Deserializing different JSON payload from same Kafka topic with Spring Kafka

Question

I'm trying to deserialize different JSON payloads from the same Kafka topic. The other questions asked here, guided me to a first attempt, but I was not able to get it running.

As Gary mentioned (here) there is some hint (JsonSerializer.ADD_TYPE_INFO_HEADERS), but when I send and receive both messages I get an exception.

org.springframework.kafka.listener.ListenerExecutionFailedException: Listener method could not be invoked with the incoming message
Endpoint handler details:
Method [public void com.foo.message.ConsumerImpl.consumeSelf(java.lang.String,java.lang.String,java.lang.String,java.lang.String,java.util.Map<java.lang.String, java.lang.Object>,com.foo.message.KafkaMessage,org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.ConsumerRecord<java.lang.String, java.lang.Object>)]
Bean [com.foo.message.ConsumerImpl@6df2a206]; nested exception is org.springframework.messaging.converter.MessageConversionException: Cannot handle message; nested exception is org.springframework.messaging.converter.MessageConversionException: Cannot convert from [com.foo.message.KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField] to [com.foo.message.KafkaMessage] for GenericMessage [payload=com.foo.message.KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField@4e3168f7, headers={kafka_offset=22, kafka_consumer=org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.KafkaConsumer@c0e2fcf, kafka_timestampType=CREATE_TIME, kafka_receivedMessageKey=null, kafka_receivedPartitionId=0, kafka_receivedTopic=fromBar, kafka_receivedTimestamp=1548310583481}], failedMessage=GenericMessage [payload=com.foo.message.KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField@4e3168f7, headers={kafka_offset=22, kafka_consumer=org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.KafkaConsumer@c0e2fcf, kafka_timestampType=CREATE_TIME, kafka_receivedMessageKey=null, kafka_receivedPartitionId=0, kafka_receivedTopic=fromBar, kafka_receivedTimestamp=1548310583481}]
    at org.springframework.kafka.listener.adapter.MessagingMessageListenerAdapter.invokeHandler(MessagingMessageListenerAdapter.java:292) ~[spring-kafka-2.2.2.RELEASE.jar:2.2.2.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.kafka.listener.adapter.RecordMessagingMessageListenerAdapter.onMessage(RecordMessagingMessageListenerAdapter.java:79) ~[spring-kafka-2.2.2.RELEASE.jar:2.2.2.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.kafka.listener.adapter.RecordMessagingMessageListenerAdapter.onMessage(RecordMessagingMessageListenerAdapter.java:50) ~[spring-kafka-2.2.2.RELEASE.jar:2.2.2.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.kafka.listener.KafkaMessageListenerContainer$ListenerConsumer.doInvokeOnMessage(KafkaMessageListenerContainer.java:1207) [spring-kafka-2.2.2.RELEASE.jar:2.2.2.RELEASE]

...

The LoggingErrorHandler mentions already a (the correct) value in ConsumerRecord.

2019-01-24 07:16:27.630 ERROR 27204 --- [ntainer#2-0-C-1] o.s.kafka.listener.LoggingErrorHandler   : Error while processing: ConsumerRecord(topic = fromBar, partition = 0, offset = 22, CreateTime = 1548310583481, serialized key size = -1, serialized value size = 196, headers = RecordHeaders(headers = [], isReadOnly = false), key = null, value = com.foo.bar.message.KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField@4e3168f7)

First my config:

@EnableKafka
@Configuration
public class KafkaConsumerConfig {
    @Value("${spring.kafka.bootstrap-servers}")
    private String bootstrapServers;

    @Bean
    public ConsumerFactory<String, KafkaMessage> consumerFactoryMessage()
    {
        Map<String, Object> props = new HashMap<>();
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, bootstrapServers);           
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.KEY_DESERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, StringDeserializer.class);
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.VALUE_DESERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, JsonDeserializer.class);
        return new DefaultKafkaConsumerFactory<>(props, new StringDeserializer(),
                new JsonDeserializer<>(KafkaMessage.class));
    }

    @Bean
    public ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<String, KafkaMessage> kafkaListenerMessageContainerFactory()
    {
        ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<String, KafkaMessage> factory = new ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<>();
        factory.setConsumerFactory(consumerFactoryMessage());
        return factory;
    }

    @Bean
    public ConsumerFactory<String, KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField> consumerFactoryMessageWithAdditionalField()
    {
        Map<String, Object> props = new HashMap<>();
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, bootstrapServers);
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.KEY_DESERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, StringDeserializer.class);
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.VALUE_DESERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, JsonDeserializer.class);
        return new DefaultKafkaConsumerFactory<>(props, new StringDeserializer(),
                new JsonDeserializer<>(KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField.class));
    }

    @Bean
    public ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<String, KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField> kafkaListenerMessageWithAdditionalFieldContainerFactory()
    {
        ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<String, KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField> factory = new ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<>();
        factory.setConsumerFactory(consumerFactoryMessageWithAdditionalField());
        return factory;
    }
}

Here are the listeners:

    @KafkaListener(topicPartitions = @TopicPartition(partitions = "0", topic = "${foo.kafka.topic-springBoot}"), containerFactory = "kafkaListenerMessageContainerFactory")
    public void consumeSelf(@Headers Map<String, Object> map, KafkaMessage message, ConsumerRecord<String, Object> cr)
    {
        log.info("message received %s", message);
    }

    @KafkaListener(topicPartitions = @TopicPartition(partitions = "0", topic = "${foo.kafka.topic-springBoot}"), containerFactory = "kafkaListenerMessageWithAdditionalFieldContainerFactory")
    public void consumeSelfAdd(@Headers Map<String, Object> map, KafkaMessageWithAdditionalField message, ConsumerRecord<String, Object> cr)
    {
        log.info("messageKafkaMessageWithAdditionalField received %s", message);
    }

Answer 1

You can't do that; you have 2 different listener containers with listeners that expect different objects.

For multiple listener methods that receive different types, you need to use @KafkaListener at the class level and @KafkaHandler at the method level.

See @KafkaListener on a Class.

When using @KafkaListener at the class-level, you specify @KafkaHandler at the method level. When messages are delivered, the converted message payload type is used to determine which method to call.

@KafkaListener(id = "multi", topics = "myTopic")
static class MultiListenerBean {

    @KafkaHandler
    public void listen(String foo) {
        ...
    }

    @KafkaHandler
    public void listen(Integer bar) {
        ...
    }

    @KafkaHandler(isDefault = true`)
    public void listenDefault(Object object) {
        ...
    }

}

The default method is optional and is used for unknown payload types.

But this only works with a smart deserializer (that knows how to convert to different payloads).

Or, you can add a RecordFilterStrategy to the listener container factory to skip the other records in each listener.