Explicit Request Contexts

Request contexts provide a means of sending an unlimited number of parameters from client to server without having to mention these parameters in the signature of an operation. For example, consider the following definition:

Slice

struct Address 
{
    // ...
}

interface Person 
{
    string setAddress(Address a);
    // ...
}

Assuming that the client has a proxy to a Person object, it could do something along the following lines:

shared_ptr<PersonPrx> p = ...;
Address a = ...;

Ice::Context ctx;
ctx["write policy"] = "immediate";

p->setAddress(a, ctx);

PersonPrx p = ...;
Address a = ...;

Ice::Context ctx;
ctx["write policy"] = "immediate";

p->setAddress(a, ctx);

using System.Collections.Generic;

PersonPrx p = ...;
Address a = ...;

Dictionary<string, string> ctx = new Dictionary<string, string>();
ctx["write policy"] = "immediate";

p.setAddress(a, ctx);

PersonPrx p = ...;
Address a = ...;

java.util.Map<String, String> ctx = new java.util.HashMap<String, String>();
ctx.put("write policy", "immediate");

p.setAddress(a, ctx);

PersonPrx p = ...;
Address a = ...;

java.util.Map<String, String> ctx = new java.util.HashMap<String, String>();
ctx.put("write policy", "immediate");

p.setAddress(a, ctx);

person = ...;
addr = ...;

ctx = containers.Map('KeyType', 'char', 'ValueType', 'char');
ctx('write policy') = 'immediate';

person.setAddress(addr, ctx);

On the server side, we can extract the policy value set from the Current object to influence how the implementation of setAddress works. For example:

void
PersonI::setAddress(Address a, const Ice::Current& current)
{
    auto i = current.ctx.find("write policy");
    if(i != current.ctx.end() && i->second == "immediate")
    {
        // Update the address details and write through to the 
        // data base immediately...
    } 
    else 
    {
        // Write policy was not set (or had a bad value), use
        // some other database write strategy.
    }
}

void
PersonI::setAddress(const Address& a, const Ice::Current& current)
{
    Ice::Context::const_iterator i = current.ctx.find("write policy");
    if(i != current.ctx.end() && i->second == "immediate")
    {
        // Update the address details and write through to the 
        // data base immediately...
    } 
    else 
    {
        // Write policy was not set (or had a bad value), use
        // some other database write strategy.
    }
}

void setAddress(Address a, Ice.Current current)
{
    if(current.ctx.ContainsKey("write policy") && current.ctx["write policy"] == "immediate")
    {
         // Update the address details and write through to the 
         // data base immediately...
    }
    else
    {
        // Write policy was not set (or had a bad value), use
        // some other database write strategy.
    }
}

@Override
void setAddress(Address a, com.zeroc.Ice.Current current)
{
    String writePolicy = current.ctx.get("write policy);
    if(writePolicy != null && writePolicy.equals("immediate"))
    {
         // Update the address details and write through to the 
         // data base immediately...
    }
    else
    {
        // Write policy was not set (or had a bad value), use
        // some other database write strategy.
    }
}

@Override
void setAddress(Address a, Ice.Current current)
{
    String writePolicy = current.ctx.get("write policy);
    if(writePolicy != null && writePolicy.equals("immediate"))
    {
         // Update the address details and write through to the 
         // data base immediately...
    }
    else
    {
        // Write policy was not set (or had a bad value), use
        // some other database write strategy.
    }
}

For this example, the server examines the value of the context with the key "write policy" and, if that value is "immediate", writes the update sent by the client straight away; if the write policy is not set or contains a value that is not recognized, the server presumably applies a more lenient write policy (such as caching the update in memory and writing it later).

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