Akka - use actorSelection with ask pattern - scala

Question

So, when sending a message using the ask pattern (actor ? msg), it creates a "one-off actor" behind the scenes.
My question is - Is it possible to send this temporary actor a message using actorSelection?
For example, the following code works well:
object Test extends App {
case class WrappedMsg(msg: String, replyTo: ActorRef)
class Source(target: ActorRef) extends Actor {
def receive = { case _ => } // doesn't matter
implicit val execution = context.dispatcher
implicit val timeout = Timeout(5.seconds)
val middleware = context.actorOf(Props(new Middleware(target)))
(middleware ? "Something").mapTo[String].onComplete {
case Success(msg) => println("Success: " + msg)
case Failure(err) => println("Failure: " + err)
}
}
class Middleware(target: ActorRef) extends Actor {
def receive = {
case msg: String =>
val wrappedMsg = WrappedMsg(replyTo = sender(), msg = msg)
target ! wrappedMsg
}
}
class Target extends Actor {
def receive = {
case wrappedMsg: WrappedMsg => wrappedMsg.replyTo ! "Received"
}
}
val system = ActorSystem()
val target = system.actorOf(Props(new Target))
val source = system.actorOf(Props(new Source(target)))
}
But, if I make the following changes, in order to use the actor url instead of ActorRef, it fails:
case class WrappedMsg(msg: String, replyTo: String)
...
val wrappedMsg = WrappedMsg(replyTo = sender().path.toSerializationFormat, msg = msg)
...
case wrappedMsg: WrappedMsg => context.actorSelection(wrappedMsg.replyTo) ! "Received"
Thanks

Answer 1

Thanks to #Zernike (see the comments in the question), we've found out that in Akka 2.3.12 it works well - the temporary actor is resolved using actorSelection. (The original code that caused the failure was tested in Akka 2.3.6)