Using reactor's Flux.buffer to batch work only works for single item

Question

I'm trying to use Flux.buffer() to batch up loads from a database.

The use case is that loading records from a DB may be 'bursty', and I'd like to introduce a small buffer to group together loads where possible.

My conceptual approach has been to use some form of processor, publish to it's sink, let that buffer, and then subscribe & filter for the result I want.

I've tried multiple different approaches (different types of processors, creating the filtered Mono in different ways).

Below is where I've gotten so far - largely by stumbling.

Currently, this returns a single result, but subsequent calls are dropped (though I'm unsure of where).

class BatchLoadingRepository {
    // I've tried all manner of different processors here.  I'm unsure if
    // TopicProcessor is the correct one to use.
    private val bufferPublisher = TopicProcessor.create<String>()
    private val resultsStream = bufferPublisher
            .bufferTimeout(50, Duration.ofMillis(50))
            // I'm unsure if concatMapIterable is the correct operator here, 
            // but it seems to work.
            // I'm really trying to turn the List<MyEntity> 
            // into a stream of MyEntity, published on the Flux<>
            .concatMapIterable { requestedIds ->
                // this is a Spring Data repository.  It returns List<MyEntity>
                repository.findAllById(requestedIds)
            }

    // Multiple callers will invoke this method, and then subscribe to receive
    // their entity back.
    fun findByIdAsync(id: String): Mono<MyEntity> {

        // Is there a potential race condition here, caused by a result
        // on the resultsStream, before I've subscribed?
        return Mono.create<MyEntity> { sink ->
            bufferPublisher.sink().next(id)
            resultsStream.filter { it.id == id }
                    .subscribe { next ->
                        sink.success(next)
                    }
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Hi i was testing your code and i think the best way is to use EmitterProcessor shared. I did a test with emitterProcessor and it seems to work.

Flux<String> fluxi;
EmitterProcessor emitterProcessor;

@Override
public void run(String... args) throws Exception {
    emitterProcessor = EmitterProcessor.create();

    fluxi = emitterProcessor.share().bufferTimeout(500, Duration.ofMillis(500))
            .concatMapIterable(o -> o);

    Flux.range(0,1000)
            .flatMap(integer -> findByIdAsync(integer.toString()))
            .map(s -> {
                System.out.println(s);
                return s;
            }).subscribe();

}

private Mono<String> findByIdAsync(String id) {
    return Mono.create(monoSink -> {
        fluxi.filter(s -> s == id).subscribe(value -> monoSink.success(value));
        emitterProcessor.onNext(id);
    });
}