[infinispan-dev] Questions on AtomicMap and improvement proposals

[Emmanuel Bernard]

In exchange for answers, I will improve at least the JavaDoc and maybe create a wiki from this info.

(note that this has nothing to do with the ongoing discussion on key-levle locks for a sister of AtomicMap)

I've tried to search the wiki but found nothing on AtomicMap (only forum posts) and I've read the AtomicMap JavaDoc but I am still a bit unsure of what's going on.

When I need to create an AtomicMap, I must use 
AtomicMap<String, Object> resultset = AtomicMapLookup.getAtomicMap(cache, "my_atomic_map_key");

Questions
Here are a few questions for you

1. How can I apply advanced flags to get or create the AtomicMap?
cache.withFlag(SKIP_CACHE_STORE,FORCE_ASYNCHRONOUS).get("my_atomic_map_key");

3. Is that legal to use other cache methods like replace on an AtomicMap value, what are the consequences?

3. When I expect a map to be present in the key, can I use cache.get("my_atomic_map_key") and still benefit from my properly proxied AtomicMap? Or am I forced to use AtomicMapLookup.getAtomicMap?

4. Using AtomicMapLookup.getAtomicMap, how can I differentiate an empty key where a new map has been created from a retrieval of an empty map stored in the key?

5. Must I use AtomicMapLookup.remove method to remove an atomic map?

6. Can I clone an AtomicMap?
For using methods like replace(), it seems one would need to clone the atomicmap to compare it to the initial value. When I tried briefly Iw as unsure I could do that.

Proposed improvements

I'm asking all the questions because these can potentially make AtomicMap users life quite hard and abstracting Infinispan from OGM will make a damn ugly interface / contract

1. Would it be possible to let people get their proxied AtomicMap from cache.get() and other get methods?
It seems that either the marshaller or the get operations (probably the get ops as local cache should work as well) should be able to intercept an AtomicMap and essentually do what AtomicMapLookup is doing (and make sure it is properly wrapped).
If that's possible that would be already a big benefit for the user as it would only be limited to AtomicMap creation or cloning

2. Would it be possible to let people create standalone AtomicMaps and associate them to the cache lasily and in a transparent fashion.
AtomicMap<String, Object> resultSet = AtomicMapLookup.createAtomicMap();
cache.put(key, resultSet); //lazily set cache, deltaMapKey, batchContainer and icc for new AtomicMaps

3. Could we guarantee some equality between Map and AtomicMap?
if I do Map 

map = new HashMap(atomicMap);
atomicMap.put("key", "value");
cache.replace(key, map, atomicMap);

Am I guaranteed that it can work (if no one has pushed a change behind my back)?

Emmanuel
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