Groovy Mixins?

Question

I'm trying to mix-in a class in my Groovy/Grails app, and I'm using the syntax defined in the docs, but I keep getting an error.

I have a domain class that looks like this:

class Person {
  mixin(ImagesMixin)

  // ...
}

It compiles fine, but for some reason it won't work. The file containing ImagesMixin is located in my /src/groovy/ directory.

I've tried it using Groovy versions 1.5.7 and 1.6-RC1 without any luck. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

stacktrace:

2008-12-30 17:58:25.258::WARN:  Failed startup of context org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext@562791{/FinalTransmission,/home/kuccello/Development/workspaces/lifeforce/FinalTransmission/web-app}
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2_closure7.doCall(RunApp_groovy:67)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2_closure7.doCall(RunApp_groovy)
    at Init_groovy$_run_closure6.doCall(Init_groovy:131)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2.doCall(RunApp_groovy:66)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2.doCall(RunApp_groovy)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(RunApp_groovy:57)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(RunApp_groovy)
    at gant.Gant.dispatch(Gant.groovy:271)
    at gant.Gant.this$2$dispatch(Gant.groovy)
    at gant.Gant.invokeMethod(Gant.groovy)
    at gant.Gant.processTargets(Gant.groovy:436)
    at gant.Gant.processArgs(Gant.groovy:372)
Caused by: java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
    at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:169)
    at Episode.class$(Episode.groovy)
    at Episode.<clinit>(Episode.groovy)
    ... 13 more
Caused by: groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: static Person.mixin() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.Class) values: {class ImagesMixin}
    at Broadcast.<clinit>(MyClass.groovy:17)
    ... 17 more
2008-12-30 17:58:25.259::WARN:  Nested in org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'pluginManager' defined in ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]: Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError:
groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: Person.mixin() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.Class) values: {class ImagesMixin}
    at Broadcast.<clinit>(Person.groovy:17)
    at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:169)
    at Episode.class$(BelongsToMyClass.groovy)
    at Episode.<clinit>(BelongsToMyClass.groovy)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2_closure7.doCall(RunApp_groovy:67)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2_closure7.doCall(RunApp_groovy)
    at Init_groovy$_run_closure6.doCall(Init_groovy:131)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2.doCall(RunApp_groovy:66)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure2.doCall(RunApp_groovy)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(RunApp_groovy:57)
    at RunApp_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(RunApp_groovy)
    at gant.Gant.dispatch(Gant.groovy:271)
    at gant.Gant.this$2$dispatch(Gant.groovy)
    at gant.Gant.invokeMethod(Gant.groovy)
    at gant.Gant.processTargets(Gant.groovy:436)
    at gant.Gant.processArgs(Gant.groovy:372)
2008-12-30 17:58:25.271::INFO:  Started [email protected]:8080

Answer 1

Since Groovy 1.6 you can either apply a mixin at compile-time to a class using an annotation

@Mixin(ImagesMixin)
class Person {
}

Or you can apply the mixin at runtime like this:

def myMixin = ImagesMixin
Person.mixin myMixin

The latter approach is more dynamic as the class to mixin can be determined at runtime. Further information about Groovy mixins is available here.

In my experience, a lot of meta-programming of domain classes simply doesn't work. I don't exactly know why, but suspect it's due to the fact these classes are already very heavily meta-programmed by the Grails runtime. In general my approach is

• Try the meta-programming on a POGO in the Groovy console
• If that works, try it on a non-domain class in the Grails console
• If that works, try it on a domain class in the Grails console. If it doesn't work, then it must be because it's a domain class (rather than a problem with the syntax). At this point it's advisable to try and find another way of accomplishing your goal. If that's not possible, then use a combination of the Grails mailing list and/or Stackoverflow and/or the Grails source code to try and get the meta-programming working.