The Domain Language of Batch

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To any experienced batch architect, the overall concepts of batch processing used in Spring Batch should be familiar and comfortable. There are “Jobs” and “Steps” and developer-supplied processing units called ItemReader and ItemWriter. However, because of the Spring patterns, operations, templates, callbacks, and idioms, there are opportunities for the following:

Significant improvement in adherence to a clear separation of concerns.
Clearly delineated architectural layers and services provided as interfaces.
Simple and default implementations that allow for quick adoption and ease of use out of the box.
Significantly enhanced extensibility.

The following diagram is a simplified version of the batch reference architecture that has been used for decades. It provides an overview of the components that make up the domain language of batch processing. This architecture framework is a blueprint that has been proven through decades of implementations on the last several generations of platforms (COBOL on mainframes, C on Unix, and now Java anywhere). JCL and COBOL developers are likely to be as comfortable with the concepts as C, C#, and Java developers. Spring Batch provides a physical implementation of the layers, components, and technical services commonly found in the robust, maintainable systems that are used to address the creation of simple to complex batch applications, with the infrastructure and extensions to address very complex processing needs.

Figure 1. Batch Stereotypes

The preceding diagram highlights the key concepts that make up the domain language of Spring Batch. A Job has one to many steps, each of which has exactly one ItemReader, one ItemProcessor, and one ItemWriter. A job needs to be launched (with JobLauncher), and metadata about the currently running process needs to be stored (in JobRepository).

Job

This section describes stereotypes relating to the concept of a batch job. A Job is an entity that encapsulates an entire batch process. As is common with other Spring projects, a Job is wired together with either an XML configuration file or Java-based configuration. This configuration may be referred to as the “job configuration”. However, Job is only the top of an overall hierarchy, as shown in the following diagram:

Figure 2. Job Hierarchy

In Spring Batch, a Job is simply a container for Step instances. It combines multiple steps that logically belong together in a flow and allows for configuration of properties global to all steps, such as restartability. The job configuration contains:

The name of the job.
Definition and ordering of Step instances.
Whether or not the job is restartable.

For those who use Java configuration, Spring Batch provides a default implementation of the Job interface in the form of the SimpleJob class, which creates some standard functionality on top of Job. When using Java-based configuration, a collection of builders is made available for the instantiation of a Job, as the following example shows:

@Bean
public Job footballJob(JobRepository jobRepository) {
    return new JobBuilder("footballJob", jobRepository)
                     .start(playerLoad())
                     .next(gameLoad())
                     .next(playerSummarization())
                     .build();
}

For those who use XML configuration, Spring Batch provides a default implementation of the Job interface in the form of the SimpleJob class, which creates some standard functionality on top of Job. However, the batch namespace abstracts away the need to instantiate it directly. Instead, you can use the <job> element, as the following example shows:

<job id="footballJob">
    <step id="playerload" next="gameLoad"/>
    <step id="gameLoad" next="playerSummarization"/>
    <step id="playerSummarization"/>
</job>

JobInstance

A JobInstance refers to the concept of a logical job run. Consider a batch job that should be run once at the end of the day, such as the EndOfDay Job from the preceding diagram. There is one EndOfDay job, but each individual run of the Job must be tracked separately. In the case of this job, there is one logical JobInstance per day. For example, there is a January 1st run, a January 2nd run, and so on. If the January 1st run fails the first time and is run again the next day, it is still the January 1st run. (Usually, this corresponds with the data it is processing as well, meaning the January 1st run processes data for January 1st). Therefore, each JobInstance can have multiple executions (JobExecution is discussed in more detail later in this chapter), and only one JobInstance (which corresponds to a particular Job and identifying JobParameters) can run at a given time.

The definition of a JobInstance has absolutely no bearing on the data to be loaded. It is entirely up to the ItemReader implementation to determine how data is loaded. For example, in the EndOfDay scenario, there may be a column on the data that indicates the effective date or schedule date to which the data belongs. So, the January 1st run would load only data from the 1st, and the January 2nd run would use only data from the 2nd. Because this determination is likely to be a business decision, it is left up to the ItemReader to decide. However, using the same JobInstance determines whether or not the “state” (that is, the ExecutionContext, which is discussed later in this chapter) from previous executions is used. Using a new JobInstance means “start from the beginning,” and using an existing instance generally means “start from where you left off”.

JobParameters

Having discussed JobInstance and how it differs from Job, the natural question to ask is: “How is one JobInstance distinguished from another?” The answer is: JobParameters. A JobParameters object holds a set of parameters used to start a batch job. They can be used for identification or even as reference data during the run, as the following image shows:

Figure 3. Job Parameters

In the preceding example, where there are two instances, one for January 1st and another for January 2nd, there is really only one Job, but it has two JobParameter objects: one that was started with a job parameter of 01-01-2017 and another that was started with a parameter of 01-02-2017. Thus, the contract can be defined as: JobInstance = Job + identifying JobParameters. This allows a developer to effectively control how a JobInstance is defined, since they control what parameters are passed in.

Not all job parameters are required to contribute to the identification of a JobInstance. By default, they do so. However, the framework also allows the submission of a Job with parameters that do not contribute to the identity of a JobInstance.

JobExecution

A JobExecution refers to the technical concept of a single attempt to run a Job. An execution may end in failure or success, but the JobInstance corresponding to a given execution is not considered to be complete unless the execution completes successfully. Using the EndOfDay Job described previously as an example, consider a JobInstance for 01-01-2017 that failed the first time it was run. If it is run again with the same identifying job parameters as the first run (01-01-2017), a new JobExecution is created. However, there is still only one JobInstance.

A Job defines what a job is and how it is to be executed, and a JobInstance is a purely organizational object to group executions together, primarily to enable correct restart semantics. A JobExecution, however, is the primary storage mechanism for what actually happened during a run and contains many more properties that must be controlled and persisted, as the following table shows:

Table 1. JobExecution Properties
Property	Definition
`Status`	A `BatchStatus` object that indicates the status of the execution. While running, it is `BatchStatus#STARTED`. If it fails, it is `BatchStatus#FAILED`. If it finishes successfully, it is `BatchStatus#COMPLETED`
`startTime`	A `java.time.LocalDateTime` representing the current system time when the execution was started. This field is empty if the job has yet to start.
`endTime`	A `java.time.LocalDateTime` representing the current system time when the execution finished, regardless of whether or not it was successful. The field is empty if the job has yet to finish.
`exitStatus`	The `ExitStatus`, indicating the result of the run. It is most important, because it contains an exit code that is returned to the caller. See chapter 5 for more details. The field is empty if the job has yet to finish.
`createTime`	A `java.time.LocalDateTime` representing the current system time when the `JobExecution` was first persisted. The job may not have been started yet (and thus has no start time), but it always has a `createTime`, which is required by the framework for managing job-level `ExecutionContexts`.
`lastUpdated`	A `java.time.LocalDateTime` representing the last time a `JobExecution` was persisted. This field is empty if the job has yet to start.
`executionContext`	The “property bag” containing any user data that needs to be persisted between executions.
`failureExceptions`	The list of exceptions encountered during the execution of a `Job`. These can be useful if more than one exception is encountered during the failure of a `Job`.

These properties are important because they are persisted and can be used to completely determine the status of an execution. For example, if the EndOfDay job for 01-01 is executed at 9:00 PM and fails at 9:30, the following entries are made in the batch metadata tables:

Table 2. BATCH_JOB_INSTANCE
JOB_INST_ID	JOB_NAME
1	EndOfDayJob

Table 3. BATCH_JOB_EXECUTION_PARAMS
JOB_EXECUTION_ID	TYPE_CD	KEY_NAME	DATE_VAL	IDENTIFYING
1	DATE	schedule.Date	2017-01-01	TRUE

Table 4. BATCH_JOB_EXECUTION
JOB_EXEC_ID	JOB_INST_ID	START_TIME	END_TIME	STATUS
1	1	2017-01-01 21:00	2017-01-01 21:30	FAILED

Column names may have been abbreviated or removed for the sake of clarity and formatting.

Now that the job has failed, assume that it took the entire night for the problem to be determined, so that the “batch window” is now closed. Further assuming that the window starts at 9:00 PM, the job is kicked off again for 01-01, starting where it left off and completing successfully at 9:30. Because it is now the next day, the 01-02 job must be run as well, and it is kicked off just afterwards at 9:31 and completes in its normal one hour time at 10:30. There is no requirement that one JobInstance be kicked off after another, unless there is potential for the two jobs to attempt to access the same data, causing issues with locking at the database level. It is entirely up to the scheduler to determine when a Job should be run. Since they are separate JobInstances, Spring Batch makes no attempt to stop them from being run concurrently. (Attempting to run the same JobInstance while another is already running results in a JobExecutionAlreadyRunningException being thrown). There should now be an extra entry in both the JobInstance and JobParameters tables and two extra entries in the JobExecution table, as shown in the following tables:

Table 5. BATCH_JOB_INSTANCE
JOB_INST_ID	JOB_NAME
1	EndOfDayJob
2	EndOfDayJob

Table 6. BATCH_JOB_EXECUTION_PARAMS
JOB_EXECUTION_ID	TYPE_CD	KEY_NAME	DATE_VAL	IDENTIFYING
1	DATE	schedule.Date	2017-01-01 00:00:00	TRUE
2	DATE	schedule.Date	2017-01-01 00:00:00	TRUE
3	DATE	schedule.Date	2017-01-02 00:00:00	TRUE

Table 7. BATCH_JOB_EXECUTION
JOB_EXEC_ID	JOB_INST_ID	START_TIME	END_TIME	STATUS
1	1	2017-01-01 21:00	2017-01-01 21:30	FAILED
2	1	2017-01-02 21:00	2017-01-02 21:30	COMPLETED
3	2	2017-01-02 21:31	2017-01-02 22:29	COMPLETED

Column names may have been abbreviated or removed for the sake of clarity and formatting.

Step

A Step is a domain object that encapsulates an independent, sequential phase of a batch job. Therefore, every Job is composed entirely of one or more steps. A Step contains all of the information necessary to define and control the actual batch processing. This is a necessarily vague description because the contents of any given Step are at the discretion of the developer writing a Job. A Step can be as simple or complex as the developer desires. A simple Step might load data from a file into the database, requiring little or no code (depending upon the implementations used). A more complex Step may have complicated business rules that are applied as part of the processing. As with a Job, a Step has an individual StepExecution that correlates with a unique JobExecution, as the following image shows:

Figure 4. Job Hierarchy With Steps

StepExecution

A StepExecution represents a single attempt to execute a Step. A new StepExecution is created each time a Step is run, similar to JobExecution. However, if a step fails to execute because the step before it fails, no execution is persisted for it. A StepExecution is created only when its Step is actually started.

Step executions are represented by objects of the StepExecution class. Each execution contains a reference to its corresponding step and JobExecution and transaction-related data, such as commit and rollback counts and start and end times. Additionally, each step execution contains an ExecutionContext, which contains any data a developer needs to have persisted across batch runs, such as statistics or state information needed to restart. The following table lists the properties for StepExecution:

Table 8. StepExecution Properties
Property	Definition
`Status`	A `BatchStatus` object that indicates the status of the execution. While running, the status is `BatchStatus.STARTED`. If it fails, the status is `BatchStatus.FAILED`. If it finishes successfully, the status is `BatchStatus.COMPLETED`.
`startTime`	A `java.time.LocalDateTime` representing the current system time when the execution was started. This field is empty if the step has yet to start.
`endTime`	A `java.time.LocalDateTime` representing the current system time when the execution finished, regardless of whether or not it was successful. This field is empty if the step has yet to exit.
`exitStatus`	The `ExitStatus` indicating the result of the execution. It is most important, because it contains an exit code that is returned to the caller. See chapter 5 for more details. This field is empty if the job has yet to exit.
`executionContext`	The “property bag” containing any user data that needs to be persisted between executions.
`readCount`	The number of items that have been successfully read.
`writeCount`	The number of items that have been successfully written.
`commitCount`	The number of transactions that have been committed for this execution.
`rollbackCount`	The number of times the business transaction controlled by the `Step` has been rolled back.
`readSkipCount`	The number of times `read` has failed, resulting in a skipped item.
`processSkipCount`	The number of times `process` has failed, resulting in a skipped item.
`filterCount`	The number of items that have been “filtered” by the `ItemProcessor`.
`writeSkipCount`	The number of times `write` has failed, resulting in a skipped item.

ExecutionContext

An ExecutionContext represents a collection of key/value pairs that are persisted and controlled by the framework to give developers a place to store persistent state that is scoped to a StepExecution object or a JobExecution object. (For those familiar with Quartz, it is very similar to JobDataMap.) The best usage example is to facilitate restart. Using flat file input as an example, while processing individual lines, the framework periodically persists the ExecutionContext at commit points. Doing so lets the ItemReader store its state in case a fatal error occurs during the run or even if the power goes out. All that is needed is to put the current number of lines read into the context, as the following example shows, and the framework does the rest:

executionContext.putLong(getKey(LINES_READ_COUNT), reader.getPosition());

Using the EndOfDay example from the Job stereotypes section as an example, assume there is one step, loadData, that loads a file into the database. After the first failed run, the metadata tables would look like the following example:

Table 9. BATCH_JOB_INSTANCE
JOB_INST_ID	JOB_NAME
1	EndOfDayJob

Table 10. BATCH_JOB_EXECUTION_PARAMS
JOB_INST_ID	TYPE_CD	KEY_NAME	DATE_VAL
1	DATE	schedule.Date	2017-01-01

Table 11. BATCH_JOB_EXECUTION
JOB_EXEC_ID	JOB_INST_ID	START_TIME	END_TIME	STATUS
1	1	2017-01-01 21:00	2017-01-01 21:30	FAILED

Table 12. BATCH_STEP_EXECUTION
STEP_EXEC_ID	JOB_EXEC_ID	STEP_NAME	START_TIME	END_TIME	STATUS
1	1	loadData	2017-01-01 21:00	2017-01-01 21:30	FAILED

Table 13. BATCH_STEP_EXECUTION_CONTEXT
STEP_EXEC_ID	SHORT_CONTEXT
1	{piece.count=40321}

In the preceding case, the Step ran for 30 minutes and processed 40,321 “pieces”, which would represent lines in a file in this scenario. This value is updated just before each commit by the framework and can contain multiple rows corresponding to entries within the ExecutionContext. Being notified before a commit requires one of the various StepListener implementations (or an ItemStream), which are discussed in more detail later in this guide. As with the previous example, it is assumed that the Job is restarted the next day. When it is restarted, the values from the ExecutionContext of the last run are reconstituted from the database. When the ItemReader is opened, it can check to see if it has any stored state in the context and initialize itself from there, as the following example shows:

if (executionContext.containsKey(getKey(LINES_READ_COUNT))) {
    log.debug("Initializing for restart. Restart data is: " + executionContext);

    long lineCount = executionContext.getLong(getKey(LINES_READ_COUNT));

    LineReader reader = getReader();

    Object record = "";
    while (reader.getPosition() < lineCount && record != null) {
        record = readLine();
    }
}

In this case, after the preceding code runs, the current line is 40,322, letting the Step start again from where it left off. You can also use the ExecutionContext for statistics that need to be persisted about the run itself. For example, if a flat file contains orders for processing that exist across multiple lines, it may be necessary to store how many orders have been processed (which is much different from the number of lines read), so that an email can be sent at the end of the Step with the total number of orders processed in the body. The framework handles storing this for the developer, to correctly scope it with an individual JobInstance. It can be very difficult to know whether an existing ExecutionContext should be used or not. For example, using the EndOfDay example from above, when the 01-01 run starts again for the second time, the framework recognizes that it is the same JobInstance and on an individual Step basis, pulls the ExecutionContext out of the database, and hands it (as part of the StepExecution) to the Step itself. Conversely, for the 01-02 run, the framework recognizes that it is a different instance, so an empty context must be handed to the Step. There are many of these types of determinations that the framework makes for the developer, to ensure the state is given to them at the correct time. It is also important to note that exactly one ExecutionContext exists per StepExecution at any given time. Clients of the ExecutionContext should be careful, because this creates a shared keyspace. As a result, care should be taken when putting values in to ensure no data is overwritten. However, the Step stores absolutely no data in the context, so there is no way to adversely affect the framework.

Note that there is at least one ExecutionContext per JobExecution and one for every StepExecution. For example, consider the following code snippet:

ExecutionContext ecStep = stepExecution.getExecutionContext();
ExecutionContext ecJob = jobExecution.getExecutionContext();
//ecStep does not equal ecJob

As noted in the comment, ecStep does not equal ecJob. They are two different ExecutionContexts. The one scoped to the Step is saved at every commit point in the Step, whereas the one scoped to the Job is saved in between every Step execution.

In the ExecutionContext, all non-transient entries must be Serializable. Proper serialization of the execution context underpins the restart capability of steps and jobs. Should you use keys or values that are not natively serializable, you are required to employ a tailored serialization approach. Failing to serialize the execution context may jeopardize the state persistence process, making failed jobs impossible to recover properly.

JobRepository

JobRepository is the persistence mechanism for all of the stereotypes mentioned earlier. It provides CRUD operations for JobLauncher, Job, and Step implementations. When a Job is first launched, a JobExecution is obtained from the repository. Also, during the course of execution, StepExecution and JobExecution implementations are persisted by passing them to the repository.

The Spring Batch XML namespace provides support for configuring a JobRepository instance with the <job-repository> tag, as the following example shows:

<job-repository id="jobRepository"/>

When using Java configuration, the @EnableBatchProcessing annotation provides a JobRepository as one of the components that is automatically configured.

JobLauncher

JobLauncher represents a simple interface for launching a Job with a given set of JobParameters, as the following example shows:

public interface JobLauncher {

public JobExecution run(Job job, JobParameters jobParameters)
            throws JobExecutionAlreadyRunningException, JobRestartException,
                   JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException, JobParametersInvalidException;
}

It is expected that implementations obtain a valid JobExecution from the JobRepository and execute the Job.

ItemReader

ItemReader is an abstraction that represents the retrieval of input for a Step, one item at a time. When the ItemReader has exhausted the items it can provide, it indicates this by returning null. You can find more details about the ItemReader interface and its various implementations in Readers And Writers.

ItemWriter

ItemWriter is an abstraction that represents the output of a Step, one batch or chunk of items at a time. Generally, an ItemWriter has no knowledge of the input it should receive next and knows only the item that was passed in its current invocation. You can find more details about the ItemWriter interface and its various implementations in Readers And Writers.

ItemProcessor

ItemProcessor is an abstraction that represents the business processing of an item. While the ItemReader reads one item, and the ItemWriter writes one item, the ItemProcessor provides an access point to transform or apply other business processing. If, while processing the item, it is determined that the item is not valid, returning null indicates that the item should not be written out. You can find more details about the ItemProcessor interface in Readers And Writers.

Batch Namespace

Many of the domain concepts listed previously need to be configured in a Spring ApplicationContext. While there are implementations of the interfaces above that you can use in a standard bean definition, a namespace has been provided for ease of configuration, as the following example shows:

<beans:beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/batch"
xmlns:beans="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
   https://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
   http://www.springframework.org/schema/batch
   https://www.springframework.org/schema/batch/spring-batch.xsd">

<job id="ioSampleJob">
    <step id="step1">
        <tasklet>
            <chunk reader="itemReader" writer="itemWriter" commit-interval="2"/>
        </tasklet>
    </step>
</job>

</beans:beans>

As long as the batch namespace has been declared, any of its elements can be used. You can find more information on configuring a Job in Configuring and Running a Job. You can find more information on configuring a Step in Configuring a Step.