JSON as a table in PostgreSQL 17

Some time ago, I described in a blog post how to work with JSON data in a PostgreSQL database. Last month (September 2024), PostgreSQL 17 was released, which offers another feature for working with JSON data: the JSON_TABLE() function. Such a function already existed in other database systems, such as MySQL and Oracle.

The core idea behind JSON_TABLE() is to temporarily transform JSON data into a relational format that can be queried using standard SQL commands. In doing so, developers can apply the full power of SQL, such as filtering, sorting, aggregating, and joining, to data that originally exists in JSON format: It enables you to use SQL to query JSON data stored in a column as though it were relational data, and you can join JSON data with regular relational tables for a seamless mix of structured and semi-structured data.

Syntax

The syntax for JSON_TABLE looks a bit complex at first glance, but once you break it down, it becomes quite clear. Here’s the basic structure:

JSON_TABLE(
  json_doc, path
  COLUMNS (
    column_name type PATH 'path_to_value' [DEFAULT default_value ON ERROR],
    ...
  )
) AS alias_name

The json_doc is the JSON data you’re querying. It can be a JSON column or a JSON string. It is followed by a path expression, which describes the location in the JSON document that you want to process. Path expressions are specified as strings in single quotation marks and have a special syntax called JSONPath (loosely inspired by XPath for XML). For example, such an expression could look like this: '$.store.book[0].title'. The dollar sign represents the root of the JSON tree, the sub-properties are separated by dots, and array elements are referenced using square brackets.

This is followed by the COLUMNS keyword. It specifies the columns to be extracted from the JSON document. Each column is specified by a name of the column in the resulting table, a data type of the extracted value (e.g., VARCHAR, INT), followed by the PATH keyword and a JSON path expression that references a JSON value below the original path expression.

The DEFAULT keyword optionally provides a default value if the path does not exist or if there’s an error during extraction.

After the JSON_TABLE function call you can specify the alias name for the table with the AS keyword.

Example

It’s time for an example. Let’s assume we have a table named fruit_store with a column named json_details that holds the some JSON data about fruits:

INSERT INTO fruit_store (id, json_details) VALUES (
    1,
    '{
        "category": "Citrus",
        "fruits": [
            {
                "name": "Orange",
                "color": "Orange",
                "taste": "Sweet",
                "price_per_kg": 3.5
            },
            {
                "name": "Lemon",
                "color": "Yellow",
                "taste": "Sour",
                "price_per_kg": 4.0
            }
        ]
    }'
);

Now we can use the JSON_TABLE function to extract the details of each fruit from the JSON document. The goal is to retrieve the fruit name, color, taste, and price for each fruit in the array. Here’s the query:

SELECT *
  FROM fruit_store,
  JSON_TABLE(
    json_details, '$.fruits[*]'
    COLUMNS (
      fruit_name   VARCHAR(50)  PATH '$.name',
      fruit_color  VARCHAR(50)  PATH '$.color',
      fruit_taste  VARCHAR(50)  PATH '$.taste',
      price_per_kg DECIMAL(5,2) PATH '$.price_per_kg'
    )
  ) AS fruit_table;

Running this query will give you the following result:

idfruit_namefruit_colorfruit_tasteprice_per_kg
1OrangeOrangeSweet3.50
1LemonYellowSour4.00

I have changed my stance on “using” in C++ headers

I used to be pretty strictly against using either C++ using-directives or -declarations from within header files. It kind of stuck with me as a no-go. But that has changed in recent years.

There are now good cases where using can go into a header. For example, I do not really like putting things like…

using namespace std::string_literals;
using namespace std::string_view_literals;
using namespace std::chrono_literals;

…at the beginning of each source file. Did you know that you can pull all those (and some more) in with a single using namespace std::literals? Either way, in my newer projects, these usually go into one of the more prominent headers. Same goes for other literal operators such as those from the SI library. And so do using declarations for common vocabulary types. E.g. 2D or 3D vector types , in math heavy projects. Of course, they always go after the specific #include(s) the using is referencing. The benefits of doing that usually outweigh the danger of name-clashes and weird order dependencies.

There are cases where I still avoid using in headers however, and that is when the given header is ‘public’, i.e. being consumed by something that is not under my organization’s control. In that case, you better leave that decision to the library consumer.

Efficient integer powers of floating-point numbers in C++

Given a floating-point number x, it is quite easy to square it: x = x * x;, or x *= x;. Similarly, to find its cube, you can use x = x * x * x;.

However, when raising it to the 4’th power, things get more interesting: There’s the naive way: x = x * x * x * x;. And the slightly obscure way x *= x; x *= x; which saves a multiplication.

When raining to the 8’th power, the naive way really loses its appeal: x = x * x * x * x * x * x * x * x; versus x *= x; x *= x; x *= x;, that’s 7 multiplications version just 3. This process can easily be extended for raising a number to any power-of-two N, and will only use O(log(n)) multiplications.

The algorithm can also easily be extended to work with any integer power. This works by decomposing the number into product of power-of-twos. Luckily, that’s exactly what the binary representation so readily available on any computer is. For example, let us try x to the power of 20. That’s 16+4, i.e. 10100 in binary.

x *= x; // x is the original x^2 after this
x *= x; // x is the original x^4 after this
result = x;
x *= x; // x is the original x^8 after this
x *= x; // x is the original x^16 after this
result *= x;

Now let us throw this into some C++ code, with the power being a constant. That way, the optimizer can take out all the loops and generate just the optimal sequence of multiplications when the power is known at compile time.

template <unsigned int y> float nth_power(float x)
{
  auto p = y;
  auto result = ((p & 1) != 0) ? x : 1.f;
  while(p > 0)
  {
    x *= x;
    p = p >> 1;
    if ((p & 1) != 0)
      result *= x;
  }

  return result;
}

Interestingly, the big compilers do a very different job optimizing this. GCC optimizes out the loops with -O2 exactly up to nth_power<15>, but continues to do so with -O3 on higher powers. clang reliably takes out the loops even with just -O2. MSVC doesn’t seem to eliminate the loops at all, nor does it remove the multiplication with 1.f if the lowest bit is not set. Let me know if you find an implementation that MSVC can optimize! All tested on the compiler explorer godbolt.org.

Regular expressions in JavaScript

In one of our applications, users can maintain info button texts themselves. For this purpose, they can insert the desired info button text in a text field when editing. The end user then sees the text as a HTML element.

Now, for better structuring, the customer wants to make lists inside the text field. So there was a need to frame lines beginning with a hyphen with the <li></li> HTML tags.

I used JavaScript to realize this issue. This was my first use of regular expressions in JavaScript, so I had to learn their language-specific specials. In the following article, I explain the general syntax and my solution.

General syntax

For the replacement, you can either specify a string to search for or a regular expression. To indicate that it is a regular expression, the expression is enclosed in slashes.

let searchString = "Test";
let searchRegex = /Test/;

It is also possible to put individual parts of the regular expression in brackets and then use them in the replacement part with $1, $2, etc.

let hello = "Hello Tom";
let simpleBye = hello.replace(/Hello/, "Bye");    
//Bye Tom
let bye = hello.replace(/Hello (.*)/, "Bye $1!"); 
//Bye Tom!

In general, with replace, the first match is replaced. With replaceAll, all occurrences are replaced. But these rules just work for searching strings. With regular expressions, modifiers decide if all matches were searched and replaced. To find and replace all of them, you must add modifiers to the expression.

Modifiers

Modifiers are placed at the end of a regular expression and define how the search is performed. In the following, I present just a few of the modifiers.

The modifier i is used for case-insensitive searching.

let hello = "hello Tom";
let notFound = hello.replaceAll(/Hello/, "Bye");
//hello Tom
let found= hello.replaceAll(/Hello/i, "Bye");
//Bye Tom

To find all occurrences, independent of whether replace or replaceAll is called, the modifier g must be set.

let hello = "Hello Tom, Hello Anna";
let first = hello.replaceAll(/Hello/, "Bye");
//Bye Tom, Hello Anna
let replaceAll = hello.replaceAll(/Hello/g, "Bye");
//Bye Tom, Bye Anna
let replace = hello.replace(/Hello/g, "Bye");
//Bye Tom, Bye Anna

Another modifier can be used for searching in multi-line texts. Normally, the characters ^ and $ are for the start and end of the text. With the modifier m, the characters also match at the start and end of the line.

let hello = `Hello Tom,
hello Anna,
hello Paul`;
let byeAtBegin = hello.replaceAll(/^Hello/gi, "Bye");     
//Bye Tom, 
//hello Anna,
//hello Paul
let byeAtLineBegin = hello.replaceAll(/^Hello/gim, "Bye");     
//Bye Tom, 
//Bye Anna,
//Bye Paul

Solution

With this toolkit, I can now convert the hyphens into HTML <li></li>. I also remove the line breaks at the end because, in real code, they will be replaced with <br/> in the next step, and I do not want empty lines between the list points.

let infoText = `This is an important field. You can input:
- right: At the right side
- left: At the left side`;
let htmlInfo = infoText.replaceAll(/^-(.*)\n/gm, "<li>$1</li>");
//This is an important field. You can input:
//<li>right: At the right side</li><li>left: At the left side</li>

If you are familiar with the syntax and possibilities of JavaScript, it offers good functions, such as taking over parts of the regular expression.

My conan 2 Consumer Workflow

A great many things changed in the transition from conan 1.x to conan 2.x. For me, as an application-developer first, the main thing was how I consume packages. The two IDEs I use the most in C++ are Visual Studio and CLion, so I needed a good workflow with those. For Visual Studio, I am using its CMake integration, otherwise known as “folder mode”, which lets you directly open a project with a CMakeLists.txt file in it, instead of generating a solution and opening that. The deciding factor for me is that that uses Ninja as a build tool instead of MSBuild, which often is a lot faster. I have had projects with 3.5x build-time speed ups. As an added bonus, CLion supports very much the same workflow, which reduces friction when switching between platforms.

Visual Studio

First, we’re going to need some local profiles. I typically treat them as ‘build configurations’, with one profile for debug and release on each platform. I put them under version control with the project. A good starting point to create them is conan profile detect, which guesses your environment. To create a profile to a file, go to your project folder and use something like:

conan profile detect --name ./windows_release

Note the ./ in the name, which will instruct conan to create a profile in the current working directory instead of in your user settings. For me, this generates the following profile:

[settings]
arch=x86_64
build_type=Release
compiler=msvc
compiler.cppstd=14
compiler.runtime=dynamic
compiler.version=194
os=Windows

Conan will warn you, that this is only a guess and you should make sure that the values work for you. I usually bump up the compiler.cppstd to at least 20, but the really important change is to change the CMake generator to Ninja, after which the profile should look something like this:

[settings]
arch=x86_64
build_type=Release
compiler=msvc
compiler.cppstd=20
compiler.runtime=dynamic
compiler.version=194
os=Windows

[conf]
tools.cmake.cmaketoolchain:generator=Ninja

Copy and edit the build_type to create a corresponding profile for debug builds.

While conanfile.txt still works for specifying your dependencies, I now recommend directly using conanfile.py from the get go, as some options like overriding dependencies are now exclusive to it. Here’s an example installing the popular logging library spdlog:

from conan import ConanFile
from conan.tools.cmake import cmake_layout


class ProjectRecipe(ConanFile):
    settings = "os", "compiler", "build_type", "arch"
    generators = "CMakeToolchain", "CMakeDeps"

    def requirements(self):
        self.requires("spdlog/1.14.1")

    def layout(self):
        cmake_layout(self)

Note that I am using cmake_layout to setup the folder structure, which will make conan put the files it generates in build/Release for the windows_release profile we created.

Now it is time to install the dependencies using conan install. Make sure you have a clean project before this, e.g. there are no other build/config folders like build/, out/ and .vs/. Specifically, do not open the project in Visual Studio before doing that, as it will create another build setup. You already need the CMakeLists.txt at this point, but it can be empty. For completeness, here’s one that works with the conanfile.py from above:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.28)
project(ConanExample)

find_package(spdlog CONFIG REQUIRED)

add_executable(conan_example
  main.cpp
)

target_link_libraries(conan_example
  spdlog::spdlog
)

Run this in your project folder:

conan install . -pr:a ./windows_release

This will install the dependencies and even tell you what to put in your CMakeLists.txt to use them. More importantly for the Visual Studio integration, it will create a CMakeUserPresets.json file that will allow Visual Studio to find the prepared build folder once you open the project. If there is no CMakeLists.txt when you call conan install, this file will not be created! Note that you generally do not want this file under version control.

Now that this is setup, you can finally open the project in Visual Studio. You should see a configuration named “conan-release” already available and CMake should run without errors. After this point, you can let conan add new configurations and Visual Studio should automatically pick them up through the CMake user presets.

CLion

The process is essentially the same for CLion, except that the profile will probably look different, depending on the platform. Switching the generator to Ninja is not as essential, but I still like to do it for the speed advantages.

Again, make sure you let conan setup the initial build folders and CMakeUserPresets.json and not the IDE. CLion will then pick them up and work with them like Visual Studio does.

Additional thoughts

I like to create additional script files that I use to setup/update the dependencies. For example, in windows, I create a conan_install.bat file like this:

@echo Installing debug dependencies
conan install . -pr:a conan/windows_debug --build=missing %*
@if %errorlevel% neq 0 exit /b %errorlevel%

@echo Installing release dependencies
conan install . -pr:a conan/windows_release --build=missing %*
@if %errorlevel% neq 0 exit /b %errorlevel%

Have you used other workflows successfully in these or different environments? Let me know about them!

Updating Grails: From 5 to 6

We have a long history of maintaining quite a large grails application since Grails 1.0. Over the first few major versions upgrading was a real pain.

The situation changed dramatically after Grails 3 as you can see in our former blog posts and and the upgrade from 3 to 4. Going from 4 to 5 was so smooth that I did not even dedicate a blog post to it.

A few weeks ago we decided to upgrade from version 5 to 6 and here is a short summary of our experiences. Things fortunately went quite smooth again:

The changes

The new major version 6 contains mostly dependency upgrades and official support for Java 17 which is probably the biggest selling point.

Some other minor things to note are without any particular order:

  • The logback configuration file name has changed from logback.groovy to logback-config.groovy
  • The pathing-jar is already setup for you, so you can remove the directive from your build files if you had it in
  • The build uses the standard gradle-application plugin allowing some more simplifications in your build files and infrastructure

Other noteworthy news

Object Computing stepped down as the steward of the grails framework and informed the community in an open letter. While there is still the grails foundation and the open source community we can expect the development and changes to slow down.

Whether this results in negative developer experience remains to be seen.

Conclusion

Using and maintaining a Grails application developed to a rather smooth ride and only poorly maintained plugins hurt your experience. The framework and its foundation have been pretty solid for some time now.

Regarding new projects you certainly have to evaluate if using grails is the best option. For an full stack framework the answer maybe yes, but if you only need a powerful API backend lighter and more modern frameworks like micronaut or javalin may be a better choice.

How to use LDAP in a Javalin Server

I recently implemented authentication and authorization via LDAP in my Javalin web server. I encountered a few pitfalls in the process. That is why I am sharing my experiences in this blog article.

Javalin

I used pac4j for the implementation. This is a modular library that allows you to replicate your own use case with different authenticators, clients and web server connection libraries. In this case I use “org.pac4j:pac4j-ldap” as authenticator, “org.pac4j:pac4j-http” as client and “org.pac4j:javalin-pac4j” as web server.

In combination with Javalin, pac4j independently manages the session and forwards it for authentication if you try to access a protected path.

var config = new LdapConfigFactory().build();
var callback = new CallbackHandler(config, null, true);

Javalin.create()
   .before("administration", new SecurityHandler(config, "FormClient", "admin"))
   .get("administration", ctx -> webappHandler.serveWebapp(ctx))
   .get("login", ctx -> webappHandler.serveWebapp(ctx))
   .get("forbidden", ctx -> webappHandler.serveWebapp(ctx))
   .get("callback", callback)
   .post("callback", callback)
   .start(7070);

In this example code the path to the administration is protected by the SecurityHandler. The “FormClient” indicates that in the event of missing authentication, the user is forwarded to a form for authentication. The specification “admin” defines that the user must also be authorized to the role “admin”.

LDAP Config Factory

I configured LDAP using my own ConfigFactory. Here, for example, I define the callback and login route. In addition, my self-written authorizer and http action adapter are assigned. I will go into these two areas in more detail below. The login form requires the authenticator here. For us, this is an LdapProfileService.

public class LdapConfigFactory implements ConfigFactory {
    @Override
    public Config build(Object... parameters) {
        var formClient = new FormClient("http://localhost:7070/login", createLdapProfileService());
        var clients = new Clients("http://localhost:7070/callback", formClient);
        var config = new Config(clients);

        config.setWebContextFactory(JEEContextFactory.INSTANCE);
        config.setSessionStoreFactory(JEESessionStoreFactory.INSTANCE);
        config.setProfileManagerFactory(ProfileManagerFactory.DEFAULT);
        config.addAuthorizer("admin", new LdapAuthorizer());
        config.setHttpActionAdapter(new HttpActionAdapter());

        return config;
    }
}

LDAP Profile Service

I implement a separate method for configure the service. The LDAP connection requires the url and a user for the connection and the query of the active directory. The LDAP connection is defined in the ConnectionConfig. It is also possible to activate TLS here, but in our case we use LDAPS.

The Distinguished Name must also be defined. Queries only search for users under this path.

private static LdapProfileService createLdapProfileService() {
    var url = "ldaps://test-ad.com";
    var baseDN = "OU=TEST,DC=schneide,DC=com";
    var user = "username";
    var password = "password";

    ConnectionConfig connConfig = ConnectionConfig.builder()
            .url(url)
            .connectionInitializers(new BindConnectionInitializer(user, new Credential(password)))
            .build();

    var connectionFactory = new DefaultConnectionFactory(connConfig);

    SearchDnResolver dnResolver = SearchDnResolver.builder()
            .factory(connectionFactory)
            .dn(baseDN)
            .filter("(displayName={user})")
            .subtreeSearch(true)
            .build();

    SimpleBindAuthenticationHandler authHandler = new SimpleBindAuthenticationHandler(connectionFactory);

    Authenticator authenticator = new Authenticator(dnResolver, authHandler);

    return new LdapProfileService(connectionFactory, authenticator, "memberOf,displayName,sAMAccountName", baseDN);
}

The SearchDNResolver is used to search for the user to be authenticated. A filter can be defined for the match with the user name. And, very importantly, the subtreeSearch must be activated. By default, it is set to false, which means that only users who appear exactly in the BaseDN are found.

The SimpleBindAuthenticationHandler can be used together with the Authenticator for authentication with user and password.

Finally, in the LdapProfileService, a comma-separated string can be used to define which attributes of a user should be queried after authentication and transferred to the user profile.

With all of these settings, you will be redirected to the login page when you try to accessing administration. The credentials is then matched against the active directory via LDAP and the user is authenticated. In addition, I want to check that the user is in the administrator group and therefore authorized. Unfortunately, pac4j cannot do this on its own because it cannot interpret the attributes as roles. That’s why I build my own authorizer.

Authorizer

public class LdapAuthorizer extends ProfileAuthorizer {
    @Override
    protected boolean isProfileAuthorized(WebContext context, SessionStore sessionStore, UserProfile profile) {
        var group = "CN=ADMIN_GROUP,OU=Groups,OU=TEST,DC=schneide,DC=com";
        var attribute = (List) profile.getAttribute("memberOf");
        return attribute.contains(group);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isAuthorized(WebContext context, SessionStore sessionStore, List<UserProfile> profiles) {
        return isAnyAuthorized(context, sessionStore, profiles);
    }
}

The attributes defined in LdapProfileService can be found in the user profile. For authorization, I query the group memberships to check if the user is in the group. If the user has been successfully authorized, he is redirected to the administration page. Otherwise the http status code forbidden is returned.

Javalin Http Action Adapter

Since I want to display a separate page that shows the user the Forbidden, I build my own JavalinHttpActionAdapter.

public class HttpActionAdapter extends JavalinHttpActionAdapter {
    @Override
    public Void adapt(HttpAction action, WebContext webContext) {
        JavalinWebContext context = (JavalinWebContext) webContext;
        if(action.getCode() == HttpConstants.FORBIDDEN){
            context.getJavalinCtx().redirect("/forbidden");
            throw new RedirectResponse();
        }
        return super.adapt(action, context);
    }
}

This redirects the request to the Forbidden page instead of returning the status code.

Conclusion

Overall, the use of pac4j for authentication and authorization on javalin facilitates the work and works well. Unfortunately, the documentation is rather poor, especially for the LDAP module. So the setup was a bit of a journey of discovery and I had to spend a lot of time looking for the root cause of some problems like subtreeSearch.

Simple marching squares in C++

Marching squares is an algorithm to find the contour of a scalar field. For example, that can be a height-map and the resulting contour would be lines of a specific height known as ‘isolines’.

At the core of the algorithm is a lookup table that says which line segments to generate for a specific ’tile’ configuration. To make sense of that, you start with a convention on how your tile configuration and the resulting lines are encoded. I typically add a small piece of ASCII-art to explain that:

// c3-e3-c2
// |      |
// e0    e2
// |      |
// c0-e1-c1
//
// c are corner bits, e the edge indices

The input of our lookup table is a bitmask of which of the corners c are ‘in’ or above our isolevel. The output is which tile edges e to connect with line segments. That is either 0, 1 or 2 line segments, so we need to encode that many pairs. You could easily pack that into a 32-bit, but I am using a std::vector<std::uint8_t> for simplicity. Here’s the whole thing:

using config = std::vector<std::uint8_t>;
using config_lookup = std::array<config, 16>;
const config_lookup LOOKUP{
  config{},
  { 0, 1 },
  { 1, 2 },
  { 0, 2 },
  { 2, 3 },
  { 0, 1, 2, 3 },
  { 1, 3 },
  { 0, 3 },
  { 3, 0 },
  { 3, 1 },
  { 1, 2, 3, 0 },
  { 3, 2 },
  { 2, 0 },
  { 2, 1 },
  { 1, 0 },
  config{},
};

I usually want to generate index meshes, so I can easily connect edges later without comparing the floating-point coordinates. So one design goal here was to generate each point only once. Here is the top-level algorithm:

using point_id = std::tuple<int, int, bool>;

std::vector<v2<float>> points;
// Maps construction parameters to existing entries in points
std::unordered_map<point_id, std::uint16_t, key_hash> point_cache;
// Index pairs for the constructed edges
std::vector<std::uint16_t> edges;

auto [ex, ey] = map.size();
auto hx = ex-1;
auto hy = ey-1;

// Construct inner edges
for (int cy = 0; cy < hy; ++cy)
for (int cx = 0; cx < hx; ++cx)
{
  std::uint32_t key = 0;
  if (map(cx, cy) > threshold)
    key |= 1;
  if (map(cx + 1, cy) > threshold)
    key |= 2;
  if (map(cx + 1, cy + 1) > threshold)
    key |= 4;
  if (map(cx, cy + 1) > threshold)
    key |= 8;

  auto const& geometry = LOOKUP[key];

  for (auto each : geometry)
  {
    auto normalized_id = normalize_point(cx, cy, each);
    auto found = point_cache.find(normalized_id);
    if (found != point_cache.end())
    {
      edges.push_back(found->second);
    }
    else
    {
      auto index = static_cast<std::uint16_t>(points.size());
      points.push_back(build_point(map, threshold, normalized_id));
      edges.push_back(index);
      point_cache.insert({ normalized_id, index });
    }
  }
}

For each tile, we first figure out the lookup input-key by testing the 4 corners. We then get-or-create the global point for each edge point from the lookup.
Since each edge in a tile can be accessed from two sides, we first normalize it to have a unique key for our cache:

point_id normalize_point(int cx, int cy, std::uint8_t edge)
{
  switch (edge)
  {
  case 3:
    return { cx, cy + 1, false };
  case 2:
    return { cx + 1, cy, true };
  default:
    return { cx, cy, edge == 0 };
  };
}

When we need to create a point an edge, we interpolate to estimate where exactly the isoline intersects our tile-edge:

v2<float> build_point(raster_adaptor const& map, float threshold, point_id const& p)
{
  auto [x0, y0, vertical] = p;
  int x1 = x0, y1 = y0;
  if (vertical)
    y1++;
  else
    x1++;

  const auto s = map.scale();
  float h0 = map(x0, y0);
  float h1 = map(x1, y1);
  float lambda = (threshold - h0) / (h1 - h0);

  auto result = v2{ x0 * s, y0 * s };
  auto shift = lambda * s;
  if (vertical)
    result[1] += shift;
  else
    result[0] += shift;
  return result;
}

For a height-map, that’s about as good as you can get.

You can, however, sample other scalar field functions with this as well, for example sums of distances. This is not the most sophisticated implementation of marching squares, but it is reasonably simple and can easily be adapted to your needs.

How building blocks can be a game changer for your project

I have just completed my first own project. In this project I have a web server whose main task is to load files and return them as a stream.
In the first version, there was a static handler for each file type, which loaded the file and sent it as a stream.

As part of a refactoring, I then built building blocks for various tasks and the handler changed fundamentally.

The initial code

Here you can see a part of my web server. It offers a path for both images and audio files. The real server has significantly more handlers and file types.

public class WebServer{
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var app = Javalin.create()
            .get("api/audio/{root}/{path}/{number}", FileHandler::handleAudio)
            .get("api/img/{root}/{path}/{number}", FileHandler::handleImage)
            .start(7070);
    }
}

Below is a simplified illustration of the handlers. I have also shown the imports of the web server class and the web server technology, in this case Javalin. The imports are not complete. They are only intended to show these two dependencies.

import WebServer;
import io.javalin.http.Context;
// ...

public class FileHandler {

    public static void handleImage(Context ctx) throws IOException {
        var resource = Application.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(
            String.format(
                "file/%s/%s/%s.jpg", 
                ctx.pathParam("root"), 
                ctx.pathParam("path"), 
                ctx.pathParam("fileName")));
        String mimetyp= "image/jpg";

        if (resource != null) {
            ctx.writeSeekableStream(resource, mimetyp);
        }
    }

    public static void handleAudio(Context ctx) {
        var resource = Application.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(
            String.format(
                "file/%s/%s/%s.mp3", 
                ctx.pathParam("root"), 
                ctx.pathParam("path"), 
                ctx.pathParam("fileName")));
        String mimetyp= "audio/mp3";

        if (resource == null) {
            resource = Application.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(
            String.format(
                "file/%s/%s/%s.mp4", 
                ctx.pathParam("root"), 
                ctx.pathParam("path"), 
                ctx.pathParam("fileName")));
            mimetyp= "video/mp4";
        }

        if (resource != null) {
            ctx.writeSeekableStream(resource, mimetyp);
        }
    }
}

The handler methods each load the file and send it to the Javalin context. The audio handler first searches for an audio file and, if this is not available, for a video file. The duplication is easy to see. And with the static handler and Javalin dependencies, the code is not testable.

Refactoring

So first I build an interface, called a decorator, for the context to get the Javalin dependency out of the handlers. A nice bonus: I can manage the handling of not found files centrally. In the web server, I then inject the new WebContext instead of the Context.

public interface WebContext {
    String pathParameter(String key);
    void sendNotFound();
    void sendResourceAs(String type, InputStream resource);
    default void sendResourceAs(String type, Optional<InputStream> resource){
        if(resource.isEmpty()){
            sendNotFound();
            return;
        }
        sendResourceAs(type, resource.get());
    }
}

public class JavalinWebContext implements WebContext {
    private final Context context;

    public JavalinWebContext(Context context){
        this.context = context;
    }

    @Override
    public String pathParameter(String key) {
        return context.pathParam(key);
    }

    @Override
    public void sendNotFound() {
        context.status(HttpStatus.NOT_FOUND);
    }

    @Override
    public void sendResourceAs(String type, InputStream resource) {
        context.writeSeekableStream(resource, type);
    }
}

Then I write a method to load the file and send it as a stream.

private boolean sendResourceFor(String path, String mimetyp, Context context){
    var resource = Application.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(path);
    if (resource != null) {
        context.sendResourceAs(mimetyp, resource);
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

The next step is to build a loader for the files, which I pass to the no longer static handler during initialization. Here I can run a quick check to see if anyone is trying to manipulate the specified path.

public class ResourceLoader {
    private final ClassLoader context;

    public ResourceLoader(ClassLoader context){
        this.context = context;
    }

    public Optional<InputStream> asStreamFrom(String path){
        if(path.contains("..")){
            return Optional.empty();
        }
        return Optional.ofNullable(this.context.getResourceAsStream(path));
    }
}

Finally, I build an extra class for the paths. The knowledge of where the files are located and how to determine the path from the context should not be duplicated everywhere.

public class FileCoordinate {
    private static final String FILE_CATEGORY = "file";
    private final String root;
    private final String path;
    private final String fileName;
    private final String extension;

    private FileCoordinate(String root, String path, String fileName, String extension){
        super();
        this.root = root;
        this.path = path;
        this.fileName = fileName;
        this.extension = extension;
    }

    private static FileCoordinate pathFromWebContext(WebContext context, String extension){
        return new FileCoordinate(
                context.pathParameter("root"),
                context.pathParameter("path"),
                context.pathParameter("fileName"),
                extension
        );
    }

    public static FileCoordinate toImageFile(WebContext context){
        return FileCoordinate.pathFromWebContext(context, "jpg");
    }

    public static FileCoordinate toAudioFile(WebContext context){
        return FileCoordinate.pathFromWebContext(context, "mp3");
    }

    public FileCoordinate asToVideoFile(){
        return new FileCoordinate(
                root,
                path,
                fileName,
                "mp4"
        );
    }

    public String asPath(){
        return String.format("%s/%s/%s/%s.%s", FILE_CATEGORY, root, path, fileName, extension);
    }
}

Result

My handler looks like this after refactoring:

public class FileHandler {
    private final ResourceLoader resource;

    public FileHandler(ResourceLoader resource){
        this.resource = resource;
    }

    public void handleImage(WebContext context) {
        var coordinate = FileCoordinate.toImageFile(context);
        sendResourceFor(coordinate, "image/jpg", context);     
    }

    public void handleAudio(WebContext context) {
        var coordinate = FileCoordinate.toAudioFile(context);
        var found = sendResourceFor(coordinate, "audio/mp3", context);
        if(!found)
            sendResourceFor(coordinate.asToVideoFile(), "video/mp4", context);
    }

    private boolean sendResourceFor(FileCoordinate coordinate, String mimetype, WebContext context){
        var stream = resource.asStreamFrom(coordinate);
        context.sendResourceAs(mimetype, stream);
        return stream.isPresent();
    }
}

It is much shorter, easier to read and describes more what is done and not how it is technically done. Another advantage is that I can, for example, fully test my FileCoordinate and mock my WebContext.

For just these two handler methods, it still looks like a overkill. Overall, more code has been created than has disappeared and yes, a smaller modification would probably have been sufficient for this handler alone. But my application is not just this handler and most of them are much more complex. For example, I work a lot with json files, which are loaded and which my loader can now simply interpret using an additional function that return a JsonNode instead a stream. The conversion has significantly reduced the complexity of the application, avoided duplications and made the code more secure and testable.

Web Components, Part 2: Encapsulating and Reusing common Element Structure

In my previous post, I gave you some first impressions about custom HTML Web Components. I cut myself short there to make my actual point, but one can surely extend this experiment.

The thing about the DOM is that it is one large, global block of information. In order to achieve loose coupling, you need to exert that discipline by yourself, using document.getElementById() and friends you can easily couple the furthestmost components, to their inner workings, together. Which can make it very insecure to change.

For that problem in Web Components, there is the Shadow DOM. I.e. if you define, as previously, your component as

class CustomIcon extends HTMLElement {
    connectedCallback() {
        this.innerHTML = `
            <svg id="icon">
                <!-- some content -->
            </div>
        `;
        element = document.getElementById("icon");
        element.addEventListener(...);
        // don't forget to removeEventListener(...) in disconnectedCallback()! - but that is not the point here
    }
}

it becomes possible to also document.getElementById("icon") from anywhere globally. Especially with such generic identifiers, you really do not want to leak your inner workings. (Yes, in a very custom application, there might be valid cases of desired behaviour, but then usually the IDs are named as e.g. __framework_global_timeout, custom--modal-dialog, … as to avoid accidental clashes).

This is done as easy as

class CustomIconim d extends HTMLElement {
    constructor() {
        super();
        this.attachShadow({ mode: 'open' });
  }

    connectedCallback() {
        this.shadowRoot.innerHTML = ... // your HTML ere
    }
}

Two points:

  • The attachShadow() can also be called in the connectedCallback(), even if usually not required. Generally, there is some debate between these two options, and I think I’ll write you another episode of this post when I have some further insight about that.
  • The {mode: 'open'} is what you actually use because ‘closed’ does not give you that much benefit, as outlined in this blog here. Just keep in mind that yes, it’s still JavaScript – you can access the shadowRoot object from the outside and then still do your shenanigans, but at least you can’t claim to have done so by accident.

This encapsulation makes it easier to write reusable code, i.e. decrease duplication.

As with my case of the MagicSparkles icon – I might want to implement some other (e.g. Font Awesome) icons and have all of these carry the same “size” attribute. It might look like:

export const addSvgPathAsShadow = (element: HTMLElement, { children, viewBox, defaultColor }: SvgIconProps) => {
    const shadow = element.attachShadow({ mode: "open" });
    const size = element.getAttribute("size") || 24;
    const color = defaultColor || "currentcolor";
    viewBox ||= `0 0 ${size} ${size}`;
    shadow.innerHTML = `
            <svg
                xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
                width="${size}"
                height="${size}"
                viewBox="${viewBox}"
                fill="${color}"
            >
                ${children}
            </svg>
        `;
};

export class PlayIcon extends HTMLElement {
    connectedCallback() {
        addSvgPathAsShadow(this, {
            viewBox: "0 0 24 24",
            children: "<path fill-rule=\"evenodd\" d=\"M4.5 5.653c0-1.427 1.529-2.33 2.779-1.643l11.54 6.347c1.295.712 1.295 2.573 0 3.286L7.28 19.99c-1.25.687-2.779-.217-2.779-1.643V5.653Z\" clip-rule=\"evenodd\" />"
        });
    }
}

// other elements can be defined similarly

// don't forget to actually define the element tag somewhere top-level, as with:
// customElements.define("play-icon", PlayIcon);

Note that

  • this way, children is required as a fixed string. My experiment didn’t work out yet how to use the "<slot></slot>" here (to pass the children given by e.g. <play-icon>Play!</play-icon>)
  • Also, I specifically use the || operator for the default values – not the ?? – as an attribute given as empty string would not be defaulted otherwise (?? only checks for undefined or null).
Conclusion

As concluded in my first post, we see that one tends to recreate the same patterns as already known from the existing frameworks, or software architecture in general. The tools are there to increase encapsulation, decrease coupling, decrease duplication, but there’s still no real reason why not just to use one of the frameworks.

There might be at some point, when framework fatigue is too much to bear, but try to decide wisely.