Using global variables in Axis worked!

[Juha Kononen <Ju...@savonia-amk.fi>]

Hi, after a lot of work I got it working, I think so. Java's ThreadLocal and InheritableThreadLocal classes are totally new for me and I haven't used them before.
With the help of JDK 5.0 API I made my own class containing a static variable of type InheritableThreadLocal. Then, everytime I create my thread 
I store "the global data" (in the call method) in the variable of type InheritableThreadLocal and get it as well. It was still very difficult to test does it work right
because I'm using a thread pool which reuses older threads. But I guess this InheritableThreadLocal variable should work in the right way even if it's shared with all sessions and
threads (because of that static variable).

Thank you guys!

Juha

>>> Mohit.Gupta@india.rsystems.com 08/17 1:51  >>>
Hi,

Solution is purely dependent on your requirements and the scenarios.

If you are not using the thread pools:
	
- Install a handler on your request path.
- Maintain a InheritableThreadLocal with this handler.
- Set the session to this thread local variable whenever a request is received by this  handler.
- Expose a method to get the session - getSession.
- Now the main thread and all its child thread can access this property.


But if you are using thread pools, then the problem is complicate. And the possible solution  is 

- Maintain a Inheritable thread local variable i.e. property store in every component or  taskwhich can be started in a new thread.
- Modify the thread pool in such a way that any parameter can be passed to the thread pool.
- Use this parameter to set the thread local variable of the task i.e. the component, after  starting the task in a thread.
- This may help you to get the access for this property.

Thanks
Mohit.



>>> jgreif@alumni.princeton.edu 08/17 4:30  >>>
You can get access to the MessageContext in your threads IF you put it 
there yourself instead of depending on the static  method 
MessageContext.getCurrentContext().  Having invoked that method where it 
works (the thread handling the web service request), you can place the 
result in a thread local of other threads.

That is, if your thread lives for the processing of a single request, 
you can copy the message context reference to it when you create the 
thread.   Otherwise you copy it to the thread each time it starts 
processing a request. 

Jeff

Juha Kononen wrote:

>Thanks for advise!
>
> Too bad that it's not possible to get an access to MessageContext in
>user's own threads.
>Does this mean that the session mechanism can be used only partially in
>axis (because there is no
>way to get HttpSession in threads)? I had an idea to use HttpSession as
>a global variable in each session where to
>store session-specific information (data sent by a client) for each
>client. This global
>session-specific storage would help me to get data directly instead of
>passing it
>to objects and threads via many function parameters (in contrast to
>HttpSession I use ServletContext as a global variable
>for storing a reference to a database pool). Of course, I could get the
>data sent by a client via a static class variable
>in my DSServiceSOAPBindingImpl class. But unfortunately class variables
>are shared with all sessions, so that will not work if
>I want my class variables to be session-spefic. So is there any way I
>can use a global, session-specific variable anywhere in
>my server-side code (including those threads)? Java doesn't have global
>variables, but don't we still need them? :)
>
>Juha
>
>  
>