Taffy Bug Warning: Danger when Managing Custom Representation Class in a Bean Factory
Just a quick note to let anyone out there using Taffy in a certain way know that I found a pretty severe bug last night.
- If you're not using a Custom Representation Class ("CRC"), this bug does not affect you.
- If you're not storing said CRC in a Bean Factory, this bug does not apply to you.
- To do this, you would either put your CRC somewhere inside your
/resourcesfolder, or define it in your bean factory config (e.g. coldspring.xml)
- To do this, you would either put your CRC somewhere inside your
I have yet to test this using ColdSpring, but the gist of the problem is that instead of using a clean copy of the representation class for every request, the same one is used over and over again (only when using the above-described configuration). This results in race conditions, and even with 100% sequential requests, could result in response data, status code/text, and headers from one response bleeding into later responses.
There are two known workarounds right now. Implementing either one by itself should completely mitigate the problem:
- Don't store your CRC inside of a Bean Factory; not even Taffy's
/resourcesfolder.
or...
For every response, in every resource, make sure you explicitly define all output:Data (It's possible that thenoData()method is affected, I haven't tested this either...Status CodeStatus TextAdditional Headers (if you don't need to add extra headers, pass{'{}'})
Obviously the former approach should be easier to implement on larger API's.
After further consideration, the second workaround proposed above is not a good idea. If a race condition occurs, responses could still bleed into one another.
For a little bit more information and status updates as I work on the resolution, keep an eye on this bug report. The fix will go into the Bleeding Edge release soon. Both the 1.3 and 1.2 branches will be updated soon thereafter, so if you're still on a supported version of Taffy you can expect fixes!
Apologies for the bug. If it softens the blow any, I found it while working on a project fast approaching its deadline, so it has pretty greatly inconvenienced me, too!
I'll post here on my blog once the updated versions are available for download.