Refactoring Database Access in Marauroa

Database access in marauroa was designed for a single thread application. While this works most of the time in turn based games (yes, Stendhal is turn based internally), it prevents doing non time critical stuff in another thread. In Stendhal we have the problem that any update or delete operation to the gameEvents table that takes more than a couple of seconds, kills the server.

Requirements

Hard Requirements

• multi thread support
• parallel transactions in different threads

Would be nice

• a package of small classes instead of huge JDBCDatabase / StendhalPlayerDatabase
• an small abstraction layer to support different databases beside mysql (small as in "not hibernate")
• no extra dependencies on new libraries
• easier way to include variables into sql statements

Concept FAQ

Where did IDatabase / JDBCDatabase go?

It was replaced by smaller classes specializing in one task each. They can be found in the package marauroa.server.game.db and they end with "DAO".

What are those new ...DAO classes? How do they work?

DAO stands for "data access object". The basic idea is, and has been from the start, that the database related code is not in the original classes but at some central point outside the game logic. This used to be JDBCDatabase, but one single class for all database operations is very hard to maintain. So JDBCDatabase has been split into a number of small classes focused on one area each: AccountDAO, CharacterDAO, GameEventDAO...

These classes replace the old IDatabase / JDBCDatabase and do the database stuff. All of their methods have two signatures: One with a DBTransaction object as first parameter and one without. This is for your convenience: In most cases those functions are not part of a larger context so you do not have to care about transactions at all: the DAO-classes do the transaction handling on their own. There are, however, a small number of cases in which you want to do multiple calls to DAOs in one single transaction. In this case you get a DBTransaction from the TransactionPool and provide it as first parameter to DAO-methods. After you are done you must either commit or rollback your changes with the appropriate methods in the class TransactionPool.

I have extended the JDBCDatabase class. How does this work with DAOs?

DAO classes should never be instantiated directly. Instead you should (and marauroa does) use the DAORegistry. This allows you to write a subclass of a DAO provided by marauroa and register it instead. If you are familiar with Spring, this is a similar concept. But without all the bulk of xml configuration files, parameter injection and interfaces with only one single implementation.

Imagine you want to subclass the CharacterDAO with your class SomeGameCharacterDAO:

     public class SomeGameCharacterDAO extends CharacterDAO {
     ...

You simply register it as

     DAORegistry.get().register(CharacterDAO.class, new SomeGameCharacterDAO());

Note: In the register call the first parameter is the parent class you want to replace.

What are those database adapters for?

They are a thin layer of database abstraction. This allows us to not only support MySQL but also database systems which don't require an external server.

Why is there a method getLastInsertId?

It is a replacement for "select LAST_INSERT_ID() as inserted_id" which is a MySQL "feature". By using getLastInsertId() instead of that SQL statement, your code will work with other database systems as well (unless you use other system specific functions).

Porting FAQ

Does this mean I have to adjust my game?

That depends. If you did not do any low level database stuff, there should be no changes required. As a rule of thumb: If your code compiles with the new version of Marauroa, you are fine.

What happened to IDatabase/JDBCDatabase?

It was replaced by smaller DAO classes. See above for how to use them.

What happened to Transaction, JDBCTransaction, Accessor, JDBCAccess?

They were replaced with DBTransaction. You can get a DBTransaction from the TransactionPool. Make sure that you commit or rollback it after use.

What happened to JDBCSQLHelper and StringChecker?

They have been moved to marauroa.server.db

I provided my own subclass of IDatabase/JDBCDatabase

Please have a look at the ...DAO classes in the marauroa.server.game.db package and split your sub class accordingly. After that is done you need to register them in the DAORegistry with the class of the original DAO and an instance of your class.

Porting of JMaPacman

The following diff shows the complete list of changes that were required to port JMaPacman. I think it may help you to get a feeling on how to adjust your own code.

 public class MaPacmanRPRuleProcessor implements IRPRuleProcessor
   {
   public AccountResult createAccount(String username, String password, String email) {

-    IDatabase database = DatabaseFactory.getDatabase();
+    TransactionPool transactionPool = TransactionPool.get();

-    Transaction trans = database.getTransaction();
+    DBTransaction trans = transactionPool.beginWork();
+    AccountDAO accountDAO = DAORegister.get().get(AccountDAO.class);

     try {
-      trans.begin();
 
-      if (database.hasPlayer(trans, username)) {
+      if (accountDAO.hasPlayer(trans, username)) {
         return new AccountResult(Result.FAILED_PLAYER_EXISTS, username);
       }
 
-      database.addPlayer(trans, username, Hash.hash(password), email);
+      accountDAO.addPlayer(trans, username, Hash.hash(password), email);
 
-      trans.commit();
+      transactionPool.commit(trans);
 
       return new AccountResult(Result.OK_CREATED, username);
     } catch (SQLException e1) {

-      try {
-        trans.rollback();
-      } catch (SQLException e2) {
-        //logger.error("Rollback failed: ", e2);
-        System.out.println("Rollback failed: " + e2);
-      }
+      transactionPool.rollback(trans);

       return new AccountResult(Result.FAILED_EXCEPTION, username);
     }
   }


   public CharacterResult createCharacter(String username, String character, RPObject tmpl) {

-    IDatabase database = DatabaseFactory.getDatabase();
+    TransactionPool transactionPool = TransactionPool.get();

-    Transaction trans = database.getTransaction();
+    DBTransaction trans = transactionPool.beginWork();
+    CharacterDAO characterDAO = DAORegister.get().get(CharacterDAO.class);

     try {
-      trans.begin();
 
-      if (database.hasCharacter(trans, username, character)) {
+      if (characterDAO.hasCharacter(trans, username, character)) {
         return new CharacterResult(Result.FAILED_PLAYER_EXISTS, character, tmpl);
       }

@@ -196,18 +190,13 @@

-      database.addCharacter(trans, username, character, object);
+      characterDAO.addCharacter(trans, username, character, object);

-      trans.commit();
+      transactionPool.commit(trans);

       return new CharacterResult(Result.OK_CREATED, character, object);
     } catch (Exception e1) {
       //logger.warn("SQL exception while trying to create a new character: ", e1);

-      try {
-        trans.rollback();
-      } catch (SQLException e2) {
-        //logger.error("Rollback failed: ", e2);
-        System.out.println("Rollback failed: " + e2);
-      }
+      transactionPool.rollback(trans);

       return new CharacterResult(Result.FAILED_EXCEPTION, character, tmpl);
     }
   }