only load downloader if needed

[CXwudi]

when we have more and more downloaders choice in the futures, we can't force users to fill in all downloaders config, so we need:

• multiple downloaders for one PV service
• validate that a downloader for one PV service can not be used in another PV service
• load downloaders base on enablement and pv-preference
  • will probably use spring @ConditionOnBean to check if the corresponding downloader config existBIG NOTICE: base on Spring Doc, Spring Boot issue 1 and issue 2, any @ConditionalOn annotations that rely on knowledge about Spring beans will NOT work outside of Spring auto-configuration (PS: @ConditionalOnProperty would probably work)
  • downloader config bean is @ConditionOnExpression with the check if its name is in enablement config map Because of this, SpEL can not resolve properties (except @Value). So we need another solution to load only enabled downloaders
  • other solutions, see below comments

[CXwudi]

So we have an enablement config with map of PV services to downloader names, but how to validate this map

Q: can we put custom ConstrainValidator into spring ApplicationContext and let it has depending bean of Preference?
A: Yes, a ConstrainValidator can be a spring component with other dependent components
Q2: can the custom validator contains a bean of Environment and call checkProperty() method to validate if a property root path exist?
A: Yes and No, we can only check if the full name property exists, but not the root

[CXwudi]

About solution for loading only enabled downloaders:

• use @Conditional(MyCondition.class).
  • Try either annotate MyCondition with @Component or using the BeanFactory in ConditionContext from the implemented method
  • An: since Condition initialized at the very first stage of the Spring life cycle, we can't use any beans. In fact, we will get a null BeanFactory from ConditionContext. The only thing we can do is use Environment from ConditionContext to check some properties
• let all downloader configs have two common properties, enable and order. and let all downloaders @ConditionalOnProperty on their enable property this works if only on enable property, but how to disable the downloader if pv-preference doesn't include the target PV service, see features about downloading pvs #11
  • validation on downloader config will be fully working as the user may disable the downloader you can put @Validated on downloader class itself and put @field:Valid on the holding config bean
• Spring Lazy Initialization. Since all downloaders are getten through BeanFactory only, we could try Lazy Initialization
  • can @ConfigurationProperties with @Validated been lazily validated and initialized?
  • An: Yes, but must enable global lazy initialization by spring.main.lazy-initialization=true. Otherwise @ConfigurationProperties always initialized at startup even if it is @Lazy. @Beans and @Components can be lazily loaded.
  • If don't want spring.main.lazy-initialization=true, we can use next option
• call Validator.validate(). e.g. inside lazy {} or init {} block
  • is an easy understand solution, but Validator bean will be passed to various business codes. Make things look uglier

[CXwudi]

FInal answer: use @Conditonal(MyCondition.class)
Reason:

• eager initialization is still needed so that no config validation failure during the business logic part (remember that RecordListener listens to all exception)
• good isolation of validation code and business code, although this method led to more code to write
• very very very, fortunately, all our condition is based on configuration properties, so the limitation of using @Conditonal(MyCondition.class) doesn't affect our project.
  • but this might not be the case in future projects, consider using Micronauts framework or POC creating our own auto-configuration classes (this is for writing libraries)