org.bitrepository.client.conversation

Interface Conversation

All Superinterfaces:

MessageListener

All Known Implementing Classes:

StateBasedConversation

public interface Conversation
extends MessageListener

A conversation models the messaging based workflow used to accomplish a operation called on a client interface. The interface primarily consists of sending and receiving message functionality.

Implementation considerations

The following concerns needs to be addressed by classes implementing this interface.

Timeouts

Note that conversation needs to be thread safe as multiple messages and timer event may occur in parallel.

Timeouts

The conversation implementation should include timeouts for the different conversation phases.

Error handling

As conversation will normally be called in either a asynchronously manor using a callback listener or synchronous, the error handling needs to behave differently in the two cases. This means a error handling block will typically contain a if (callbackListener == null) { ... } else {...} block.

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
void	endConversation() Ends the conversation.
void	failConversation(OperationFailedEvent operationFailedEvent) Can be used to fail an conversation.
String	getConversationID() Get the conversation ID for this conversation.
long	getStartTime() Returns the start time for the conversation.
boolean	hasEnded() Return whether this conversation has ended.
void	startConversation() Starts the conversation.

Methods inherited from interface org.bitrepository.protocol.messagebus.MessageListener

onMessage

Method Detail

getConversationID

String getConversationID()

Get the conversation ID for this conversation. Implementations must ensure that conversation IDs are unique, and that this ID is always used when sending messages.

Returns:

The conversation ID.

getStartTime

long getStartTime()

Returns the start time for the conversation. Main use is to timeout conversations, which have lasted too long.

Returns:

The start time of the conversation as set by the System.currentTimeMillis().

startConversation

void startConversation()

Starts the conversation.

endConversation

void endConversation()

Ends the conversation. This means setting any relevant conversation state.

hasEnded

boolean hasEnded()

Return whether this conversation has ended. Once this returns true it should never return false again. Conversations cannot be reused.

Returns:

Whether this conversation has ended.

failConversation

void failConversation(OperationFailedEvent operationFailedEvent)

Can be used to fail an conversation. This might be caused by a timeout or other event.

Parameters:

operationFailedEvent - Contains information regarding the cause for the failure.