Faster way of developing and Testing new Nifi Processor

Question

I am developing new Nifi processor for my data flow. I make code changes in eclipse , creates new .nar file and copy it to Nifi lib for testing it.

On ever nar update Nifi needs a restart which takes a significant amount of time.

Is there any better way of testing your new .nar in Nifi ? Because restarting Nifi for every small change reduces your development speed.

Answer 1

There are a few options for rapid prototyping and testing that make developing Apache NiFi processors easier.

1. Model your code in ExecuteScript -- using the ExecuteScript processor means you can make code changes to the domain-related code (whatever you type into the processor Script Body property or a file referenced by Script File) without having to build anything or restart the application. You can replay the same flowfiles through the updated code using the provenance replay feature. You can also test your scripts directly with Matt Burgess' NiFi Script Tester tool. Once you have acceptable behavior, take the script body and migrate it to a custom processor that can be deployed.
2. Use the unit testing and integration testing features of NiFi -- the test harnesses and "runners" provided by the core framework will allow you to simulate flow scenarios in automated tests before deploying the entire application. It takes a little time to build out the first flow, but once you do, it's a repeatable and understandable process which you can use to cover edge cases and ensure desired behavior.

Answer 2

Just check how testing done for standard nifi processors. And do the same. For example look at dbcp https://github.com/apache/nifi/tree/master/nifi-nar-bundles/nifi-standard-services/nifi-dbcp-service-bundle/nifi-dbcp-service/src

For those tests you don't need to start nifi.