Clojure repl component for OFBiz

Uses [nrepl](https://nrepl.org/nrepl/index.html) library to start an instance of nRepl inside Apache OFBiz. Once we have a Repl inside OFBiz we can interact with OFBiz remotely. It’s basically a RPC (Remote Procedure Call) system with a programming language.

Things you can do once connected to OFBiz repl:

• More or less anything you could do via Java/Groovy code loaded in OFBiz

  • Interact with a running OFBiz instance from a shell like environment (Repl is more powerfull then the shell)

• List services

• Call services

• Build an arsenal of admin scripts and manage OFBiz instance via repl like a boss via babashka

More advanced things: * Prototype functionality and experiment with instant feedback - search for Repl driven development videos * Load new servicess dinamically ?! * Develop services for OFBiz in clojure and leverage all it’s wonderfull properties * Use data visualization tools like [Proto-repl](https://github.com/jasongilman/proto-repl) to explore and do interactive Business Inteligence. * Design reports using real data using something like [Gorilla-repl](http://gorilla-repl.org/)

Watch it on youtube "Video of OFBiz Clojure repl"

I believe the OFBiz development experience can look like this:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkJX9ciI5aM&t=1824s

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs44qdAX5yo

We can help you

I am availble for contracting work via my company. I would love to work more with OFBiz in general and with Clojure on OFBiz in particular. If you do like this work plese let me know [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) .

How does it work?

The plugin exposes services that allow a user to start/stop an instance of nRepl inside OFBiz application.

You can find the plugin sources at [netdava/ofbiz-clojure-repl](https://github.com/netdava/ofbiz-clojure-repl) .

Using this plugin

Usage from Web UI

Clone Apache OFBiz trunk project as described in the online (OFBiz Getting started page.

After that you need to clone this project inside plugins directory of OFBiz.

Once that is done you can start the project.

Important

You will need to add clojars to OFBiz build.gradle. See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-12263 and https://github.com/apache/ofbiz-framework/pull/304/files .

    # Build the project - download all dependencies
    ./gradlew build
    # Prepare OFBiz for start - load data
    ./gradlew cleanAll loadAll
    # Run OFBiz. You can look for the plugin in the logs.
    ./gradlew ofbiz
    # Open the link in the browser and start clojure repl manually.
    xdg-open https://localhost:8443/accounting

The plugin comes with a container implementation that will start the repl out of the box.

Warning

Do not expose the repl port outside of localhost since it has no security. Anyone with repl access will be able to do ANYTHING to your OFBiz instance, including removing all your data.

OFBiz-clojure-repl container auto-starting logs

2021-06-27 13:27:31,101 |OFBiz-JobQueue-0     |ClojureREPLService            |I| nRepl is not running
2021-06-27 13:27:31,101 |OFBiz-JobQueue-1     |ClojureREPLService            |I| Starting nRrepl on port 7888
2021-06-27 13:27:31,103 |OFBiz-JobQueue-0     |ServiceDispatcher             |T| Sync service [default/stopRepl] finished in [3] milliseconds
2021-06-27 13:27:34,230 |OFBiz-JobQueue-1     |ClojureREPLService            |I| nREPL server started on port 7888 on host 127.0.0.1 - nrepl://127.0.0.1:7888

Connecting to the repl and using it

Once you have a running repl you can use it.

There are two main ways: * Connect to repl from a babashka script - this is very good for DevOps management * Connect to repl from IDE (Calva, Spacemacs,etc) - good for developing, prototyping.

Usage from babashka

Babashka is a "Fast native Clojure scripting runtime" (bash gone clojure). Call clojure scripts with miliseconds startup time.

There is support for babashka scripts - see bb.edn file and call bb tasks to see a list of tasks.

Calling bb tasks gets

  The following tasks are available:

  list-services     List ofbiz services
  get-model-service Get the ModelService of a service
  run-service       Run OFBiz service

From the example scripts you can expand and build your own.

Usage from Calva / Clojure IDE

Just open your favorite Clojure IDE and connect to the repl, then explore OFBiz. You can use IntelliJ + Cursive or Visual Studio Code with Calva or whatever you wish.

Load the code bellow and call some functions.

How to use plugin from Clojure

(ns ofbiz-ops
  (:require [clojure.string :as str])
  (:import [org.apache.ofbiz.clojure ClojureREPLService]
           [org.apache.ofbiz.service DispatchContext]))

(def ^DispatchContext dispatch-ctx (.get ClojureREPLService/CONTEXT "ofbiz-dispatch-context"))

(defn list-services
  "List ofbiz services.
   Can be supplied with a filter function to filter services.

   Example:
   ;; filter services that contain 'repl' in their name
   (ofbiz-ops/list-services (fn [s] (clojure.string/includes? (.toLowerCase s) \"repl\")))"
  ([]
   (.getAllServiceNames dispatch-ctx))
  ([filter-fn]
   (filter filter-fn (list-services))))

(defn get-model-service
  "Gets the ModelService instance that corresponds to given the name.

   Example:
   (ofbiz-ops/get-model-service \"startRepl\" )"

  ([service]
   (-> dispatch-ctx
       (.getModelService service))))

(defn run-sync
  "Calls OFBiz service in sync mode."
  [service ctx]
  (-> dispatch-ctx
      (.getDispatcher)
      (.runSync service ctx)))