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Implementing with WebLogic Time

The following sections describe how to implement with the deprecated WebLogic Time Service:

- Scheduling a Recurring Trigger on a Client

- Scheduling a Recurring Server-side Trigger from a WebLogic Client

- Setting up Complex Schedules

- Rescheduling

- Stopping a ScheduledTrigger

Scheduling a Recurring Trigger on a Client

The simplest case of scheduling a recurring trigger is to create a ScheduledTrigger that is scheduled and executed on a WebLogic client. In such a case, you write a class that implements both Schedulable and Triggerable, and implement the methods of those interfaces.

This example illustrates how to schedule and execute a trigger:

>     import weblogic.time.common.*;
>     import weblogic.common.*;
>     import java.util.*;
>     import weblogic.jndi.*;
>     import javax.naming.*;
>     import java.util.*;

>     class myTrigger implements Schedulable, Triggerable {
>       ...
>     }

First, obtain a ScheduledTrigger object from the TimeServices factory. Obtain the TimeServices factory from the T3Services remote factory stub on the WebLogic Server via the getT3Services() method.

Note: To obtain a handle to the TimeServices interface on a WebLogic Server instance (as opposed to a client application) use the static method, weblogic.common.T3Services.getT3Services().

Next, call the schedule() and cancel() methods on the trigger, as shown in this example:

>       public myTrigger() throws TimeTriggerException {
>         // Obtain a T3Services factory
>         T3ServicesDef t3 = getT3Services("t3://localhost:7001");

>         // Request a ScheduledTrigger from the factory. Use
>         // this class for scheduling and execution
>         ScheduledTriggerDef std =
>           t3services.time().getScheduledTrigger(this, this);
>         // Start the ball rolling
>         std.schedule();
>         // Your class may do other things after scheduling the trigger
>         // When you are finished, cancel the trigger
>         std.cancel();
>       }

Your class must implement the methods in the following interfaces.

  Schedulable

  The Schedulable interface has only one method, schedule(), which allows you to set the time at which the trigger should be executed.

>       public long schedule(long time) {
>         // Schedule the trigger for every 5 seconds
>         return time + 5000;
>       }

  Triggerable

  The Triggerable interface has only one method, trigger(), where the client performs an action in response to the timed triggered.

>       public void trigger() {
>         // The trigger method is where the work takes place
>         System.out.println("trigger called");
>       }

This example is self-contained within a single class that implements both the scheduler and the trigger. This is convenient since both required methods share class variables necessary for scheduling or execution.

Scheduling a Recurring Server-side Trigger from a WebLogic Client

You can write more flexible schedulers and triggers, which may be executed anywhere within the WebLogic framework, by implementing ScheduleDef and TriggerDef instead of the simpler interfaces Schedulable and Triggerable. This example illustrates a flexible implementation that creates a recurring trigger that is rescheduled and executed on a WebLogic Server, or anywhere within the WebLogic framework.

Here are the steps to creating a scheduled trigger in this scenario. You will need to write a class that implements ScheduleDef and TriggerDef. We implement these interfaces in separate classes in this example.

Compile the classes and place them in the WebLogic Server serverclasses directory. Then create a ScheduledTrigger with those classes from a client application.

Step 1. Implement the ScheduleDef and TriggerDef interfaces

In this example, the scheduler implements ScheduleDef rather than Schedulable so that its setServices() and scheduleInit() methods are called. The trigger implements TriggerDef rather than Triggerable for the same reason. These objects differ from the interfaces they implement in that they can be initialized with a ParamSet, and have access to WebLogic services through the T3Services stub. These two differences are important for the following reasons.

You do not need to write different versions for client-side and server-side deployment because the T3ServicesDef interface is a remote stub.

When you instantiate an object dynamically, you must call the default constructor. Consequently, all service-related interfaces, including the Time interfaces, require that you implement the scheduleInit() method which takes a ParamSet, thus allowing you to pass initialization parameters for the object.

Here is a simple implementation of ScheduleDef.

>     package examples.time;

>     import weblogic.common.*;
>     import weblogic.time.common.*;
>     import java.util.*;

>     class MyScheduler implements ScheduleDef {

>       private int interval = 0;
>       private T3ServicesDef services;

>       public void setServices(T3ServicesDef services) {
>         this.services = services;
>       }

>       public void scheduleInit (ParamSet ps) throws ParamSetException {
>         interval = ps.getParam("interval").asInt();
>       }

>       public long schedule(long currentMillis) {
>         return currentMillis + interval;
>       }
>     }

Here is a simple class that implements TriggerDef. In this case, we do not need to set or get any parameters for the Trigger, so we implement the method to do nothing.

>     package examples.time;

>     import weblogic.common.*;
>     import weblogic.time.common.*;
>     import java.util.*;

>     public class MyTrigger implements TriggerDef {

>       private T3ServicesDef services;

>       public void setServices(T3ServicesDef services) {
>         this.services = services;
>       }

>       public void triggerInit (ParamSet ps) throws ParamSetException {
>       // Empty method definition
>       }

>       public void trigger(Schedulable sched) {
>         System.out.println("trigger called");
>       }
>     }

Step 2. Create the ScheduledTrigger from a WebLogic Client

This method of setting up a scheduler and trigger require that you create a Scheduler and Trigger object to pass to the get ScheduledTrigger() factory method. We created those in Step 1. Implement the ScheduleDef and TriggerDef interfaces.

We have compiled those classes and placed them in the CLASSPATH of the WebLogic Server. Now we'll write a client that uses those classes to schedule a trigger that runs in the server's JVM.

We use a ParamSet to pass initialization parameters between the client and the objects that the WebLogic Server instantiates. The class that we wrote in Step 1 to implement ScheduleDef depends upon a Parameter "interval" to be set by the caller, so we'll create a ParamSet with one Param. The class we wrote to implement TriggerDef doesn't require any initialization parameters.

>       T3ServicesDef t3services = getT3Services("t3://localhost:7001");

>       // Create a ParamSet to pass initialization parameters for
>       // the ScheduleDef object. Set one parameter, "interval,"
>       // for 10 seconds
>       ParamSet schedParams = new ParamSet();
>       schedParams.setParam("interval", 10000);

Add the getT3Services() method to your client class and create the Scheduler and Trigger wrapper objects that instantiate a ScheduledTrigger on the server. The Scheduler and Trigger wrapper objects hold the name of the target class and a ParamSet to initialize it, if necessary.

>       Scheduler scheduler =
>         new Scheduler("examples.time.MyScheduler", schedParams);
>       Trigger    trigger =
>         new Trigger("examples.time.MyTrigger");

Finally, use the time services object factory to manufacture a ScheduledTrigger. It takes two arguments, a Scheduler and a Trigger, which we have just created.

>       ScheduledTriggerDef std =
>         t3.services.time().getScheduledTrigger(scheduler, trigger);

The getScheduledTrigger() method returns a ScheduledTriggerDef object. To initiate execute, the client calls the ScheduledTriggerDef's schedule() and cancel() methods.

If you are setting up a repeating schedule, you might also use the utility class TimeRepeat, which is part of this package. Here is a simple example of how to use the TimeRepeat class to set up a regular schedule for a ScheduledTrigger that repeats every 10 seconds. Again, it uses the getT3Services() method to access the WebLogic server-side services.

>       T3ServicesDef t3services = getT3Services("t3://localhost:7001");

>       Scheduler scheduler = new Scheduler(new TimeRepeat(1000 * 10));
>       Trigger   trigger   = new Trigger("examples.time.MyTrigger");

>       ScheduledTriggerDef std =
>         t3services.time().getScheduledTrigger(scheduler, trigger);

>       std.schedule();

Setting up Complex Schedules

You can design arbitrarily complex schedules with the schedule() method of a Schedulable object. Here are some examples and tips on scheduling.

There are several ways in which the argument to the schedule() method can describe the execution time:

- The current time, in milliseconds since the epoch.

- A specific future date and time, in a millisecond representation by performing date arithmetic using standard Java classes (such as java.util.Date).

The schedule() method returns a long value, which allows you to set up repeating triggers. Simply return the time at which the schedule() method was last called plus the interval (in milliseconds) at which the schedule should repeat.

Rescheduling

In this example, we write the schedule() method to delay for an incrementing interval between each call to the trigger() method. The schedule() and trigger() methods are implemented in the same class in this example.

In the trigger() method, we set an incrementing delay, using a private int delay, which we initialize to zero in the class constructor. Each time the trigger is called, it incrementally adjusts its own schedule.

>       public void trigger() {
>         System.out.println("Trigger called");
>         // Carry out some arbitrary tasks . . .
>         System.out.println("Trigger completed");
>         // Add a thousand milliseconds to the delay
>         delay += 1000;
>       }

In the schedule() method, we return the next execution of the trigger as the time of the last scheduled execution, plus the delay incremented by the last scheduled execution (in milliseconds). We also include an upper bounds on the delay to end the scheduling.

>       public long schedule(long t) {
>         System.out.println("--------------------------------------");
>         if (delay > 10000) {
>           System.out.println("Cancelling Timer");
>           return 0;
>         }
>         else {
>           System.out.println("Scheduling next trigger for " +
>                              delay/1000 + " seconds");
>           return t + delay;
>         }
>       }

Stopping a ScheduledTrigger

There are two ways to stop a ScheduledTrigger:

- Call the ScheduledTrigger's cancel() method.

- Return zero (0) when the schedule() method is called ends the scheduling.

There is some slight difference in these two methods. If you return zero from the schedule() method, the schedule is immediately ended. If you call a ScheduledTrigger's cancel() method, the clock continues to run until the next scheduled instance of the trigger(), at which point it is cancelled.

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