ActorSelection support wildcard and it allows to send a message to all actors that match the selection:
context.actorSelection("../*") ! msg
Is there a way to retrieve the list of ActorRef that match the selection from the ActorSelection?
From the documentation I can see that there is a resolveOne function but not (for example) a resolveList.
Update
The reason why I want the list of ActorRef is that I would like to use the ask operator on all the actors that match the selection.
Just to be clear here is an example of what I would like to do:
object MyActor {
case object AskAllActors
case object GetActorInfo
}
class MyActor extends Actor {
import MyActor._
def receive = {
case AskAllActors =>
val actors: List[ActorRef] = context.actorSelection("../*").resolveList()
val result: List[Future[String]] = actors.map { a => (a ? GetActorInfo).mapTo[String] }
Future.sequence(result).map { result =>
// do something with result: List[String]
}
}
}
The ability to get a list of the form
val timeout : FiniteDuration = 10 seconds
val actorList = actorSelection.resolveMany(timeout)
does not exist. I suspect the reason is because once the timeout expires there is a chance that an Iterable, of non-zero length, is returned but it would be impossible to know if the Iterable is comprehensive. Some Actors may not have had enough time to respond. With resolveOne the issue does not exist, the first responding ActorRef is the result.
Based on the documentation it looks like you could use the Identify message to have all of the Actors specified in an actorSelection respond with identification:
class Follower extends Actor {
val identifyId = 1
context.actorSelection("../*") ! Identify(identifyId)
def receive = {
case ActorIdentity(`identifyId`, Some(ref)) => ...
}
}
Related
I've built an Akka actor that queries an API at regular intervals, like this:
val cancellable =
system.scheduler.schedule(0 milliseconds,
5 seconds,
actor,
QueryController(1))
The Actor, in essence is:
object UpdateStatistics {
/**
* Query the controller for the given switch Id
*
* #param dpId Switch's Id
*/
case class QueryController(dpId: Int)
case object Stop
def props: Props = Props[UpdateStatistics]
}
class UpdateStatistics extends Actor with akka.actor.ActorLogging {
import UpdateStatistics._
def receive = {
case QueryController(id) =>
import context.dispatcher
log.info(s"Receiving request to query controller")
Future { FlowCollector.getSwitchFlows(1) } onComplete {
f => self ! f.get
}
case Stop =>
log.info(s"Shuting down")
context stop self
case json: JValue =>
log.info("Getting json response, computing features...")
val features = FeatureExtractor.getFeatures(json)
log.debug(s"Features: $features")
sender ! features
case x =>
log.warning("Received unknown message: {}", x)
}
}
What I am trying to do is get the json:Jvalue message out of UpdateStatistics actor. Reading the Akka docs I thought this may be useful:
implicit val i = inbox()
i.select() {
case x => println(s"Valor Devuelto $x")
}
println(i receive(2.second))
But I do not know how to modify UpdateStatistics actor in order to send the result to the inbox above.
Another option I've read in the docs are event streams.
But I do not think this is the correct way.
Is there a way of achieving what I want to do? Or do I need to use a second Actor to which I send the JSON response?
You probably are looking for the ask pattern in AKKA. This will allow you to return a value to the sender.
import akka.pattern.ask
import akka.util.duration._
implicit val timeout = Timeout(5 seconds)
val future = actor ? QueryController(1)
val result = Await.result(future, timeout.duration).asInstanceOf[JValue]
println(result)
To make this work, you need to send the response to the original sender, rather than self. Also, you should beware the dangers of closing over sender in a future when handling messages.
I have two actors in my system. Talker and Conversation. Conversation consists in two talkers (by now). When a Talker wants to join a conversation I should check if conversation exists (another talker has created it) and if it not, create it. I have this code in a method of my Talker actor:
def getOrCreateConversation(conversationId: UUID): ActorRef = {
// #TODO try to get conversation actor by conversationId
context.actorSelection("user/conversation/" + conversationId.toString)
// #TODO if it not exists... create it
context.actorOf(Conversation.props(conversationId), conversationId.toString)
}
As you can see, when I create my converastion actor with actorOf I'm passing as a second argument the conversationId. I do this for easy searching this actor... Is it the correct way to do this?
Thank you
edited
Thanks to #Arne I've finally did this:
class ConversationRouter extends Actor with ActorLogging {
def receive = {
case ConversationEnv(conversationId, msg) =>
val conversation = findConversation(conversationId) match {
case None => createNewConversation(conversationId)
case Some(x) => x
}
conversation forward msg
}
def findConversation(conversationId: UUID): Option[ActorRef] = context.child(conversationId.toString)
def createNewConversation(conversationId: UUID): ActorRef = {
context.actorOf(Conversation.props(conversationId), conversationId.toString)
}
}
And the test:
class ConversationRouterSpec extends ChatUnitTestCase("ConversationRouterSpec") {
trait ConversationRouterSpecHelper {
val conversationId = UUID.randomUUID()
var newConversationCreated = false
def conversationRouterWithConversation(existingConversation: Option[ActorRef]) = {
val conversationRouterRef = TestActorRef(new ConversationRouter {
override def findConversation(conversationId: UUID) = existingConversation
override def createNewConversation(conversationId: UUID) = {
newConversationCreated = true
TestProbe().ref
}
})
conversationRouterRef
}
}
"ConversationRouter" should {
"create a new conversation when a talker join it" in new ConversationRouterSpecHelper {
val nonExistingConversationOption = None
val conversationRouterRef = conversationRouterWithConversation(nonExistingConversationOption)
conversationRouterRef ! ConversationEnv(conversationId, Join(conversationId))
newConversationCreated should be(right = true)
}
"not create a new conversation if it already exists" in new ConversationRouterSpecHelper {
val existingConversation = Option(TestProbe().ref)
val conversationRouterRef = conversationRouterWithConversation(existingConversation)
conversationRouterRef ! ConversationEnv(conversationId, Join(conversationId))
newConversationCreated should be(right = false)
}
}
}
Determining the existence of an actor cannot be done synchronously. So you have a couple of choices. The first two are more conceptual in nature to illustrate doing asynchronous lookups, but I offer them more for reference about the asynchronous nature of actors. The third is likely the correct way of doing things:
1. Make the function return a Future[ActorRef]
def getOrCreateConversation(conversationId: UUID): Unit {
context.actorSelection(s"user/conversation/$conversationId")
.resolveOne()
.recover { case _:Exception =>
context.actorOf(Conversation.props(conversationId),conversationId.toString)
}
}
2. Make it Unit and have it send the ActorRef back to your current actor
Pretty much the same as the above, but now you we pipe the future back the current actor, so that the resolved actor can be dealt with in the context of the calling actor's receive loop:
def getOrCreateConversation(conversationId: UUID): Unit {
context.actorSelection(s"user/conversation/$conversationId")
.resolveOne()
.recover { case _:Exception =>
context.actorOf(Conversation.props(conversationId),conversationId.toString)
}.pipeTo(self)
}
3. Create a router actor that you send your Id'ed messages to and it creates/resolves the child and forwards the message
I say that this is likely the correct way, since your goal seems to be cheap lookup at a specific named path. The example you give makes the assumption that the function is always called from within the actor at path /user/conversation otherwise the context.actorOf would not create the child at /user/conversation/{id}/.
Which is to say that you have a router pattern on your hands and the child you create is already known to the router in its child collection. This pattern assumes you have an envelope around any conversation message, something like this:
case class ConversationEnv(id: UUID, msg: Any)
Now all conversation messages get sent to the router instead of to the conversation child directly. The router can now look up the child in its child collection:
def receive = {
case ConversationEnv(id,msg) =>
val conversation = context.child(id.toString) match {
case None => context.actorOf(Conversation.props(id),id.toString)
case Some(x) => x
}
conversation forward msg
}
The additional benefit is that your router is also the conversation supervisor, so if the conversation child dies, it can deal with it. Not exposing the child ActorRef to the outside world also has the benefit that you could have it die when idle and have it get re-created on the next message receipt, etc.
I have a futures pool , and each future works with the same akka Actor System - some Actors in system should be global, some are used only in one future.
val longFutures = for (i <- 0 until 2 ) yield Future {
val p:Page = PhantomExecutor(isDebug=true)
Await.result( p.open("http://www.stackoverflow.com/") ,timeout = 10.seconds)
}
PhantomExecutor tryes to use one shared global actor (simple increment counter) using system.actorSelection
def selectActor[T <: Actor : ClassTag](system:ActorSystem,name:String) = {
val timeout = Timeout(0.1 seconds)
val myFutureStuff = system.actorSelection("akka://"+system.name+"/user/"+name)
val aid:ActorIdentity = Await.result(myFutureStuff.ask(Identify(1))(timeout).mapTo[ActorIdentity],
0.1 seconds)
aid.ref match {
case Some(cacher) =>
cacher
case None =>
system.actorOf(Props[T],name)
}
}
But in concurrent environment this approach does not work because of race condition.
I know only one solution for this problem - create global actors before splitting to futures. But this means that I can't encapsulate alot of hidden work from top library user.
You're right in that making sure the global actors are initialized first is the right approach. Can't you tie them to a companion object and reference them from there so you know they will only ever be initialized one time? If you really can't go with such an approach then you could try something like this to lookup or create the actor. It is similar to your code but it include logic to go back through the lookup/create logic (recursively) if the race condition is hit (only up to a max number of times):
def findOrCreateActor[T <: Actor : ClassTag](system:ActorSystem, name:String, maxAttempts:Int = 5):ActorRef = {
import system.dispatcher
val timeout = 0.1 seconds
def doFindOrCreate(depth:Int = 0):ActorRef = {
if (depth >= maxAttempts)
throw new RuntimeException(s"Can not create actor with name $name and reached max attempts of $maxAttempts")
val selection = system.actorSelection(s"/user/$name")
val fut = selection.resolveOne(timeout).map(Some(_)).recover{
case ex:ActorNotFound => None
}
val refOpt = Await.result(fut, timeout)
refOpt match {
case Some(ref) => ref
case None => util.Try(system.actorOf(Props[T],name)).getOrElse(doFindOrCreate(depth + 1))
}
}
doFindOrCreate()
}
Now the retry logic would fire for any exception when creating the actor, so you might want to further specify that (probably via another recover combinator) to only recurse when it gets an InvalidActorNameException, but you get the idea.
You may want to consider creating a manager actor that would take care about creating "counter" actors. This way you would ensure that counter actor creation requests are serialized.
object CounterManagerActor {
case class SelectActorRequest(name : String)
case class SelectActorResponse(name : String, actorRef : ActorRef)
}
class CounterManagerActor extends Actor {
def receive = {
case SelectActorRequest(name) => {
sender() ! SelectActorResponse(name, selectActor(name))
}
}
private def selectActor(name : String) = {
// a slightly modified version of the original selectActor() method
???
}
}
A future from the main method of a program sends a msg to its actor asking for an iterable object. The actor then creates another future that asks for the iterable object (say an ArrayBuffer) from a remote actor. After receiving the ArrayBuffer from the remote actor, how would the actor send it back to the first future in the main method? It seems creating a local alias of sender and creating a separate case class to represent the iterable does not prevent dead letters from being encountered.
Here is a sample code:
case class SequenceObject(sqnce:Seq[someArrayBuffer])
//...
implicit val timeout = Timeout(10 seconds)
val fut1: Future[Any] = myActor ? iNeedAnArrayBufferObject
fut1.onSuccess {
case listOfItems: SequenceObject => {
//do sth with listofItems.sqnce
}
class myActor extends Actor {
implicit val timeout = Timeout(1 seconds)
def receive = {
case a: iNeedAnArrayBufferObject => {
val originalSender = sender
val fut: Future[Any] = (remoteActor ? a)
fut.onSuccess {
case list: SequenceObject => {
originalSender ! SequenceObject(list.sqnce)
}
}
The remote actor code is:
class ServerActorClass extends Actor {
def receive = {
case a: iNeedAnArrayBufferObject => {
val closer = sender()
closer ! SequenceObject(ArrayBufferObject[information])
}
}
The above does not seem to work. The remote actor and the local actor can communicate and messages are received correctly. However, the iterable object is never send back to fut1. Why is that? Thanks in advance.
Check pipeTo pattern in Ask: Send-And-Receive-Future section
I can create actors with actorOf and look them with actorFor. I now want to get an actor by some id:String and if it doesnt exist, I want it to be created. Something like this:
def getRCActor(id: String):ActorRef = {
Logger.info("getting actor %s".format(id))
var a = system.actorFor(id)
if(a.isTerminated){
Logger.info("actor is terminated, creating new one")
return system.actorOf(Props[RC], id:String)
}else{
return a
}
}
But this doesn't work as isTerminated is always true and I get actor name 1 is not unique! exception for the second call. I guess I am using the wrong pattern here. Can someone help how to achieve this? I need
Create actors on demand
Lookup actors by id and if not present create them
Ability to destroy on, as I don't know if I will need it again
Should I use a Dispatcher or Router for this?
Solution
As proposed I use a concrete Supervisor that holds the available actors in a map. It can be asked to provide one of his children.
class RCSupervisor extends Actor {
implicit val timeout = Timeout(1 second)
var as = Map.empty[String, ActorRef]
def getRCActor(id: String) = as get id getOrElse {
val c = context actorOf Props[RC]
as += id -> c
context watch c
Logger.info("created actor")
c
}
def receive = {
case Find(id) => {
sender ! getRCActor(id)
}
case Terminated(ref) => {
Logger.info("actor terminated")
as = as filterNot { case (_, v) => v == ref }
}
}
}
His companion object
object RCSupervisor {
// this is specific to Playframework (Play's default actor system)
var supervisor = Akka.system.actorOf(Props[RCSupervisor])
implicit val timeout = Timeout(1 second)
def findA(id: String): ActorRef = {
val f = (supervisor ? Find(id))
Await.result(f, timeout.duration).asInstanceOf[ActorRef]
}
...
}
I've not been using akka for that long, but the creator of the actors is by default their supervisor. Hence the parent can listen for their termination;
var as = Map.empty[String, ActorRef]
def getRCActor(id: String) = as get id getOrElse {
val c = context actorOf Props[RC]
as += id -> c
context watch c
c
}
But obviously you need to watch for their Termination;
def receive = {
case Terminated(ref) => as = as filterNot { case (_, v) => v == ref }
Is that a solution? I must say I didn't completely understand what you meant by "terminated is always true => actor name 1 is not unique!"
Actors can only be created by their parent, and from your description I assume that you are trying to have the system create a non-toplevel actor, which will always fail. What you should do is to send a message to the parent saying “give me that child here”, then the parent can check whether that currently exists, is in good health, etc., possibly create a new one and then respond with an appropriate result message.
To reiterate this extremely important point: get-or-create can ONLY ever be done by the direct parent.
I based my solution to this problem on oxbow_lakes' code/suggestion, but instead of creating a simple collection of all the children actors I used a (bidirectional) map, which might be beneficial if the number of child actors is significant.
import play.api._
import akka.actor._
import scala.collection.mutable.Map
trait ResponsibleActor[K] extends Actor {
val keyActorRefMap: Map[K, ActorRef] = Map[K, ActorRef]()
val actorRefKeyMap: Map[ActorRef, K] = Map[ActorRef, K]()
def getOrCreateActor(key: K, props: => Props, name: => String): ActorRef = {
keyActorRefMap get key match {
case Some(ar) => ar
case None => {
val newRef: ActorRef = context.actorOf(props, name)
//newRef shouldn't be present in the map already (if the key is different)
actorRefKeyMap get newRef match{
case Some(x) => throw new Exception{}
case None =>
}
keyActorRefMap += Tuple2(key, newRef)
actorRefKeyMap += Tuple2(newRef, key)
newRef
}
}
}
def getOrCreateActorSimple(key: K, props: => Props): ActorRef = getOrCreateActor(key, props, key.toString)
/**
* method analogous to Actor's receive. Any subclasses should implement this method to handle all messages
* except for the Terminate(ref) message passed from children
*/
def responsibleReceive: Receive
def receive: Receive = {
case Terminated(ref) => {
//removing both key and actor ref from both maps
val pr: Option[Tuple2[K, ActorRef]] = for{
key <- actorRefKeyMap.get(ref)
reref <- keyActorRefMap.get(key)
} yield (key, reref)
pr match {
case None => //error
case Some((key, reref)) => {
actorRefKeyMap -= ref
keyActorRefMap -= key
}
}
}
case sth => responsibleReceive(sth)
}
}
To use this functionality you inherit from ResponsibleActor and implement responsibleReceive. Note: this code isn't yet thoroughly tested and might still have some issues. I ommited some error handling to improve readability.
Currently you can use Guice dependency injection with Akka, which is explained at http://www.lightbend.com/activator/template/activator-akka-scala-guice. You have to create an accompanying module for the actor. In its configure method you then need to create a named binding to the actor class and some properties. The properties could come from a configuration where, for example, a router is configured for the actor. You can also put the router configuration in there programmatically. Anywhere you need a reference to the actor you inject it with #Named("actorname"). The configured router will create an actor instance when needed.