Heartbeat Merge Sample

Contents

Running HeartbeatMerge.sbapp in StreamBase Studio
Running HeartbeatMerge.sbapp in Terminal Windows
Importing This Sample into StreamBase Studio
Sample Location

This sample uses two Heartbeat operators to prevent a Merge operator from starving when either of its inputs stop receiving tuples. Without the Heartbeat operators, the Merge operator would stop outputting tuples as soon as either of its two input streams is inactive, even if it continued to receive tuples on the other input stream.

This sample also demonstrates how to flag the non-heartbeat tuples on an input stream, so that the heartbeat tuples can be filtered out later on.

Running HeartbeatMerge.sbapp in StreamBase Studio

  1. In the Package Explorer, double-click to open the HeartbeatMerge.sbapp application. Make sure the application is the currently active tab in the EventFlow Editor.

  2. Click the Run button. This opens the SB Test/Debug perspective and starts the application.

  3. In the Application Output view, select the MergedFeeds stream. No output is displayed at this point, but the Output View is prepared to receive output. This view will eventually show the output of the application.

  4. In the Manual Input view, select the Feed1 input stream.

  5. Enter IBM for symbol, 83.17 for price, and 2005-11-02 12:00:00 for time.

  6. Click Send Data. You should not see any output in the Output View yet. The tuple you just sent is currently buffered in the Merge operator.

  7. Select the Feed2 input stream.

  8. Enter MSFT for symbol, 24.89 for price, and 2005-11-02 12:00:30 for time.

  9. Click Send Data. You should now see the IBM tuple in Output View.

  10. Wait a few moments. Within 30 seconds, look for the MSFT tuple to appear in the Output View. If this application had not made use of Heartbeat operators, the MSFT tuple would have remained inside the Merge operator until Feed1 received a tuple with a timestamp greater than or equal to 2005-11-02 12:00:30. Instead, the Heartbeat operators continually emit such tuples, thereby preventing the Merge operator from getting stuck. You can see this for yourself by selecting the Feed1WithHeartbeats output stream in the Output View.

  11. When done, press F9 or click the Stop Running Application button.

Running HeartbeatMerge.sbapp in Terminal Windows

This section describes how to run the sample in UNIX terminal windows or Windows command prompt windows. On Windows, be sure to use the StreamBase Command Prompt from the Start menu as described in the Test/Debug Guide, not the default command prompt.

  1. Open three terminal windows on UNIX, or three StreamBase Command Prompts on Windows. In each window, navigate to the directory where the sample is installed, or to your workspace copy of the sample, as described above.

  2. In window 1, type:

    sbd HeartbeatAggregate.sbapp

    The window shows notice[StreamBaseServer] listening on port 10000.

  3. In window 2, type:

    sbc dequeue TicCounts

    No output is displayed at this point, but the dequeuer is prepared to receive output of the application.

  4. In window 3, type:

    echo IBM,84.17,2005-11-02 12:00:00 | sbc enqueue Feed1

    You should not see any output in the dequeuer window yet. The tuple you just sent is currently buffered in the Merge operator.

  5. In window 3, type:

    echo MSFT,24.89,2005-11-02 12:00:30 | sbc enqueue Feed2

    Wait a few moments. Within 30 seconds, look for the MSFT tuple to appear in the dequeuer window. If this application had not made use of Heartbeat operators, the MSFT tuple would have remained stuck inside the Merge operator until Feed1 received a tuple with a timestamp greater than or equal to 2005-11-02 12:00:30. Instead, the Heartbeat operators continually emit such tuples, thereby preventing the Merge operator from getting stuck. You can see this for yourself by dequeuing the Feed1WithHeartbeats output stream.

  6. In window 2, type: Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Ctrl+D (UNIX) to exit the sbc session.

  7. In window 3, type the following command to terminate the server and dequeuer:

    sbadmin shutdown

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Importing This Sample into StreamBase Studio

In StreamBase Studio, import this sample with the following steps:

  • From the top menu, click File → Load StreamBase Sample.

  • Select operator from the Data Constructs and Operators category.

  • Click OK.

StreamBase Studio creates a single project for the operator samples.

Sample Location

When you load the sample into StreamBase Studio, Studio copies the sample project's files to your Studio workspace, which is normally part of your home directory, with full access rights.

Important

Load this sample in StreamBase Studio, and thereafter use the Studio workspace copy of the sample to run and test it, even when running from the command prompt.

Using the workspace copy of the sample avoids the permission problems that can occur when trying to work with the initially installed location of the sample. The default workspace location for this sample is: 

studio-workspace/sample_operator

See Default Installation Directories for the location of studio-workspace on your system.

In the default TIBCO StreamBase installation, this sample's files are initially installed in: 

streambase-install-dir/sample/operator

See Default Installation Directories for the location of streambase-install-dir on your system. This location may require administrator privileges for write access, depending on your platform.