Using method writer in a spring boot application

[alexwibowo]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to use method writer + chronicle queue in my spring boot application. I've followed the guide here, but I'm still getting the following error:

[WARN ] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.755 [main] VanillaMethodWriterBuilder - Failed to compile generated method writer - falling back to proxy method writer. Please report this failure as support for proxy method writers will be dropped in x.25.

I'm sure I've missed something simple. But I've created a sample project here which demonstrates the problem.

To replicate the issue, you can just compile using maven wrapper, followed by running 'run.sh' (FYI, I'm using OpenJDK 17.0.8+7-LTS). I've also checked in an IntelliJ run configuration (which doesn't use uber jar), where the application runs fine.

When you run the script, you will see messages such as below:

DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.463 [main] Jvm - Adding / to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.463 [main] Jvm - Adding /var/folders/_f/q3hgsl4n55vfkmh_t30vy5s00000gn/T/springboot-chronicle-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar-spring-boot-libs-9766626e-cedb-435c-845d-ab01c94fd199/chronicle-queue-5.27ea3.jar to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.464 [main] Jvm - Adding / to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.469 [main] Jvm - Adding / to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.469 [main] Jvm - Adding /var/folders/_f/q3hgsl4n55vfkmh_t30vy5s00000gn/T/springboot-chronicle-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar-spring-boot-libs-9766626e-cedb-435c-845d-ab01c94fd199/chronicle-analytics-2.27ea0.jar to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.469 [main] Jvm - Adding /var/folders/_f/q3hgsl4n55vfkmh_t30vy5s00000gn/T/springboot-chronicle-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar-spring-boot-libs-9766626e-cedb-435c-845d-ab01c94fd199/chronicle-bytes-2.27ea2.jar to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.469 [main] Jvm - Adding /var/folders/_f/q3hgsl4n55vfkmh_t30vy5s00000gn/T/springboot-chronicle-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar-spring-boot-libs-9766626e-cedb-435c-845d-ab01c94fd199/chronicle-threads-2.27ea0.jar to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.470 [main] Jvm - Adding / to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.470 [main] Jvm - Adding / to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.470 [main] Jvm - Adding /var/folders/_f/q3hgsl4n55vfkmh_t30vy5s00000gn/T/springboot-chronicle-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar-spring-boot-libs-9766626e-cedb-435c-845d-ab01c94fd199/chronicle-wire-2.27ea5.jar to the classpath
[DEBUG] 2025-04-08 22:35:12.470 [main] Jvm - Adding / to the classpath

which to me, seems to indicate that it already does what the 'requiresUnpack' spring-boot-maven-plugin configuration is supposed to do.

Thank you in advance!

[tgd]

Hi @alexwibowo - thanks for the very detailed report - this is likely because you are running the code on a JRE rather than a JDK. The method writer generation relies on Java Compiler APIs which are only present in the JDK. Please can you try running with a JDK instead and let us know how it goes?

[alexwibowo]

hi @tgd, thank you for the quick response. I believe I'm using JDK though.

❯ java -version
openjdk version "17.0.8" 2023-07-18 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment Zulu17.44+15-CA (build 17.0.8+7-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Zulu17.44+15-CA (build 17.0.8+7-LTS, mixed mode, sharing)
❯ which java
/Users/alexwibowo/.sdkman/candidates/java/17.0.8-zulu/bin/java

Having said that, if you look at my sample project, the interface that I've declared is within the same JAR as the main application (I don't know if that makes sense). This is because I was seeing this stacktrace message:

import com.wibowo.springchronicle.EntryListener;
                                 ^
  symbol:   class EntryListener
  location: package com.wibowo.springchronicle
/com/wibowo/springchronicle/EntryListenerBinarylightMethodWriter.java:15: error: cannot find symbol
public final class EntryListenerBinarylightMethodWriter implements EntryListener, MethodWriter {
                                                                   ^

Out of curiosity, I split out my project into multi module, where that class (EntryListener) will be packaged into a separate, smaller JAR, which is then imported as dependency into the spring-boot module. I then added that smaller jar into the 'requiresUnpack' list:

 <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${springboot.version}</version>
...
               <configuration>
                    <mainClass>com.wibowo.springchronicle.Main</mainClass>
                    <requiresUnpack>
...
                        <dependency>
                            <groupId>com.wibowo</groupId>
                            <artifactId>api</artifactId>
                        </dependency>
                    </requiresUnpack>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>

This trick seems to fix it. You can see the change here: https://github.com/alexwibowo/springboot-chronicle/pull/1/files

I don't know if this is the best approach though..