Convert NodeJS asynchronous code to Spring Project Reactor - node.js

Question

I have below NodeJS code:
// req and resp are http request, response objects
var uri = req.getURI()
var pageView = new PageView(uri)
var token = req.token
if (token) {
UserRepository.findByToken(token, function(notFound, user){
if(notFound) { // means user not found by specified token
var newUser = new User('John Doe')
user.foo = 'some value'
processUser(newUser, pageView)
} else { // user found by token
user.foo = 'some value'
processUser(user, pageView)
}
})
} else { // token does not exist
token = new Token('some value')
resp.setToken(token)
var newUser = new User('John Doe')
user.foo = 'some value'
processUser(newUser, pageView)
}
processUser(user, pageView) {
PageViewRepositiry.save(pageView, function(error, savedPageView){
if(error) {
throw 'error'
}
user.pageViews.push(savedPageView)
// save the modified savedUser
UserRepository.save(user , function(error, savedUser){
})
})
}
It uses Repository pattern as abstraction over database layer (same as the Repository pattern in Spring applications).
Basically it finds user by incoming token (from http req object). If user is found then updates user entity and adds the saved pageView entity and saves the modified user. If user is not found by token then it creates a new User, updates the user with saved pageView, saves the user.
How the same code will be written in Spring Project Reactor (Flux) ?
Is it possible to solve this problem without using block()? Ideally I would like a solution that does not use block().

Answer 1

First of all, you have some logic to generate a token if a token isn't present. For example:
private Mono<String> getToken(String token) {
return Mono
.just(token)
.switchIfEmpty(Mono.just("some token"));
}
In this case, it's a bit overkill to use switchIfEmpty for this, but I assume your process to generate a token is a bit more complex, otherwise you could have worked with Optional<String> in stead (eg. token.orElse("some token")).
Additionally, we also have some logic to either find the user by its token, or create a new user if there is no user by the given token:
private Mono<User> findUserByToken(String token) {
return userRepository
.findByToken(token)
.switchIfEmpty(userRepository.save(new User("John Doe", token)));
}
Now that we have these methods, we can create a PageView and use these methods along the way. The reason I start with creating a PageView is because that's the first "constant" in the entire token, regardless of whether there is a token/user found:
return Mono
.just(new PageView(uri))
.flatMap(pageViewRepository::save)
.flatMap(pageView -> getToken(token)
.flatMap(this::findUserByToken)
.doOnNext(user -> user.setFoo("foo"))
.doOnNext(user -> user.getPageView().add(pageView)))
.flatMap(userRepository::save)
.map(User::getToken);
Now, since you need the token to add to the response, and I figured out that the token is part of the User object somehow (otherwise UserRepository.findByToken() wouldn't work?), it would be easier to just use User::getToken at the end to retrieve the token to pass to the response.
Be aware though, the repository pattern does work properly with Spring, but there is only reactive support for MongoDB, Cassandra, Couchbase and Redis. Other than that there's also reactive support for PostgreSQL through rdbc, but I don't think Spring data has support for that.