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Preface

Project metadata

1. Working with Spring Stores

The goal of the Spring Content is to make it easy to create applications that manage content such as documents, images and video by significantly reducing the amount of boilerplate code that the Developer must create for themselves. Instead, the Developer provides interfaces only that declare the intent for the content-related functionality. Based on these, and on class-path dependencies, Spring Content is then able to inject storage-specific implementations.

Important

This chapter explains the core concepts and interfaces for Spring Content. The examples in this chapter use Java configuration and code samples for the Spring Content S3 module. Adapt the Java configuration and the types to be extended to the equivalents for the particular Spring Content module that you are using.

1.1. Core concepts

The central interfaces in the Spring Content are Store, AssociativeStore and ContentStore. These interfaces provide access to content streams through the standard Spring Resource API either directly or through association with Spring Data entities.

Example 1. ContentStore interface
public interface ContentStore<E, CID extends Serializable> {

	void setContent(E entity, InputStream content); 	(1)

	InputStream getContent(E entity);			(2)

	void unsetContent(E entity);				(3)
}
  1. Stores content and associates it with entity

  2. Returns the content associated with entity

  3. Deletes content and unassociates it from entity

For example, given an Entity User, a UserRepository and a ProfilePictureStore it is possible to associate and store a profile picture for each user.

Example 2. ContentStore interface
@Entity
@Data
public class User {
	@Id
	@GeneratedValue(strategy=GenerationType.AUTO)
	private Long id;

	private String username;

	@ContentId
	private String contentId;

	@ContentLength
	private Long contentLength
}

public interface UserRepository extends JpaRepository<User, Long> {
}

public interface ProfilePictureStore extends ContentStore<User, String> {
}

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
	}

	@Bean
	public CommandLineRunner demo(UserRepository repository, ProfilePictureStore store) {
		return (args) -> {
			// create a new user
			User jbauer = new User("jbauer");

			// store profile picture
			store.setContent(jbauer, new FileInputStream("/tmp/jbauer.jpg"));

			// save the user
			repository.save(jbauer);
		};
	}
}

1.1.1. Using Stores with Multiple Spring Content Storage Modules

Using a single Spring Content storage module in your application keeps things simple because all Storage beans will use to that one Spring Content storage module as their implementation. Sometimes, applications require more than one Spring Content storage module. In such cases, a store definition must distinguish between storage technologies by extending one of the module-specific signature Store interfaces.

See Signature Types for the signature types for the storage modules you are using.

Manual Storage Override

Because Spring Content provides an abstraction over storage it is also common to use one storage module for testing but another for production. For these cases it is possible to again include multiple Spring Content storage modules, but use generic Store interfaces, rather than signature types, and instead specify the spring.content.storage.type.default=<storage_module_id> property to manually set the storage implementation to be injected into your Storage beans.

1.1.2. Events

Spring Content emits twelve events. Roughly speaking one for each Store method. They are:

  • BeforeGetResourceEvent

  • AfterGetResourceEvent

  • BeforeAssociateEvent

  • AfterAssociateEvent

  • BeforeUnassociateEvent

  • AfterUnassociateEvent

  • BeforeSetContent

  • AfterSetContent

  • BeforeGetContent

  • AfterGetContent

  • BeforeUnsetContent

  • AfterUnsetContent

Writing an ApplicationListener

If you wish to extend Spring Content’s functionality you can subclass the abstract class AbstractStoreEventListener and override the methods that you are interested in. When these events occur your handlers will be called.

There are two variants of each event handler. The first takes the entity with with the content is associated and is the source of the event. The second takes the event object. The latter can be useful, especially for events related to Store methods that return results to the caller.

Example 3. Entity-based AbstractContentRepositoryEventListener
public class ExampleEventListener extends AbstractContentRepositoryEventListener {

	@Override
	public void onAfterSetContent(Object entity) {
		...logic to inspect and handle the entity and it's content after it is stored
	}

	@Override
	public void onBeforeGetContent(BeforeGetContentEvent event) {
		...logic to inspect and handle the entity and it's content before it is fetched
	}
}

The down-side of this approach is that it does not filter events based on Entity.

Writing an Annotated StoreEventHandler

Another approach is to use an annotated handler, which does filter events based on Entity.

To declare a handler, create a POJO and annotate it as @StoreEventHandler. This tells Spring Content that this class needs to be inspected for handler methods. It iterates over the class’s methods and looks for annotations that correspond to the event. There are twelve handler annotations:

  • HandleBeforeGetResource

  • HandleAfterGetResource

  • HandleBeforeAssociate

  • HandleAfterAssociate

  • HandleBeforeUnassociate

  • HandleAfterUnassociate

  • HandleBeforeSetContent

  • HandleAfterSetContent

  • HandleBeforeGetContent

  • HandleAfterGetContent

  • HandleBeforeUnsetContent

  • HandleAfterUnsetContent

Example 4. Entity-based annotated event handler
@StoreEventHandler
public class ExampleAnnotatedEventListener {

	@HandleAfterSetContent
	public void handleAfterSetContent(SopDocument doc) {
		...type-safe handling logic for SopDocument's and their content after it is stored
	}

	@HandleBeforeGetContent
	public void onBeforeGetContent(Product product) {
		...type-safe handling logic for Product's and their content before it is fetched
	}
}

These handlers will be called only when the event originates from a matching entity.

As with the ApplicationListener event handler in some cases it is useful to handle the event. For example, when Store methods returns results to the caller.

Example 5. Event-based annotated event handler
@StoreEventHandler
public class ExampleAnnotatedEventListener {

	@HandleAfterSetContent
	public void handleAfterGetResource(AfterGetResourceEvent event) {
		SopDocument doc = event.getSource();
		Resource resourceToBeReturned = event.getResult();
		...code that manipulates the resource being returned...
	}
}

To register your event handler, either mark the class with one of Spring’s @Component stereotypes so it can be picked up by @SpringBootApplication or @ComponentScan. Or declare an instance of your annotated bean in your ApplicationContext.

Example 6. Handler registration
@Configuration
public class ContentStoreConfiguration {

	@Bean
	ExampeAnnotatedEventHandler exampleEventHandler() {
		return new ExampeAnnotatedEventHandler();
	}
}

1.1.3. Searchable Stores

Applications that handle documents and other media usually have search capabilities allowing relevant content to be found by looking inside of it for keywords or phrases, so called full-text search.

Spring Content is able to support this capability with it’s Searchable<CID> interface.

Example 7. Searchable interface
public interface Searchable<CID> {

    Iterable<T> search(String queryString);
}

Any Store interface can be made to extend Searchable<CID> in order to extend its capabilities to include the search(String queryString) method. For example:

public interface DocumentContentStore extends ContentStore<Document, UUID>, Searchable<UUID> {
}

...

@Autowired
private DocumentContentStore store;

Iterable<UUID> = store.search("to be or not to be");

For search to return actual results full-text indexing must be enabled. See Fulltext Indexing and Searching for more information on how to do this.

1.1.4. Renderable Stores

Applications that handle files and other media usually also have rendition capabilities allowing content to be transformed from one format to another.

Content stores can therefore optionally also be given rendition capabilities by extending the Renderable<E> interface.

Example 8. Renderable interface
public interface Renderable<E> {

	InputStream getRendition(E entity, String mimeType);
}

Returns a mimeType rendition of the content associated with entity.

Renditions must be enabled and renderers provided. See Renditions for more information on how to do this.

1.2. Creating Content Store Instances

To use these core concepts:

  1. Define a Spring Data entity and give it’s instances the ability to be associated with content by adding @ContentId and @ContentLength annotations

    @Entity
    public class SopDocument {
    	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;
    	private String title;
    	private String[] authors, keywords;
    
    	// Spring Content managed attribute
    	private @ContentId UUID contentId;
    	private @ContentLength Long contentLen;
    }
  2. Define an interface extending Spring Data’s CrudRepository and type it to the domain and ID classes.

    public interface SopDocumentRepository extends CrudRepository<SopDocument, Long> {
    }
  3. Define another interface extending ContentStore and type it to the domain and @ContentId class.

    public interface SopDocumentContentStore extends ContentStore<SopDocument, UUID> {
    }
  4. Optionally, make it extend Searchable

    public interface SopDocumentContentStore extends ContentStore<SopDocument, UUID>, Searchable<UUID> {
    }
  5. Optionally, make it extend Renderable

    public interface SopDocumentContentStore extends ContentStore<SopDocument, UUID>, Renderable<SopDocument> {
    }
  6. Set up Spring to create proxy instances for these two interfaces using JavaConfig:

    @EnableJpaRepositories
    @EnableS3Stores
    class Config {}
    Note
    The JPA and S3 namespaces are used in this example. If you are using the repository and content store abstractions for other databases and stores, you need to change this to the appropriate namespace declaration for your store module.
  7. Inject the repositories and use them

    @Component
    public class SomeClass {
    	@Autowired private SopDocumentRepository repo;
      	@Autowired private SopDocumentContentStore contentStore;
    
    	public void doSomething() {
    
    		SopDocument doc = new SopDocument();
    		doc.setTitle("example");
    		contentStore.setContent(doc, new ByteArrayInputStream("some interesting content".getBytes())); # (1)
    		doc.save();
    		...
    
    		InputStream content = contentStore.getContent(sopDocument);
    		...
    
    		List<SopDocument> docs = doc.findAllByContentId(contentStore.findKeyword("interesting"));
    		...
    
    	}
    }
    1. Spring Content will update the @ContentId and @ContentLength fields

1.3. Patterns of Content Association

Content can be associated with a Spring Data Entity in several ways.

1.3.1. Entity Association

The simplest, allowing you to associate one Entity with one Resource, is to decorate your Spring Data Entity with the Spring Content attributes.

The following example shows a Resource associated with an Entity Dvd.

@Entity
public class Dvd {
	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;
	private String title;

	// Spring Content managed attributes
	private @ContentId UUID contentId;
	private @ContentLength Long contentLen;

	...
}

public interface DvdRepository extends CrudRepository<Dvd, Long> {}

public interface DvdStore extends ContentStore<Dvd, UUID> {}

1.3.2. Property Association

Sometimes you might want to associate multiple different Resources with an Entity. To do this it is also possible to associate Resources with one or more Entity properties.

The following example shows two Resources associated with a Dvd entity. The first Resource is the Dvd’s cover Image and the second is the Dvd’s Stream.

@Entity
public class Dvd {
	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;
	private String title;

	@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
	@JoinColumn(name = "image_id")
	private Image image;

	@OneToOne(cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
	@JoinColumn(name = "stream_id")
	private Stream stream;

	...
}

@Entity
public class Image {
	// Spring Data managed attribute
	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;

	@OneToOne
	private Dvd dvd;

	// Spring Content managed attributes
	private @ContentId UUID contentId;
	private @ContentLength Long contentLen;
}

@Entity
public class Stream {
	// Spring Data managed attribute
	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;

	@OneToOne
	private Dvd dvd;

	// Spring Content managed attributes
	private @ContentId UUID contentId;
	private @ContentLength Long contentLen;
}

public interface DvdRepository extends CrudRepository<Dvd, Long> {}

public interface ImageStore extends ContentStore<Image, UUID> {}

public interface StreamStore extends ContentStore<Stream, UUID> {}

Note how the Content attributes are placed on each property object of on the Entity itself.

When using JPA with a relational database these are typically (but not always) also Entity associations. However when using NoSQL databases like MongoDB that are capable of storing hierarchical data they are true property associations.

Property Collection Associations

In addition to associating many different types of Resource with a single Entity. It is also possible to associate one Entity with many Resources using a java.util.Collection property, as the following example shows.

@Entity
public class Dvd {
	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;
	private String title;

	@OneToMany
	@JoinColumn(name = "chapter_id")
	private List<Chapter> chapters;

	...
}

@Entity
public class Chapter {
	// Spring Data managed attribute
	private @Id @GeneratedValue Long id;

	// Spring Content managed attributes
	private @ContentId UUID contentId;
	private @ContentLength Long contentLen;
}

public interface DvdRepository extends CrudRepository<Dvd, Long> {}

public interface ChapterStore extends ContentStore<Chapter, UUID> {}

2. Azure Storage

2.1. Annotation-based Configuration

Spring Content Azure Storage is enabled with the following Java Config.

Example 9. Enabling Spring Content Azure using Java Config
@Configuration
@EnableAzureStorage
public static class ApplicationConfig {

        @Value("#{environment.AZURE_STORAGE_ENDPOINT}")
        private String endpoint;

        @Value("#{environment.AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING}")
        private String connString;

        @Bean
        public BlobServiceClientBuilder storage() {
                return new BlobServiceClientBuilder()
                .endpoint(endpoint)
                .connectionString(connString);
        }
}

2.2. Configuration Properties

The following configuration properties (prefix spring.content.azure) are supported.

Property Required Description

bucket

No

Content store location. If not set as an application property Spring Content Azure Storage will look for the environment variable AZURE_STORAGE_BUCKET

2.3. Accessing Content

2.3.1. Signature Types

Azure Storage supports the following signature types:

  • org.springframework.content.azure.store.AzureStorageContentStore

The module id for the spring.content.storage.type.default property is azs.

2.3.2. Storage Model

With Azure Blob Storage, buckets and objects are the two main primitives, where objects are stored in buckets. Azure has a flat structure with no hierarchy like you would see in a typical file system. There are also no limits to the number of buckets or objects in buckets.

2.3.3. Loading Spring Resources from a Store or AssociativeStore

When a Resource is loaded from the Store the following rules are used to determine the identify the BlobId of the object.

For a Store, when a Resource is loaded using a call to getResource(ID location).

  • if the Store is typed to a BlobId this will be used as-is.

  • otherwise, if a registered Spring Converter exists that converts from Store’s ID type to a BlobId this will be used to convert the location (specified in the call to getResource) into an instance of BlobId

  • otherwise, a BlobId is created from the default bucket and the location (specified in the call to getResource).

For an AssociativeStore (or indirectly a ContentStore), when a Resource is loaded from a call to getResource(S entity):

  • if the store’s ID type is typed to a BlobId this will be used as-is

  • otherwise, if a registered Spring Converter exists that converts the the Store’s entity (S) type to a BlobId this will be used to establish an instance of BlobId

  • otherwise, if one of the Entity’s fields is annotated with @Bucket, the @ContentId and the @Bucket will be used as name and bucket respectively to create an instance of BlobId

  • otherwise, the @ContentId field and default bucket will be used as name and bucket respectively to create an instance of BlobId

See Configuring a Spring Converter for more information on how to register a converter.

2.3.4. Setting Content using a ContentStore

Storing content is achieved using the ContentStore.setContent(entity, InputStream) method.

If content has not yet been stored with this entity and an Id has not been assigned one will be generated based in java.util.UUID.

The @ContentId and @ContentLength annotations will be updated on entity.

If content has previously been stored it will overwritten updating just the @ContentLength attribute, if present.

2.3.5. Getting Content from a ContentStore

Content can be accessed using the ContentStore.getContent(entity) method.

2.3.6. Unsetting Content from a ContentStore

Content can be removed using the ContentStore.unsetContent(entity) method.

2.3.7. Configuring a Spring Converter

To configure Spring Content Azure Storage with one or more Spring Converters that convert your Entities, or IDs, to an instance of BlobId the following approach can be used:

Example 10. Configuring Spring Content Azure Storage with a custom Spring Converter
@Configuration
public class AzureStoreConfiguration  {

    @Bean
    public AzureStorageConfigurer configurer() {
        return new AzureStorageConfigurer() {

            @Override
            public void configureAzureStorageConverters(ConverterRegistry registry) {
                registry.addConverter(new Converter<TestEntity, BlobId>() {
                    @Override
                    public BlobId convert(TestEntity entity) {
                        return BlobId.of(entity.getCustomBucketField(), entity.getCustomContentIdField());
                    }
                });
            }
        }
    }
}

3.1. Overview

When enabled the Solr integration will forward all content to Solr for fulltext indexing which can then be searched by adding the optional Searchable<CID> interface to the Content Repositories.

3.2. Dependencies

Add the solrj to the classpath.

	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.apache.solr</groupId>
		<artifactId>solr-solrj</artifactId>
		<version>5.5.3</version>			(1)
		<exclusions>
			<exclusion>
				<groupId>org.codehaus.woodstox</groupId>
				<artifactId>wstx-asl</artifactId>
			</exclusion>
			<exclusion>
				<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
				<groupId>log4j</groupId>
			</exclusion>
		</exclusions>
	</dependency>
  1. If using Spring Boot the version may be omitted

3.3. Enabling

  • Specify the @EnableFullTextSolrIndexing annotation to your @Configuration Spring Application block.

  • Ensure a (SolrJ) SolrClient @Bean is instantiated somewhere within your @Configuration Spring Application block.

3.4. Configuring

By default when the Solr module is enabled Spring-Content looks for a http://localhost:8983/solr/solr solr server with no username or password.

To change this behavior the following variables need to be set via the Externalized Configuration method.

Property Description

solr.url

Url of the Solr host (including port and core)

solr.username

Solr user

solr.password

Solr user’s password