Support user-defined ApplicationContextInitializer using lambdas or method references with AOT/native

[PedroAlvarado]

An early exception is thrown by the "bootBuildImage" Gradle task when attempting to create a native image for a WebFlux application using a functional router.

Exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalStateException: No constructor or factory method candidate found for Root bean: class [org.springframework.web.reactive.function.server.RouterFunction]; scope=singleton; abstract=false; lazyInit=null; autowireMode=0; dependencyCheck=0; autowireCandidate=true; primary=false; factoryBeanName=null; factoryMethodName=null; initMethodNames=null; destroyMethodNames=null and argument types []
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.resolveConstructorOrFactoryMethod(ConstructorResolver.java:939)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.RegisteredBean.resolveConstructorOrFactoryMethod(RegisteredBean.java:197)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.aot.BeanDefinitionMethodGenerator.<init>(BeanDefinitionMethodGenerator.java:79)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.aot.BeanDefinitionMethodGeneratorFactory.getBeanDefinitionMethodGenerator(BeanDefinitionMethodGeneratorFactory.java:102)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.aot.BeanDefinitionMethodGeneratorFactory.getBeanDefinitionMethodGenerator(BeanDefinitionMethodGeneratorFactory.java:118)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.aot.BeanRegistrationsAotProcessor.processAheadOfTime(BeanRegistrationsAotProcessor.java:45)
	at org.springframework.beans.factory.aot.BeanRegistrationsAotProcessor.processAheadOfTime(BeanRegistrationsAotProcessor.java:35)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.BeanFactoryInitializationAotContributions.getContributions(BeanFactoryInitializationAotContributions.java:67)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.BeanFactoryInitializationAotContributions.<init>(BeanFactoryInitializationAotContributions.java:49)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.BeanFactoryInitializationAotContributions.<init>(BeanFactoryInitializationAotContributions.java:44)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.ApplicationContextAotGenerator.lambda$processAheadOfTime$0(ApplicationContextAotGenerator.java:58)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.ApplicationContextAotGenerator.withCglibClassHandler(ApplicationContextAotGenerator.java:67)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.ApplicationContextAotGenerator.processAheadOfTime(ApplicationContextAotGenerator.java:53)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.ContextAotProcessor.performAotProcessing(ContextAotProcessor.java:106)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.ContextAotProcessor.doProcess(ContextAotProcessor.java:84)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.ContextAotProcessor.doProcess(ContextAotProcessor.java:49)
	at org.springframework.context.aot.AbstractAotProcessor.process(AbstractAotProcessor.java:82)
	at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationAotProcessor.main(SpringApplicationAotProcessor.java:76)

Issue Observed in Spring Boot Version: >= 3.x.x
Key Dependencies: Spring WebFlux
Reproducer: https://github.com/PedroAlvarado/boot-issue-33318

Steps to Reproduce

1. Checkout reproduce repo.
2. Run the bootBuildImage task.
3. Actual: A build failure.
4. Expected: A native image is created.

[snicoll]

Thanks for the detailed report and the sample. FTR this should have been reported against the core Spring Framework as the exception you've shared doesn't contain anything Spring Boot-specifc (I've transferred it).

Unfortunately, this is something that we don't support at the moment. The AOT engine works on bean definitions and they need to define the necessary metadata so that we can translate this to generated code. The exception you're getting is because the DSL you use relies on an instance supplier (lambda style). There's no way for us to analyse the lambda and figure out what to write.

I think we should fail with a different exception though. We know it will never work and yet we attempt to locate the metadata. I've created #29556. For this particular issue at hand, we'll need to give it some thoughts.

[PedroAlvarado]

Thanks for the detailed report and the sample. FTR this should have been reported against the core Spring Framework as the exception you've shared doesn't contain anything Spring Boot-specifc (I've transferred it).

Understood.

Is it fair to say that in order to generate a native image in 6.0.0 it is necessary to completely abandon CoRouterFunctionDsl? If so, allow me to suggest for us to find a place in the documentation for folks to be warned about this limitation. Many are interested in taking advantage of native images and this can be important information when choosing between programming models.

What would be an alternate way to supply instances without lambdas that would provide the necessary metadata? In my use-case the routes are created at startup depending on application configuration parameters(application.yml).

Thank you for looking into this issue.

[sdeleuze]

That's indeed something we don't support yet, and I understand how it can be an issue for our users that were leveraging those functional constructs because they are naturally better supported on native via the static analysis and with less hints involved.

It is currently possible to make it work with the pretty ugly code below:

fun beans() = ApplicationContextInitializer<GenericApplicationContext> {
	it.registerBean(RouterFunction::class.java, { customizer ->
		customizer.beanClassName = "com.example.demo.DemoApplicationKt"
		customizer.factoryMethodName = "writeEndpoint"
	})
}

We could potentially update BeanDefinitionDsl in 6.0.x to support beanClassName and factoryMethodName parameters to support something like

fun beans() = beans {
	bean<RouterFunction<*>>(
		beanClassName =  "com.example.demo.DemoApplicationKt",
		factoryMethodName = "writeEndpoint")
}

Not amazing, but at least it provides a reasonable workaround, and I think it does not hurt to add those 2 parameters with default values since we have a use case here. Depending on the feedback I may create a related issue for that refinement.

The best way to support this use case would be IMO to allow using beans instance suppliers as they are, with inference mechanism disable which IMO could make sense with this kind of functional constructs where much less hints are needed, and where having full control on what is done without hint inference could be a feature and the desired behavior. I think this could be explored as part of #29553.

[PedroAlvarado]

I was able to verify the workaround. Thank you @sdeleuze.

Allow me to add that in our applications we make use of all the available DSLs and the only spring annotations we use are @SpringBootApplication and @SpringBootTest. In general, we would be in favor of writing more code in exchange for greater control. We have saved 100s of hours by taking advantage of the functional DSLs.

As one example, the security and routing requirements of our APIs are different between mobile/desktop(X-Auth-Tokens, routes, etc) and browser(cookies, csrf, etc) applications while the APIs themselves are practically the same. With the functional DSL we are able to conditionally accommodate all requirements in a cross-cutting way without having to break apart services or introduce gateways. At our early stage, these APIs save cloud resources, cognitive overhead and development time. Additionally, we are finding that the functional model facilitates onboarding of developers coming in from different ecosystem as the code (wiring) is explicit and IDE-assisted.

Anyhow, thank you for providing functional DSLs and I look forward to having first-class support of native images for them.

[vladimirfx]

We successfully migrated a few of our microservices (Bean DSL, functional routing) to spring-native - it works now in production. spring-native is practically deprecated but Spring Boot 3 is unable to run our services in native mode. So it looks like regression to me. The idiomatic programming model is more essential for us than benefits from native runtime so we start to 'denativate' our apps. Fortunately, native-build services are not so many...

Maybe raise some epic-type ticket for first-class functional support in AOT mode (bean definitions (#29556), routing, security, and so on)?

And clearly says these limitations in the documentation: want to go functional (Kotlin or Java) - AOT is not an option.

Sample bean:

    bean {
        val kafkaConsumerProps =
            Binder.get(env).bindOrCreate("kafka.consumer.properties", mapOf(String::class.java, String::class.java))
        val options = ReceiverOptions.create<String, ApiEvent>(kafkaConsumerProps as Map<String, Any>)
            .consumerProperty(
                ConsumerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG,
                env.getRequiredProperty("kafka.bootstrap-servers")
            )
            .commitBatchSize(25)
            // 10 minutes of commit retry
            .maxCommitAttempts(1200)
            .withValueDeserializer(ApiEventDeserializer(ref()))
            .subscription(setOf("risk-engine.api.events"))

        KafkaCloudEventReceiver<ApiEvent>(options, provider(), ref())
    }

Produces error:

2022-11-25T08:12:44.270Z ERROR 1 --- [           main] o.s.b.d.LoggingFailureAnalysisReporter   : 

***************************
APPLICATION FAILED TO START
***************************

Description:

Parameter 0 of constructor in com.digitalfinance.riskengine.aggregation.kafka.KafkaCloudEventReceiver required a bean of type 'reactor.kafka.receiver.ReceiverOptions' that could not be found.


Action:

Consider defining a bean of type 'reactor.kafka.receiver.ReceiverOptions' in your configuration.

[sdeleuze]

Another workaround is to use @Bean to include the web router as mentioned in this comment.

fun main() {
    runApplication<AttendanceMainApp> {
        addInitializers(
            beans {
                bean<EmployeeService>()
                bean<EmployeeHandler>()
                bean<AttendanceService>()
                bean<AttendanceHandler>()
            }
        )
    }
}

@Configuration
class RouterConfiguration {

    @Bean
    fun router() = ::routes

}

[sdeleuze]

@vladimirfx I understand the pain, we are going to document this issue.

[sdeleuze]

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21887358/reflection-type-inference-on-java-8-lambdas provides interesting background why instance supplier callback can't be supported in AOT code generation.

[sdeleuze]

In addition to the short term documentation of this limitation, there could be potentially way to tackle that middle term, by skipping AOT processing for some ApplicationContextInitializer or specific beans and just execute the one that require lambdas or method references at runtime.

It requires to be able to identify them (by class name, method name, annotation as suggested in #29484 or use cases like all SpringApplication#addInitializers usages in Boot). As pointed out by @wilkinsona, this kind of need is broader than ApplicationContextInitializer since it affects things like ContextCustomizer and ContextCustomizerFactory from the test framework as well.

Since there is a potential way to solve that issue, but that's not straightforward, I will create a distinct issue for fixing the documentation, restore the initial purpose of that issue (how to allow functional constructs in ApplicationContextInitializer for end users) and tentatively plan resolution for 6.1.0-M1.

[vladimirfx]

Any chance of seeing implementation in 6.1.x?

Use case:
Our configuration code is mainly based on Kotlin Bean DSL. It's fantastically flexible modular and readable, so we want not to drop it to support AOT. But there are cases where AOT + native is very suitable because of resource consumption.

[snicoll]

With 6.1 RC around the corner, I am sorry to say that we won't have the time to craft the necessary API change for this. Keep in mind that using bean instance supplier really goes against the first principle of AOT of detecting components and their stereotype. As such, offering a support to suppress AOT processing on those (as we can't infer what's behind a lambda) will probably other side effects in terms of hints generation typically.