Only one instance of object for all visitors? - asp.net

I have a dedicated server with a Skype client running on it. I intend to use the Skype COM API to make an AJAX-based live-chat on my website.
However, for this to work, I need an object to be initialized only once for all visitors, and I need to be able to use that very same object across visitors too. How can this be done?

maybe you can put it on your application
System.Web.HttpApplication
class and instance it on
Application_Start()
or
Application_Init()

You are looking for a singleton pattern. However you will get global state, it would probably better to share the chat messages using a database of some sort. Global state is tricky to test.

I ended up using the Application["keyhere"] object to simulate singleton properly.

Related

What is the correct way to add an EventListener to an AtmosphereResource?

I am using Atmosphere Framework 2.0.8.
I have implemented an AtmosphereHandler in my application and have two way communication occurring correctly over WebSockets and Long Polling.
I am trying to add some handling code for when the client disconnects to clean up some resources specific to that client (ie. I have an entry in a table I want to remove).
I have read the following wiki entries:
OnDisconnect Tricks: https://github.com/Atmosphere/atmosphere/wiki/onDisconnect-tricks
Configuring Atmosphere Listener: https://github.com/Atmosphere/atmosphere/wiki/Configuring-Atmosphere-Listener
The thing I am not clear on is where I should add the call to
atmosphereResource.addEventListener( new AtmosphereResourceEventListenerAdapter() {} );
I eventually found some example code in the JavaDoc for the AtmosphereHandler that registers the EventListener in the onRequest() method. http://atmosphere.github.io/atmosphere/apidocs/org/atmosphere/cpr/AtmosphereHandler.html
What I would like to know is if this is the correct way to go about it?
It is my understanding that the AtmosphereResource represents the connection between a client and the server for the life of that connection. The uuid stays consistent for the object on multiple calls through the onRequest() method from the same client. As such, the same AtmosphereResource object will get the EventListener added every time the onRequest method is called.
This seems wrong. Wouldn't this lead to thousands of EventListeners being registered for each AtmosphereResource?
It seems that the EventLister should only be registered once for each AtmosphereResource.
I feel like I am missing something fundamental here. Could someone please explain?
Here's an example using MeteorServlet, so it won't look exactly like what you'll have to do, but it should get you started. I add the listener to a Meteor instance, and you'll add yours to an AtmosphereResource. Each resource gets just one listener.
The overridden onDisconnect() method calls this Grails service method that handles the event. Of course, you'll want to call something that cleans up your database resource.
Note that the servlet is configured using these options. I think you might need the org.atmosphere.interceptor.HeartbeatInterceptor, but it's been so long since I initially set it up, I can't remember if it's necessary.

Attaching an event listener to all URLRequest's

We have a flex application that connects to a proxy server which handles authentication. If the authentication has timeout out the proxy server returns a json formatted error string. What I would like to do is inspect every URLRequest response and check if there's an error message and display it in the flex client then redirect back to login screen.
So I'm wondering if its possible to create an event listener to all URLRequests in a global fashion. Without having to search through the project and add some method to each URLRequest. Any ideas if this is possible?
Unless you're only using one service, there is no way to set a global URLRequest handler. If I were you, I'd think more about architecting your application properly by using a delegate and always checking the result through a particular service which is used throughout the app.
J_A_X has some good suggestions, but I'd take it a bit farther. Let me make some assumptions based on the limited information you've provided.
The services are scattered all over your application means that they're actually embedded in multiple Views.
If your services can all be handled by the same handler, you notionally have one service, copied many times.
Despite what you see in the Adobe examples showing their new Service generation code, it's incredibly bad practice to call services directly from Views, in part because of the very problem you are seeing--you can wind up with lots of copies of the same service code littered all over your application.
Depending on how tightly interwoven your application is (believe me, I've inherited some pretty nasty stuff, so I know this might be easier said than done), you may find that the easiest thing is to remove all of those various services and replace them by having all your Views dispatch a bubbling event that gets caught at the top level. At the top level, you respond to that event by calling one instance of your service, which is again handled in one place.
You may or may not choose to wrap that single service in a delegate, but once you have your application archtected in a way where the service is decoupled from your Views, you can make that choice at any time.
Would you be able to extend the class and add an event listener in the object's constructor? I don't like this approach but it could work.
You would just have to search/replace the whole project.

How can I have only one instance of a Web service used for all the clients?

I have a web service that executes a task that may take hours to finish (asynchronously)
I would like to share the status of that task by all the clients that connects to the server (I'm using a web application for this)
For example, the first client that calls the page http://localhost/process.aspx
will instantiate the web service and it will call a method to start executing the task. A percentage number will be displayed showing the status of completion. I can do this by polling the web service using AJAX.
If there is another client that tries to opens that page, it should get the same percentage information so no new instances of the web service are created.
How is the best way of doing this?
I thought about different solutions but sooner or later I find new problems.
These are some of the possible alternatives:
Create an static object of the Web service.
Create the object in the global.asax file.
Do you guys have any other ideas? I'm not too familiar designing web sites and this is driving me crazy. I would appreciate if you guys could provide some code snippets.
Thanks
The issue is ensuring that the information pertaining to the single instance of a process is stored in exactly one place.
Your initial thinking can be applied, for instance, by using the Application object, but that will break down in a clustered IIS scenario.
I am not posative that a database is the absolute best solution, but I believe it would give you what you want.
If 100 clients try to start the process at the same time, only one can succeed, right? The databases locking facility will help you make that happen.
There's a method (I'm assuming WCF for the web service) that allows you to have exactly one instance of the service run... link
I think this is what you are trying to accomplish.
Assuming I have understood your requirements correctly. Your webservice should not be creating the instance of the “worker” object.
Your webservice request should log to either a database (as the other poster noted) or a messagequeue of somesort. At this point your “worker” processer (probably some type of service) should take over the job as it requires.
Basically you want to break up your application into something like this
| Webservice | ---------- | Datastore |-----------| Worker |
Any further requests regarding the batch should be managed by the webservice querying the datastore.
Remember webservices are NOT DESIGNED TO DO WORK.

How to keep alive an HttpModule (a.k.a register it as a singleton)

I pretty sure I've seen this somewhere but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I have an HttpModule that can be used across multiple requests. In other words instead of creating a new instance of the Module on every request it only ever needs to create it once. Does this ring a bell to anyone? If so, what's the method for configuring to work this way?
UPDATE
I'm was actually thinking about IHttpHandler which has a property called IsReusable. HttpModules are only ever created once per application: http://www.devx.com/vb2themax/Article/19901/0/page/2
I guess you could move the functionality to a static class, and call that class from your HttpModule. That way the HttpModule itself will not be kept alive, but the functionality and state that you wish to share will be.

nhibernate interceptors with domain context

Is it possible (in a clean fashion) to create an audit interceptor in hibernate 2.1 and pass in a domain context to it?
What I would like to achieve is to set a Date Time (can be done easy peasy - found loadsa articles after a quick google), but setting an object e.g. a user who created the item, or altered an entity I have yet to find anything which covers this.
Since I will not know the object at application request/start up (which is where i have to register the nhibernate interceptor), does anyone know of a suitable workaround?
Thanks in advance, Mark H
You can store the user in the current session (HttpContext.Session) or use thread local data. It can then be accessed by the listener. If you go for the thread local approach, you will need to set if for each request, for instance with an HttpModule. Not perfect, but that's how I've seen it done in java (not exactly the same, but a similar approach).

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