Make API multiple times with AsyncRestTemplate and wait for all to complete

Question

I have to make Rest API invocation using RestTemplate multiple time with different parameters. API is same but it is the parameter that is getting changed. Number of times is also variable. I want to use AsyncRestTemplate but my main Thread should wait until all API calls have been successfully completed. I also want to work with responses that each API call returned. Currently I am using RestTemplate. In basic form it is as following.

List<String> listOfResponses = new ArrayList<String>();
for (Integer studentId : studentIdsList) {
    String respBody;
    try {
        ResponseEntity<String> responseEntity = restTemplate.exchange(url, method, requestEntity, String.class);
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        throw new ApplicationException("Exception while making Rest call.", ex);
    }
    respBody = requestEntity.getBody();
    listOfResponses.add(respBody);          
}

How can I implement AsyncRestTemplate in this situation?

Answer 1

The main idea when using AsyncRestTemplate (or any asynchronous API, in fact), is to send all you requests in a first time, keeping the corresponding futures, then process all responses in a second time. You can simply do this with 2 loops:

List<ListenableFuture<ResponseEntity<String>>> responseFutures = new ArrayList<>();
for (Integer studentId : studentIdsList) {
    // FIXME studentId is not used
    ListenableFuture<ResponseEntity<String>> responseEntityFuture = restTemplate.exchange(url, method, requestEntity, String.class);
    responseFutures.add(responseEntityFuture);
}
// now all requests were send, so we can process the responses
List<String> listOfResponses = new ArrayList<>();
for (ListenableFuture<ResponseEntity<String>> future: responseFutures) {
    try {
        String respBody = future.get().getBody();
        listOfResponses.add(respBody);
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        throw new ApplicationException("Exception while making Rest call.", ex);
    }
}

Note: if you need to pair the responses with the original requests, you can replace the list of futures with a map or a list of request+response objects.

I also noted that studentId is not used in your question.

Answer 2

You could use Java 8 Stream API, if that's feasible for you:

List<String> listOfResponses = studentIdsList.stream()
    .parrallel()
    .map({studentId ->
        ResponseEntity<String> responseEntity = restTemplate.exchange(url, method, studentId, String.class);
        return responseEntity.getBody();
    })
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

This code will basically perform 2 things:

1. Performs requests in parallel;
2. Collect the results of the requests into a List.

UPDATE: Agree with @Didier L - this solution may not work properly when you need to do a lot of requests. Here is an updated version:

List<String> listOfResponses  = studentIdsList.stream()
                .map(studentId -> asyncRestTemplate.exchange(url, method, studentId, String.class)
                .collect(Collectors.toList()).stream()
                .map(this::retrieveResult)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());

    /**
     * Retrieves results of each request by blocking the main thread. Note that the actual request was performed on the previous step when
     * calling asyncRestTemplate.exchange(url, method, studentId, String.class)
     */
    private String retrieveResult(ListenableFuture<ResponseEntity<String>> listenableFuture) {
        try {
            return listenableFuture.get().getBody();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

Answer 3

Here is another solution I would like to suggest which uses Spring's RestTemplate rather than AsyncRestTemplate. It is also using Java 8 CompletableFuture.

public void sendRequestsAsync(List<Integer> studentList) {
    List<CompletableFuture<Void>> completableFutures = new ArrayList<>(studentList.size()); //List to hold all the completable futures
    List<String> responses = new ArrayList<>(); //List for responses
    ExecutorService yourOwnExecutor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcessors());

    for (Integer studentId : studentList) { //Iterate student list
        CompletableFuture<Void> requestCompletableFuture = CompletableFuture
                .supplyAsync(
                        () -> restTemplate.exchange("URL/" + studentId, HttpMethod.GET, null, String.class),
                        yourOwnExecutor
                )//Supply the task you wanna run, in your case http request
                .thenApply((responseEntity) -> {
                    responses.add(responseEntity.getBody());
                    return responseEntity;
                })//now you can add response body to responses
                .thenAccept((responseEntity) -> {
                    doSomeFinalStuffWithResponse(responseEntity);
                })//here you can do more stuff with responseEntity (if you need to)
                .exceptionally(ex -> {
                    System.out.println(ex);
                    return null;
                });//do something here if an exception occurs in the execution;

        completableFutures.add(requestCompletableFuture);
    }

    try {
        CompletableFuture.allOf(completableFutures.toArray(new CompletableFuture[completableFutures.size()])).get(); //Now block till all of them are executed by building another completablefuture with others.
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ExecutionException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

I like this solution more because I can chain as much business logic I want and don't have to depend on Spring's internals for Async Sending. Obviously you can clean up the code more, I haven't paid much attention into that for now.