This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Cloud Zookeeper 4.2.0!

Spring Cloud Zookeeper Dependency Watcher

The Dependency Watcher mechanism lets you register listeners to your dependencies. The functionality is, in fact, an implementation of the Observer pattern. When a dependency changes, its state (to either UP or DOWN), some custom logic can be applied.

Activating

Spring Cloud Zookeeper Dependencies functionality needs to be enabled for you to use the Dependency Watcher mechanism.

Registering a Listener

To register a listener, you must implement an interface called org.springframework.cloud.zookeeper.discovery.watcher.DependencyWatcherListener and register it as a bean. The interface gives you one method:

void stateChanged(String dependencyName, DependencyState newState);

If you want to register a listener for a particular dependency, the dependencyName would be the discriminator for your concrete implementation. newState provides you with information about whether your dependency has changed to CONNECTED or DISCONNECTED.

Using the Presence Checker

Bound with the Dependency Watcher is the functionality called Presence Checker. It lets you provide custom behavior when your application boots, to react according to the state of your dependencies.

The default implementation of the abstract org.springframework.cloud.zookeeper.discovery.watcher.presence.DependencyPresenceOnStartupVerifier class is the org.springframework.cloud.zookeeper.discovery.watcher.presence.DefaultDependencyPresenceOnStartupVerifier, which works in the following way.

  1. If the dependency is marked us required and is not in Zookeeper, when your application boots, it throws an exception and shuts down.

  2. If the dependency is not required, the org.springframework.cloud.zookeeper.discovery.watcher.presence.LogMissingDependencyChecker logs that the dependency is missing at the WARN level.

Because the DefaultDependencyPresenceOnStartupVerifier is registered only when there is no bean of type DependencyPresenceOnStartupVerifier, this functionality can be overridden.