on demand actor get or else create - scala

Question

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]
}
...
}

Answer 1

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!"

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

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.