Add support for null return values in gateway/service-activator methods [INT-2222]

[spring-operator]

Rob Gratz opened INT-2222 and commented

With the addition of the payload-expression configuration on methods (in v2.1) that do not have parameters it is now possible to have "getter" type functionality actually send a message to request some remote artifact even though there is no actual payload to send.

It would be very helpful to provide a similar configuration on gateway/service methods that return null as a valid returnable object. The current behavior is if the return value is null, no reply message is actually sent from the remote side.

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Affects: 2.1 M2

Reference URL: http://forum.springsource.org/showthread.php?87697-Some-questions-about-Exception-Handling&p=385830#post385830

Issue Links:

• Support for null payloads. [INT-997] #5004 Support for null payloads.

2 votes, 4 watchers

[spring-operator]

David Victor commented

We are also using custom code in our application to handle null responses. Interested in Gary's last comment on the Forum.

we are considering an attribute on the <service-activator /> (perhaps an expression), that will be invoked on a null return (rather than taking the default action of filtering).

[spring-operator]

Gary Russell commented

An interesting work-around using AspectJ has just been posted on #5004

It should be possible to use the same technique on any class - for a simple <service-activator/> one wouldn't need AspectJ; just Spring AOP.

[spring-operator]

Artem Bilan commented

Duplicated of #5004