What if only send without recv in my Thrift client? - networking

Question

I'm implementing a Thrift client in order to make connection to a built-in scribe server.
Everything is going OK if I use a standard Log method, like this:
public boolean log(List<LogEntry> messages) {
boolean ret = false;
PooledClient client = borrowClient();
try {
if ((client != null) && (client.getClient() != null)) {
ResultCode result = client.getClient().Log(messages);
ret = (result != null && result.equals(ResultCode.OK));
returnClient(client);
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
logger.error(LogUtil.stackTrace(ex));
invalidClient(client);
}
return ret;
}
However, when I use send_Log instead:
public void send_Log(List<LogEntry> messages) {
PooledClient client = borrowClient();
try {
if ((client != null) && (client.getClient() != null)) {
client.getClient().send_Log(messages);
returnClient(client);
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
logger.error(LogUtil.stackTrace(ex));
invalidClient(client);
}
}
It acctually causes some problems:
Total network connection to port 1463 (default port for a scribe server) is going to increase so much, and always in a CLOSE_WAIT state.
Cause my application got stuck without throwing any error, I think it may be an issue with network connection.

Answer 1

what if send without recv
As this is clearly TCP, the sender will block (in blocking mode), or incur EAGAIN/EWOULDBLOCK in non-blocking mode. EDIT It is now clear that you want to send without receiving the reply. You can do that by just sending and then closing the socket, but that may cause the peer to incur ECONNRESET, which may upset it. You should really implement the application protocol correctly.
1/ Total network connection to port 1463 (default port for a scribe server) is going to increase so much, and always in a CLOSE_WAIT state.
Lots of ports in CLOSE_WAIT state indicates a socket leak on the part of the local application.
2/ Cause my application got stuck without throwing any error. I think it may be an issues with network connection.
It is an issue with sending and not receiving.

Answer 2

Since you labelled this as a Thrift related question, the answer is oneway.
service foo {
oneway void FireAndForget(1: some args)
}
The oneway keyword does exactly what the name suggests. You get a client implementation that only sends and does not wait for anything to be returned from the server. This rule also includes exceptions. Hence a oneway method must always be void and can't throw any exceptions.
However, when I use send_Log instead ...
client.getClient().send_Log(messages);
Neither one of the Thrift-generated send_Xxx and recv_Xxx methods are meant to be public. That's why they are usually either private or protected methods. They should not be called directly, unless you are sure that you know what you are doing (and very obviously the latter is not the case here).
And since the real question is about performance: Why don't you just delegate the call(s) into a secondary thread? That way the I/O will not block the UI.