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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><!DOCTYPE html><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:pls="http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon" xmlns:ssml="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis" xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><head><title>Chapter 5. Configuring a Step</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="docbook-epub.css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.78.1"/><link rel="prev" href="ch04s06.xhtml" title="Advanced Meta-Data Usage"/><link rel="next" href="ch05s02.xhtml" title="TaskletStep"/></head><body><header/><section class="chapter" title="Chapter 5. Configuring a Step" epub:type="chapter" id="configureStep"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h1 class="title">Chapter 5. Configuring a Step</h1></div></div></div><p>As discussed in <a class="xref" href="ch03.xhtml" title="Chapter 3. The Domain Language of Batch">Batch Domain Language</a>, a
<code class="classname">Step</code> is a domain object that encapsulates an
independent, sequential phase of a batch job and contains all of the
information necessary to define and control the actual batch processing.
This is a necessarily vague description because the contents of any given
<code class="classname">Step</code> are at the discretion of the developer writing a
<code class="classname">Job</code>. A Step can be as simple or complex as the
developer desires. A simple <code class="classname">Step</code> might load data from
a file into the database, requiring little or no code. (depending upon the
implementations used) A more complex <code class="classname">Step</code> may have
complicated business rules that are applied as part of the
processing.</p><div style="text-align: center; " class="mediaobject"><img style="text-align: middle; " src="images/step.png" width="324"/></div><section class="section" title="Chunk-Oriented Processing" epub:type="subchapter" id="chunkOrientedProcessing"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">Chunk-Oriented Processing</h2></div></div></div><p>Spring Batch uses a 'Chunk Oriented' processing style within its
most common implementation. Chunk oriented processing refers to reading
the data one at a time, and creating 'chunks' that will be written out,
within a transaction boundary. One item is read in from an
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code>, handed to an
<code class="classname">ItemProcessor</code>, and aggregated. Once the number of
items read equals the commit interval, the entire chunk is written out via
the ItemWriter, and then the transaction is committed.</p><div style="text-align: center; " class="mediaobject"><img style="text-align: middle; " src="images/chunk-oriented-processing.png"/></div><p>Below is a code representation of the same concepts shown
above:</p><pre class="programlisting">List items = new Arraylist();
for(int i = 0; i &lt; commitInterval; i++){
Object item = itemReader.read()
Object processedItem = itemProcessor.process(item);
items.add(processedItem);
}
itemWriter.write(items);</pre><section class="section" title="Configuring a Step" epub:type="division" id="configuringAStep"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Configuring a Step</h3></div></div></div><p>Despite the relatively short list of required dependencies for a
<code class="classname">Step</code>, it is an extremely complex class that can
potentially contain many collaborators. In order to ease configuration,
the Spring Batch namespace can be used:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;job id="sampleJob" job-repository="jobRepository"&gt;
&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet transaction-manager="transactionManager"&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;/job&gt;</pre><p>The configuration above represents the only required dependencies
to create a item-oriented step:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>reader - The <code class="classname">ItemReader</code> that provides
items for processing.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>writer - The <code class="classname">ItemWriter</code> that
processes the items provided by the
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code>.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>transaction-manager - Spring's
<code class="classname">PlatformTransactionManager</code> that will be
used to begin and commit transactions during processing.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>job-repository - The <code class="classname">JobRepository</code>
that will be used to periodically store the
<code class="classname">StepExecution</code> and
<code class="classname">ExecutionContext</code> during processing (just
before committing). For an in-line &lt;step/&gt; (one defined
within a &lt;job/&gt;) it is an attribute on the &lt;job/&gt;
element; for a standalone step, it is defined as an attribute of
the &lt;tasklet/&gt;.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>commit-interval - The number of items that will be processed
before the transaction is committed.</p></li></ul></div><p>It should be noted that, job-repository defaults to
"jobRepository" and transaction-manager defaults to "transactionManger".
Furthermore, the <code class="classname">ItemProcessor</code> is optional, not
required, since the item could be directly passed from the reader to the
writer.</p></section><section class="section" title="Inheriting from a Parent Step" epub:type="division" id="InheritingFromParentStep"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Inheriting from a Parent Step</h3></div></div></div><p>If a group of <code class="classname">Step</code>s share similar
configurations, then it may be helpful to define a "parent"
<code class="classname">Step</code> from which the concrete
<code class="classname">Step</code>s may inherit properties. Similar to class
inheritance in Java, the "child" <code class="classname">Step</code> will
combine its elements and attributes with the parent's. The child will
also override any of the parent's <code class="classname">Step</code>s.</p><p>In the following example, the <code class="classname">Step</code>
"concreteStep1" will inherit from "parentStep". It will be instantiated
with 'itemReader', 'itemProcessor', 'itemWriter', startLimit=5, and
allowStartIfComplete=true. Additionally, the commitInterval will be '5'
since it is overridden by the "concreteStep1":</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="parentStep"&gt;
&lt;tasklet allow-start-if-complete="true"&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;step id="concreteStep1" parent="parentStep"&gt;
&lt;tasklet start-limit="5"&gt;
&lt;chunk processor="itemProcessor" commit-interval="5"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><p>The id attribute is still required on the step within the job
element. This is for two reasons:</p><div class="orderedlist" epub:type="list"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>The id will be used as the step name when persisting the
StepExecution. If the same standalone step is referenced in more
than one step in the job, an error will occur.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>When creating job flows, as described later in this chapter,
the next attribute should be referring to the step in the flow,
not the standalone step.</p></li></ol></div><section class="section" title="Abstract Step" epub:type="division" id="abstractStep"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">Abstract Step</h4></div></div></div><p>Sometimes it may be necessary to define a parent
<code class="classname">Step</code> that is not a complete
<code class="classname">Step</code> configuration. If, for instance, the
reader, writer, and tasklet attributes are left off of a
<code class="classname">Step </code>configuration, then initialization will
fail. If a parent must be defined without these properties, then the
"abstract" attribute should be used. An "abstract"
<code class="classname">Step</code> will not be instantiated; it is used only
for extending.</p><p>In the following example, the <code class="classname">Step</code>
"abstractParentStep" would not instantiate if it were not declared to
be abstract. The <code class="classname">Step</code> "concreteStep2" will have
'itemReader', 'itemWriter', and commitInterval=10.</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="abstractParentStep" abstract="true"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;step id="concreteStep2" parent="abstractParentStep"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre></section><section class="section" title="Merging Lists" epub:type="division" id="mergingListsOnStep"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">Merging Lists</h4></div></div></div><p>Some of the configurable elements on
<code class="classname">Step</code>s are lists; the &lt;listeners/&gt;
element, for instance. If both the parent and child
<code class="classname">Step</code>s declare a &lt;listeners/&gt; element,
then the child's list will override the parent's. In order to allow a
child to add additional listeners to the list defined by the parent,
every list element has a "merge" attribute. If the element specifies
that merge="true", then the child's list will be combined with the
parent's instead of overriding it.</p><p>In the following example, the <code class="classname">Step</code>
"concreteStep3" will be created will two listeners:
<code class="classname">listenerOne</code> and
<code class="classname">listenerTwo</code>:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="listenersParentStep" abstract="true"&gt;
&lt;listeners&gt;
&lt;listener ref="listenerOne"/&gt;
&lt;listeners&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;step id="concreteStep3" parent="listenersParentStep"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="5"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;listeners merge="true"&gt;
&lt;listener ref="listenerTwo"/&gt;
&lt;listeners&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre></section></section><section class="section" title="The Commit Interval" epub:type="division" id="commitInterval"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">The Commit Interval</h3></div></div></div><p>As mentioned above, a step reads in and writes out items,
periodically committing using the supplied
<code class="classname">PlatformTransactionManager</code>. With a
commit-interval of 1, it will commit after writing each individual item.
This is less than ideal in many situations, since beginning and
committing a transaction is expensive. Ideally, it is preferable to
process as many items as possible in each transaction, which is
completely dependent upon the type of data being processed and the
resources with which the step is interacting. For this reason, the
number of items that are processed within a commit can be
configured.</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;job id="sampleJob"&gt;
&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" <span class="bold"><strong>commit-interval="10"</strong></span>/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;/job&gt;</pre><p>In the example above, 10 items will be processed within each
transaction. At the beginning of processing a transaction is begun, and
each time <span class="markup">read</span> is called on the
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code>, a counter is incremented. When it
reaches 10, the list of aggregated items is passed to the
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code>, and the transaction will be
committed.</p></section><section class="section" title="Configuring a Step for Restart" epub:type="division" id="stepRestart"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Configuring a Step for Restart</h3></div></div></div><p>In <a class="xref" href="ch04.xhtml" title="Chapter 4. Configuring and Running a Job">Chapter 4, <em>Configuring and Running a Job</em></a>, restarting a
<code class="classname">Job</code> was discussed. Restart has numerous impacts
on steps, and as such may require some specific configuration.</p><section class="section" title="Setting a StartLimit" epub:type="division" id="startLimit"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">Setting a StartLimit</h4></div></div></div><p>There are many scenarios where you may want to control the
number of times a <code class="classname">Step</code> may be started. For
example, a particular <code class="classname">Step</code> might need to be
configured so that it only runs once because it invalidates some
resource that must be fixed manually before it can be run again. This
is configurable on the step level, since different steps may have
different requirements. A <code class="classname">Step</code> that may only be
executed once can exist as part of the same <code class="classname">Job</code>
as a <code class="classname">Step</code> that can be run infinitely. Below is
an example start limit configuration:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet start-limit="1"&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><p>The simple step above can be run only once. Attempting to run it
again will cause an exception to be thrown. It should be noted that
the default value for the start-limit is
<code class="classname">Integer.MAX_VALUE</code>.</p></section><section class="section" title="Restarting a completed step" epub:type="division" id="allowStartIfComplete"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">Restarting a completed step</h4></div></div></div><p>In the case of a restartable job, there may be one or more steps
that should always be run, regardless of whether or not they were
successful the first time. An example might be a validation step, or a
<code class="classname">Step</code> that cleans up resources before
processing. During normal processing of a restarted job, any step with
a status of 'COMPLETED', meaning it has already been completed
successfully, will be skipped. Setting allow-start-if-complete to
"true" overrides this so that the step will always run:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet allow-start-if-complete="true"&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre></section><section class="section" title="Step Restart Configuration Example" epub:type="division" id="stepRestartExample"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">Step Restart Configuration Example</h4></div></div></div><pre class="programlisting">&lt;job id="footballJob" restartable="true"&gt;
&lt;step id="playerload" next="gameLoad"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="playerFileItemReader" writer="playerWriter"
commit-interval="10" /&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;step id="gameLoad" next="playerSummarization"&gt;
&lt;tasklet allow-start-if-complete="true"&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="gameFileItemReader" writer="gameWriter"
commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;step id="playerSummarization"&gt;
&lt;tasklet start-limit="3"&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="playerSummarizationSource" writer="summaryWriter"
commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;/job&gt;</pre><p>The above example configuration is for a job that loads in
information about football games and summarizes them. It contains
three steps: playerLoad, gameLoad, and playerSummarization. The
playerLoad <code class="classname">Step</code> loads player information from a
flat file, while the gameLoad <code class="classname">Step</code> does the
same for games. The final <code class="classname">Step</code>,
playerSummarization, then summarizes the statistics for each player
based upon the provided games. It is assumed that the file loaded by
'playerLoad' must be loaded only once, but that 'gameLoad' will load
any games found within a particular directory, deleting them after
they have been successfully loaded into the database. As a result, the
playerLoad <code class="classname">Step</code> contains no additional
configuration. It can be started almost limitlessly, and if complete
will be skipped. The 'gameLoad' <code class="classname">Step</code>, however,
needs to be run every time in case extra files have been dropped since
it last executed. It has 'allow-start-if-complete' set to 'true' in
order to always be started. (It is assumed that the database tables
games are loaded into has a process indicator on it, to ensure new
games can be properly found by the summarization step). The
summarization <code class="classname">Step</code>, which is the most important
in the <code class="classname">Job</code>, is configured to have a start limit
of 3. This is useful because if the step continually fails, a new exit
code will be returned to the operators that control job execution, and
it won't be allowed to start again until manual intervention has taken
place.</p><div class="note" title="Note" epub:type="notice"><table style="border: 0; "><tr><td style="text-align: center; vertical-align: top; width: 25; " rowspan="2"><img alt="[Note]" src="images/note.png"/></td><th style="text-align: left; ">Note</th></tr><tr><td style="text-align: left; vertical-align: top; "><p>This job is purely for example purposes and is not the same as
the footballJob found in the samples project.</p></td></tr></table></div><p>Run 1:</p><div class="orderedlist" epub:type="list"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>playerLoad is executed and completes successfully, adding
400 players to the 'PLAYERS' table.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>gameLoad is executed and processes 11 files worth of game
data, loading their contents into the 'GAMES' table.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>playerSummarization begins processing and fails after 5
minutes.</p></li></ol></div><p>Run 2:</p><div class="orderedlist" epub:type="list"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>playerLoad is not run, since it has already completed
successfully, and allow-start-if-complete is 'false' (the
default).</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>gameLoad is executed again and processes another 2 files,
loading their contents into the 'GAMES' table as well (with a
process indicator indicating they have yet to be processed)</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>playerSummarization begins processing of all remaining game
data (filtering using the process indicator) and fails again after
30 minutes.</p></li></ol></div><p>Run 3:</p><div class="orderedlist" epub:type="list"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>playerLoad is not run, since it has already completed
successfully, and allow-start-if-complete is 'false' (the
default).</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>gameLoad is executed again and processes another 2 files,
loading their contents into the 'GAMES' table as well (with a
process indicator indicating they have yet to be processed)</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>playerSummarization is not start, and the job is immediately
killed, since this is the third execution of playerSummarization,
and its limit is only 2. The limit must either be raised, or the
<code class="classname">Job</code> must be executed as a new
<code class="classname">JobInstance</code>.</p></li></ol></div></section></section><section class="section" title="Configuring Skip Logic" epub:type="division" id="configuringSkip"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Configuring Skip Logic</h3></div></div></div><p>There are many scenarios where errors encountered while processing
should not result in <code class="classname">Step</code> failure, but should be
skipped instead. This is usually a decision that must be made by someone
who understands the data itself and what meaning it has. Financial data,
for example, may not be skippable because it results in money being
transferred, which needs to be completely accurate. Loading a list of
vendors, on the other hand, might allow for skips. If a vendor is not
loaded because it was formatted incorrectly or was missing necessary
information, then there probably won't be issues. Usually these bad
records are logged as well, which will be covered later when discussing
listeners.
</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="flatFileItemReader" writer="itemWriter"
commit-interval="10" <span class="bold"><strong>skip-limit="10"</strong></span>&gt;
<span class="bold"><strong>&lt;skippable-exception-classes&gt;
&lt;include class="org.springframework.batch.item.file.FlatFileParseException"/&gt;
&lt;/skippable-exception-classes&gt;</strong></span>
&lt;/chunk&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><p>In this example, a <code class="classname">FlatFileItemReader</code> is
used, and if at any point a
<code class="classname">FlatFileParseException</code> is thrown, it will be
skipped and counted against the total skip limit of 10. Separate counts
are made of skips on read, process and write inside the step execution,
and the limit applies across all. Once the skip limit is reached, the
next exception found will cause the step to fail.</p><p>One problem with the example above is that any other exception
besides a <code class="classname">FlatFileParseException</code> will cause the
<code class="classname">Job</code> to fail. In certain scenarios this may be the
correct behavior. However, in other scenarios it may be easier to
identify which exceptions should cause failure and skip everything
else:
</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="flatFileItemReader" writer="itemWriter"
commit-interval="10" <span class="bold"><strong>skip-limit="10"</strong></span>&gt;
<span class="bold"><strong> &lt;skippable-exception-classes&gt;
&lt;include class="java.lang.Exception"/&gt;
&lt;exclude class="java.io.FileNotFoundException"/&gt;
&lt;/skippable-exception-classes&gt;
</strong></span> &lt;/chunk&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><p>By 'including' <code class="classname">java.lang.Exception</code> as a
skippable exception class, the configuration indicates that all
<code class="classname">Exception</code>s are skippable. However, by 'excluding'
<code class="classname">java.io.FileNotFoundException</code>, the configuration
refines the list of skippable exception classes to be all
<code class="classname">Exception</code>s <span class="emphasis"><em>except</em></span>
<code class="classname">FileNotFoundException</code>. Any excluded exception
classes will be fatal if encountered (i.e. not skipped).</p><p>For any exception encountered, the skippability will be determined
by the nearest superclass in the class hierarchy. Any unclassifed
exception will be treated as 'fatal'. The order of the
<code class="code">&lt;include/&gt;</code> and <code class="code">&lt;exclude/&gt;</code> elements
does not matter.</p></section><section class="section" title="Configuring Retry Logic" epub:type="division" id="retryLogic"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Configuring Retry Logic</h3></div></div></div><p>In most cases you want an exception to cause either a skip or
<code class="classname">Step</code> failure. However, not all exceptions are
deterministic. If a <code class="classname">FlatFileParseException</code> is
encountered while reading, it will always be thrown for that record;
resetting the <code class="classname">ItemReader</code> will not help. However,
for other exceptions, such as a
<code class="classname">DeadlockLoserDataAccessException</code>, which indicates
that the current process has attempted to update a record that another
process holds a lock on, waiting and trying again might result in
success. In this case, retry should be configured:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter"
commit-interval="2" <span class="bold"><strong>retry-limit="3"</strong></span>&gt;
<span class="bold"><strong>&lt;retryable-exception-classes&gt;
&lt;include class="org.springframework.dao.DeadlockLoserDataAccessException"/&gt;
&lt;/retryable-exception-classes&gt;</strong></span>
&lt;/chunk&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><p>The <code class="classname">Step</code> allows a limit for the number of
times an individual item can be retried, and a list of exceptions that
are 'retryable'. More details on how retry works can be found in <a class="xref" href="ch09.xhtml" title="Chapter 9. Retry">Chapter 9, <em>Retry</em></a>.</p></section><section class="section" title="Controlling Rollback" epub:type="division" id="controllingRollback"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Controlling Rollback</h3></div></div></div><p>By default, regardless of retry or skip, any exceptions thrown
from the <code class="classname">ItemWriter</code> will cause the transaction
controlled by the <code class="classname">Step</code> to rollback. If skip is
configured as described above, exceptions thrown from the
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code> will not cause a rollback. However,
there are many scenarios in which exceptions thrown from the
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code> should not cause a rollback because no
action has taken place to invalidate the transaction. For this reason,
the <code class="classname">Step</code> can be configured with a list of
exceptions that should not cause rollback.</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="2"/&gt;
&lt;no-rollback-exception-classes&gt;
&lt;include class="org.springframework.batch.item.validator.ValidationException"/&gt;
&lt;/no-rollback-exception-classes&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><section class="section" title="Transactional Readers" epub:type="division" id="transactionalReaders"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">Transactional Readers</h4></div></div></div><p>The basic contract of the <code class="classname">ItemReader</code> is
that it is forward only. The step buffers reader input, so that in the
case of a rollback the items don't need to be re-read from the reader.
However, there are certain scenarios in which the reader is built on
top of a transactional resource, such as a JMS queue. In this case,
since the queue is tied to the transaction that is rolled back, the
messages that have been pulled from the queue will be put back on. For
this reason, the step can be configured to not buffer the
items:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="2"
<span class="bold"><strong> is-reader-transactional-queue="true"</strong></span>/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre></section></section><section class="section" title="Transaction Attributes" epub:type="division" id="transactionAttributes"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Transaction Attributes</h3></div></div></div><p>Transaction attributes can be used to control the isolation,
propagation, and timeout settings. More information on setting
transaction attributes can be found in the spring core
documentation.</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="2"/&gt;
&lt;transaction-attributes isolation="DEFAULT"
propagation="REQUIRED"
timeout="30"/&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre></section><section class="section" title="Registering ItemStreams with the Step" epub:type="division" id="registeringItemStreams"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Registering ItemStreams with the Step</h3></div></div></div><p>The step has to take care of <code class="classname">ItemStream</code>
callbacks at the necessary points in its lifecycle. (for more
information on the <code class="classname">ItemStream</code> interface, please
refer to <a class="xref" href="ch06s04.xhtml" title="ItemStream">the section called “ItemStream”</a>) This is vital if a step fails,
and might need to be restarted, because the
<code class="classname">ItemStream</code> interface is where the step gets the
information it needs about persistent state between executions.</p><p>If the <code class="classname">ItemReader</code>,
<code class="classname">ItemProcessor</code>, or
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code> itself implements the
<code class="classname">ItemStream</code> interface, then these will be
registered automatically. Any other streams need to be registered
separately. This is often the case where there are indirect dependencies
such as delegates being injected into the reader and writer. A stream
can be registered on the <code class="classname">Step</code> through the
'streams' element, as illustrated below:</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="itemReader" writer="compositeWriter" commit-interval="2"&gt;
<span class="bold"><strong>&lt;streams&gt;
&lt;stream ref="fileItemWriter1"/&gt;
&lt;stream ref="fileItemWriter2"/&gt;
&lt;/streams&gt;</strong></span>
&lt;/chunk&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;
&lt;beans:bean id="compositeWriter"
class="org.springframework.batch.item.support.CompositeItemWriter"&gt;
&lt;beans:property name="delegates"&gt;
&lt;beans:list&gt;
&lt;beans:ref bean="fileItemWriter1" /&gt;
&lt;beans:ref bean="fileItemWriter2" /&gt;
&lt;/beans:list&gt;
&lt;/beans:property&gt;
&lt;/beans:bean&gt;</pre><p>In the example above, the
<code class="classname">CompositeItemWriter</code> is not an
<code class="classname">ItemStream</code>, but both of its delegates are.
Therefore, both delegate writers must be explicitly registered as
streams in order for the framework to handle them correctly. The
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code> does not need to be explicitly
registered as a stream because it is a direct property of the
<code class="classname">Step</code>. The step will now be restartable and the
state of the reader and writer will be correctly persisted in the event
of a failure.</p></section><section class="section" title="Intercepting Step Execution" epub:type="division" id="interceptingStepExecution"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">Intercepting Step Execution</h3></div></div></div><p>Just as with the <code class="classname">Job</code>, there are many events
during the execution of a <code class="classname">Step</code> where a user may
need to perform some functionality. For example, in order to write out
to a flat file that requires a footer, the
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code> needs to be notified when the
<code class="classname">Step</code> has been completed, so that the footer can
written. This can be accomplished with one of many
<code class="classname">Step</code> scoped listeners.</p><p>Any class that implements one of the extensions
of <code class="classname">StepListener</code> (but not that interface
itself since it is empty) can be applied to a step via the
listeners element. The listeners element is valid inside a
step, tasklet or chunk declaration. It is recommended that you
declare the listeners at the level which its function applies,
or if it is multi-featured
(e.g. <code class="classname">StepExecutionListener</code>
and <code class="classname">ItemReadListener</code>) then declare it at
the most granular level that it applies (chunk in the example
given).</p><pre class="programlisting">&lt;step id="step1"&gt;
&lt;tasklet&gt;
&lt;chunk reader="reader" writer="writer" commit-interval="10"/&gt;
&lt;listeners&gt;
&lt;listener ref="chunkListener"/&gt;
&lt;/listeners&gt;
&lt;/tasklet&gt;
&lt;/step&gt;</pre><p>An <code class="classname">ItemReader</code>,
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code> or
<code class="classname">ItemProcessor</code> that itself implements one of the
<code class="classname">StepListener</code> interfaces will be registered
automatically with the <code class="classname">Step</code> if using the
namespace <code class="literal">&lt;step&gt;</code> element, or one of the the
<code class="classname">*StepFactoryBean</code> factories. This only applies to
components directly injected into the <code class="classname">Step</code>: if
the listener is nested inside another component, it needs to be
explicitly registered (as described above).</p><p>In addition to the <code class="classname">StepListener</code> interfaces,
annotations are provided to address the same concerns. Plain old Java
objects can have methods with these annotations that are then converted
into the corresponding <code class="classname">StepListener</code> type. It is
also common to annotate custom implementations of chunk components like
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code> or <code class="classname">ItemWriter</code>
or <code class="classname">Tasklet</code>. The annotations are analysed by the
XML parser for the <code class="code">&lt;listener/&gt;</code> elements, so all you
need to do is use the XML namespace to register the listeners with a
step.</p><section class="section" title="StepExecutionListener" epub:type="division" id="stepExecutionListener"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">StepExecutionListener</h4></div></div></div><p><code class="classname">StepExecutionListener</code> represents the most
generic listener for <code class="classname">Step</code> execution. It allows
for notification before a <code class="classname">Step</code> is started and
after it has ends, whether it ended normally or failed:</p><pre class="programlisting">public interface StepExecutionListener extends StepListener {
void beforeStep(StepExecution stepExecution);
ExitStatus afterStep(StepExecution stepExecution);
}</pre><p><code class="classname">ExitStatus</code> is the return type of
<code class="methodname">afterStep</code> in order to allow listeners the
chance to modify the exit code that is returned upon completion of a
<code class="classname">Step</code>.</p><p>The annotations corresponding to this interface are:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@BeforeStep</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@AfterStep</code></p></li></ul></div></section><section class="section" title="ChunkListener" epub:type="division" id="chunkListener"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">ChunkListener</h4></div></div></div><p>A chunk is defined as the items processed within the scope of a
transaction. Committing a transaction, at each commit interval,
commits a 'chunk'. A <code class="classname">ChunkListener</code> can be
useful to perform logic before a chunk begins processing or after a
chunk has completed successfully:</p><pre class="programlisting">public interface ChunkListener extends StepListener {
void beforeChunk();
void afterChunk();
}</pre><p>The <code class="methodname">beforeChunk</code> method is called after
the transaction is started, but before <code class="methodname">read</code>
is called on the <code class="classname">ItemReader</code>. Conversely,
<code class="methodname">afterChunk</code> is called after the chunk has been
committed (and not at all if there is a rollback).</p><p>The annotations corresponding to this interface are:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@BeforeChunk</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@AfterChunk</code></p></li></ul></div><p>A <code class="classname">ChunkListener</code> can be applied
when there is no chunk declaration: it is
the <code class="classname">TaskletStep</code> that is responsible for
calling the <code class="classname">ChunkListener</code> so it applies
to a non-item-oriented tasklet as well (called before and
after the tasklet).</p></section><section class="section" title="ItemReadListener" epub:type="division" id="itemReadListener"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">ItemReadListener</h4></div></div></div><p>When discussing skip logic above, it was mentioned that it may
be beneficial to log the skipped records, so that they can be deal
with later. In the case of read errors, this can be done with an
<code class="classname">ItemReaderListener:</code>
</p><pre class="programlisting">public interface ItemReadListener&lt;T&gt; extends StepListener {
void beforeRead();
void afterRead(T item);
void onReadError(Exception ex);
}</pre><p>The <code class="methodname">beforeRead</code> method will be called
before each call to <code class="methodname">read</code> on the
<code class="classname">ItemReader</code>. The
<code class="methodname">afterRead</code> method will be called after each
successful call to <code class="methodname">read</code>, and will be passed
the item that was read. If there was an error while reading, the
<code class="classname">onReadError</code> method will be called. The
exception encountered will be provided so that it can be
logged.</p><p>The annotations corresponding to this interface are:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@BeforeRead</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@AfterRead</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@OnReadError</code></p></li></ul></div></section><section class="section" title="ItemProcessListener" epub:type="division" id="itemProcessListener"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">ItemProcessListener</h4></div></div></div><p>Just as with the <code class="classname">ItemReadListener</code>, the
processing of an item can be 'listened' to:</p><pre class="programlisting">public interface ItemProcessListener&lt;T, S&gt; extends StepListener {
void beforeProcess(T item);
void afterProcess(T item, S result);
void onProcessError(T item, Exception e);
}</pre><p>The <code class="methodname">beforeProcess</code> method will be called
before <code class="methodname">process</code> on the
<code class="classname">ItemProcessor</code>, and is handed the item that will
be processed. The <code class="methodname">afterProcess</code> method will be
called after the item has been successfully processed. If there was an
error while processing, the <code class="methodname">onProcessError</code>
method will be called. The exception encountered and the item that was
attempted to be processed will be provided, so that they can be
logged.</p><p>The annotations corresponding to this interface are:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@BeforeProcess</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@AfterProcess</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@OnProcessError</code></p></li></ul></div></section><section class="section" title="ItemWriteListener" epub:type="division" id="itemWriteListener"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">ItemWriteListener</h4></div></div></div><p>The writing of an item can be 'listened' to with the
<code class="classname">ItemWriteListener</code>:</p><pre class="programlisting">public interface ItemWriteListener&lt;S&gt; extends StepListener {
void beforeWrite(List&lt;? extends S&gt; items);
void afterWrite(List&lt;? extends S&gt; items);
void onWriteError(Exception exception, List&lt;? extends S&gt; items);
}</pre><p>The <code class="methodname">beforeWrite</code> method will be called
before <code class="methodname">write</code> on the
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code>, and is handed the item that will be
written. The <code class="methodname">afterWrite</code> method will be called
after the item has been successfully written. If there was an error
while writing, the <code class="methodname">onWriteError</code> method will
be called. The exception encountered and the item that was attempted
to be written will be provided, so that they can be logged.</p><p>The annotations corresponding to this interface are:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@BeforeWrite</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@AfterWrite</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@OnWriteError</code></p></li></ul></div></section><section class="section" title="SkipListener" epub:type="division" id="skipListener"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title">SkipListener</h4></div></div></div><p><code class="classname">ItemReadListener</code>,
<code class="classname">ItemProcessListener</code>, and
<code class="classname">ItemWriteListner</code> all provide mechanisms for
being notified of errors, but none will inform you that a record has
actually been skipped. <code class="methodname">onWriteError</code>, for
example, will be called even if an item is retried and successful. For
this reason, there is a separate interface for tracking skipped
items:</p><pre class="programlisting">public interface SkipListener&lt;T,S&gt; extends StepListener {
void onSkipInRead(Throwable t);
void onSkipInProcess(T item, Throwable t);
void onSkipInWrite(S item, Throwable t);
}</pre><p><code class="methodname">onSkipInRead</code> will be called whenever an
item is skipped while reading. It should be noted that rollbacks may
cause the same item to be registered as skipped more than once.
<code class="methodname">onSkipInWrite</code> will be called when an item is
skipped while writing. Because the item has been read successfully
(and not skipped), it is also provided the item itself as an
argument.</p><p>The annotations corresponding to this interface are:</p><div class="itemizedlist" epub:type="list"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@OnSkipInRead</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@OnSkipInWrite</code></p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p><code class="classname">@OnSkipInProcess</code></p></li></ul></div><section class="section" title="SkipListeners and Transactions" epub:type="division" id="skipListenersAndTransactions"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h5 class="title">SkipListeners and Transactions</h5></div></div></div><p>One of the most common use cases for a
<code class="classname">SkipListener</code> is to log out a skipped item, so
that another batch process or even human process can be used to
evaluate and fix the issue leading to the skip. Because there are
many cases in which the original transaction may be rolled back,
Spring Batch makes two guarantees:</p><div class="orderedlist" epub:type="list"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>The appropriate skip method (depending on when the error
happened) will only be called once per item.</p></li><li class="listitem" epub:type="list-item"><p>The <code class="classname">SkipListener</code> will always be
called just before the transaction is committed. This is to
ensure that any transactional resources call by the listener are
not rolled back by a failure within the
<code class="classname">ItemWriter</code>.</p></li></ol></div></section></section></section></section></section><footer/></body></html>