(Using this list since I couldn't find a place to ask JBoss
Modules
question anywhere else, feel free to direct me there if there's one)
Hello everyone :)
I have been using JBoss Modules for one of the projects I'm involved in.
The usage there is pretty much similar to how we use it for setting up
classloaders in WildFly server for deployments. A new module M1 gets
dynamically created and assigned to a component and this module is added
with dependencies to some pre-defined static modules A, B, C and such.
M1 also gets N number of resource roots (backed by ResourceLoaderSpec),
each pointing to a jar file within some well known directory. So to put
in some sort of a code, it looks like:
// add each jar as a resource root for the module
for (final File jar : jars) {
final ResourceLoader jarResourceLoader;
try {
jarResourceLoader =
ResourceLoaders.createJarResourceLoader(jar.getName(), new JarFile(jar));
} catch (IOException e) {
// log and continue
logger.warn("....", e);
continue;
}
moduleSpecBuilder.addResourceRoot(ResourceLoaderSpec.createResourceLoaderSpec(jarResourceLoader));
}
All works fine without any issues and the module M1 has access to the
resources in these jars. Now there are times where the components for
which I've created this module M1 and attach these jars, "accidentally"
ship/package jars which have resources (classes to be precise) which are
also exposed/present in one of the dependency modules (remember A, B,
C...). So this then leads to the same old thing where I have go back and
tell my users not to package such jars.
I want to try and make this a bit more robust and get away with having
to tell users not to package xyz jars. I had a look at the
ResourceLoaderSpec interface and it takes a PathFilter
https://github.com/jboss-modules/jboss-modules/blob/1.x/src/main/java/org...
which gets me one step closer to what I want to achieve. So if I know
that static module A, B, C etc... expose classes belonging to package
foo.bar.blah, I can setup a PathFilter on these jar resource loader to
skip/decline the path in the accept() method. I think that should work
out fine (I need to test it out tonight) and I wouldn't have to worry
that some jar packaged within that component will introduce these
classes belonging to the foo.bar.blah package.
However, although it might work, I then have to keep a very close vigil
or rather keep inspecting what packages (or resources in general) the
modules A, B and C provide. Instead what I'm thinking of is a "smart"
PathFilter or anything along those lines whose semantics would be to
"skip/don't accept/filter out all those resources, from a resource root,
if the resource is provided by any of the specified modules". So
something like:
ResourceLoaderSpec.createResourceLoaderSpec(jarResourceLoader,
*PathFilters.excludeResourcesExposedByModules("A**:slot", "B:slot",
"C:slot" ...)*);
Having looked at the JBoss Modules code, I don't think this is possible
currently. But that's OK. What I really want to check is, is this
something that would be feasible to implement (doesn't have to be in
JBoss Modules itself) and is there any obvious issues with the approach?
Also, is this something that would be useful to have in JBoss Modules
itself?
A smart filter is a pretty good idea! I think that it might make more
sense as part of a dependency specification though, from a user's
perspective: if I say "I depend on module org.foo.bar:main" I should
also be able to say "...and use their packages" which would exclude all
paths in the source module's resource roots (other than META-INF and the
root path).
In fact, maybe that ought to be the default setting, with the user
having to opt in to override packages. So a user might say:
<dependencies>
...
<module name="org.foo.bar">
<override-paths/> <!-- now my paths take precedence -->
</module>
...
</dependencies>
In the programmatic API it'd be fairly straightforward as well. We
could add an overridePaths path filter to the dependency specification
(which ought to be builder-based at this point, I now realize, what with
the parameter explosion). Any dependency paths that are not matched by
that filter would be subtracted from all resource roots.
As far as XML compatibility goes, the default for 1.5 and earlier can be
to override all paths, whereas the default for 1.6 and later can be to
only override META-INF and the root path.
We'd have to have logic to allow for dependency recalculation when a
module is relinked, but that shouldn't be too hard.
What do you think?
--
- DML