SimpleClientHttpRequestFactory vs HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory for Http Request timeout with RestTemplate?

Question

I am working on a project in which I need to make a HTTP URL call to my server which is running Restful Service which returns back the response as a JSON String .

Below is my main code which is using the future and callables:

public class TimeoutThreadExample {

    private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
    private RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();

    public String getData() {
        Future<String> future = executor.submit(new Task(restTemplate));
        String response = null;

        try {
            response = future.get(500, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
        } catch (TimeoutException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (ExecutionException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return response;
    }
}

Below is my Task class which implements the Callable interface and uses the RestTemplate :

class Task implements Callable<String> {

    private RestTemplate restTemplate;

    public Task(RestTemplate restTemplate) {
        this.restTemplate = restTemplate;
    }

    public String call() throws Exception {

        String url = "some_url";
        String response = restTemplate.getForObject(url, String.class);

        return response;
    }
}

Problem Statement:

As you can see above, I am using default way of executing the URL using RestTemplate which doesn't use any Http Request timeout so that means internally it is using -1 as the read and connection timeout.

Now what I am looking to do is, I want to set up Http Request timeout using RestTemplate in my above code efficiently. And I am not sure which class I need to use for that, I can see HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory and SimpleClientHttpRequestFactory so not sure which one I need to use?

Any simple example basis on my above code will help me understand better on how to set the Http Request timeout using RestTemplate .

And also does my Http Request timeout value should be less than future timeout value?

• HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory vs SimpleClientHttpRequestFactory . Which one to use?
• Does my Http Request timeout value should be less than future timeout value?

Answer 1

By default RestTemplate uses SimpleClientHttpRequestFactory which depends on default configuration of HttpURLConnection .

You can configure them by using below attributes:

-Dsun.net.client.defaultConnectTimeout=TimeoutInMiliSec 
-Dsun.net.client.defaultReadTimeout=TimeoutInMiliSec 

If you want to use HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory - it has a connection pooling configuration which SimpleClientHttpRequestFactory does not have.

A sample code for using HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory :

public class TimeoutThreadExample {

    private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
    private static final RestTemplate restTemplate = createRestTemplate();

    private static RestTemplate createRestTemplate(){
       HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory requestFactory = new HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory();
       requestFactory.setReadTimeout(READ_TIME_OUT);
       requestFactory.setConnectTimeout(CONNECTION_TIME_OUT);
       return new RestTemplate(requestFactory);
     }

    public String getData() {
        Future<String> future = executor.submit(new Task(restTemplate));
        String response = null;

        try {
            response = future.get(500, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
        } catch (TimeoutException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (ExecutionException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return response;
    }
}

Answer 2

SimpleClientHttpRequestFactory uses the standard JDK's HTTP library, and hence does not support methods like HttpMethod.PATCH . So it's better to use HttpComponentsClientHttpRequestFactory now than change it later when you have to.