Review

In the previous section, we have laid down the functional specs of the application and examined the raw files that are to be imported. In this section, we will discuss the project's structure and write the Java classes.

Part 1: Introduction and Functional Specs
Part 2: Java classes
Part 3: XML configuration
Part 4: Running the Application

Project Structure

Our application is a Maven project and therefore follows Maven structure. As we create the classes, we've organized them in logical layers: domain, repository, service, and controller.

Here's a preview of our project's structure:

The Layers

Disclaimer

I will only discuss the Spring Batch-related classes here. And I've purposely left out the unrelated classes because I have described them in detail already from my previous tutorials. See the following guides:

Controller Layer

The BatchJobController handles batch requests. There are three job mappings:

/job1
/job2
/job3

Everytime a job is run, a new JobParameter is initialized as the job's parameter. We use the current date to be the distinguishing parameter. This means every job trigger is considered a new job.

What is a JobParameter?

"how is one JobInstance distinguished from another?" The answer is: JobParameters. JobParameters is a set of parameters used to start a batch job. They can be used for identification or even as reference data during the run:

Source: Spring Batch - Chapter 3. The Domain Language of Batch

Notice we have injected a JobLauncher. It's primary job is to start our jobs. Each job will run asynchronously (this is declared in the XML configuration).

What is a JobLauncher?

JobLauncher represents a simple interface for launching a Job with a given set of JobParameters:

Source: Spring Batch - Chapter 3. The Domain Language of Batch

Batch Layer

This layer contains various helper classes to aid us in processing batch files.

UserFieldSetMapper - maps FieldSet result to a User object
RoleFieldSetMapper - maps FieldSet result to a Role object. To assign the user, an extra JDBC query is performed
MultiUserFieldSetMapper - maps FieldSet result to a User object; it removes semi-colon from the first token.
UserItemWriter - writes a User object to the database
RoleItemWriter - writes a Role object to the database. To assign the user, an extra JDBC query is performed