an osgi-service)

What we do within the service bundle is this:
                
public void start(BundleContext context) throws Exception {

        Bundle[] bundles = context.getBundles();
        // find the implementation for the service bundle
        for (Bundle bundle : bundles) {
if ("org.mycompany.serviceimpl".equals(bundle.getSymbolicName())) {
                        // service impl found
                        if (bundle.getState() != Bundle.ACTIVE) {
                                bundle.start();
                        }
                }
        }

        // check if servicimpl has registred service properly
        ServiceReference serviceReference = context
                        .getServiceReference(IMyService.class.getName());
        
        if (serviceReference == null) {
                // shut down application

        }
        ...


From my point of view this is pretty error prone and difficult to maintain. Is there a best practice approach how I can make sure that all services are registered properly at start up of my application? How can I start my serviceimpl bundles in RCP application as no one depends on this bundle which is why the are never started?

We have spend now a lot of time to find solutions for this problem but they all seem to be improvable.

Regards,
Eugen
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