How to retain slf4j MDC logging context in CompletableFuture?

Question

When executing async CompletableFuture, the parent threadcontext and moreover the org.slf4j.MDC context is lost.

This is bad as I'm using some kind of "fish tagging" to track logs from one request among multiple logfiles.

MDC.put("fishid", randomId())

Question: how can I retain that id during the tasks of CompletableFutures in general?

List<CompletableFuture<UpdateHotelAllotmentsRsp>> futures =
    tasks.stream()
        .map(task -> CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(
            () -> businesslogic(task))
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

List results = futures.stream()
    .map(CompletableFuture::join)
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

public void businesslogic(Task task) {
       LOGGER.info("mdc fishtag context is lost here");
}

Answer 1

The most readable way I solved this problem was as below -

---------------Thread utils class--------------------

public static Runnable withMdc(Runnable runnable) {
    Map<String, String> mdc = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
    return () -> {
        MDC.setContextMap(mdc);
        runnable.run();
    };
}

public static <U> Supplier<U> withMdc(Supplier<U> supplier) {
    Map<String, String> mdc = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
    return (Supplier) () -> {
        MDC.setContextMap(mdc);
        return supplier.get();
    };
}

---------------Usage--------------

CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(withMdc(() -> someSupplier()))
                 .thenRunAsync(withMdc(() -> someRunnable())
                 ....

WithMdc in ThreadUtils would have to be overloaded to include other functional interfaces which are accepted by CompletableFuture

Please note that the withMdc() method is statically imported to improve readability.

Answer 2

At the end I created a Supplier wrapper retaining the MDC. If anyone has a better idea feel free to comment.

public static <U> CompletableFuture<U> supplyAsync(Supplier<U> supplier, Executor executor) {
    return CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(new SupplierMDC(supplier), executor);
}

private static class SupplierMDC<T> implements Supplier<T> {
    private final Supplier<T> delegate;
    private final Map<String, String> mdc;

    public SupplierMDC(Supplier<T> delegate) {
        this.delegate = delegate;
        this.mdc = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
    }

    @Override
    public T get() {
        MDC.setContextMap(mdc);
        return delegate.get();
    }
}

Answer 3

My solution theme would be to (It would work with JDK 9+ as a couple of overridable methods are exposed since that version)

Make the complete ecosystem aware of MDC

And for that, we need to address the following scenarios:

• When all do we get new instances of CompletableFuture from within this class? → We need to return a MDC aware version of the same rather.
• When all do we get new instances of CompletableFuture from outside this class? → We need to return a MDC aware version of the same rather.
• Which executor is used when in CompletableFuture class? → In all circumstances, we need to make sure that all executors are MDC aware

For that, let's create a MDC aware version class of CompletableFuture by extending it. My version of that would look like below

import org.slf4j.MDC;

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.concurrent.*;
import java.util.function.Function;
import java.util.function.Supplier;

public class MDCAwareCompletableFuture<T> extends CompletableFuture<T> {

    public static final ExecutorService MDC_AWARE_ASYNC_POOL = new MDCAwareForkJoinPool();

    @Override
    public CompletableFuture newIncompleteFuture() {
        return new MDCAwareCompletableFuture();
    }

    @Override
    public Executor defaultExecutor() {
        return MDC_AWARE_ASYNC_POOL;
    }

    public static <T> CompletionStage<T> getMDCAwareCompletionStage(CompletableFuture<T> future) {
        return new MDCAwareCompletableFuture<>()
                .completeAsync(() -> null)
                .thenCombineAsync(future, (aVoid, value) -> value);
    }

    public static <T> CompletionStage<T> getMDCHandledCompletionStage(CompletableFuture<T> future,
                                                                Function<Throwable, T> throwableFunction) {
        Map<String, String> contextMap = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
        return getMDCAwareCompletionStage(future)
                .handle((value, throwable) -> {
                    setMDCContext(contextMap);
                    if (throwable != null) {
                        return throwableFunction.apply(throwable);
                    }
                    return value;
                });
    }
}

The MDCAwareForkJoinPool class would look like (have skipped the methods with ForkJoinTask parameters for simplicity)

public class MDCAwareForkJoinPool extends ForkJoinPool {
    //Override constructors which you need

    @Override
    public <T> ForkJoinTask<T> submit(Callable<T> task) {
        return super.submit(MDCUtility.wrapWithMdcContext(task));
    }

    @Override
    public <T> ForkJoinTask<T> submit(Runnable task, T result) {
        return super.submit(wrapWithMdcContext(task), result);
    }

    @Override
    public ForkJoinTask<?> submit(Runnable task) {
        return super.submit(wrapWithMdcContext(task));
    }

    @Override
    public void execute(Runnable task) {
        super.execute(wrapWithMdcContext(task));
    }
}

The utility methods to wrap would be such as

public static <T> Callable<T> wrapWithMdcContext(Callable<T> task) {
    //save the current MDC context
    Map<String, String> contextMap = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
    return () -> {
        setMDCContext(contextMap);
        try {
            return task.call();
        } finally {
            // once the task is complete, clear MDC
            MDC.clear();
        }
    };
}

public static Runnable wrapWithMdcContext(Runnable task) {
    //save the current MDC context
    Map<String, String> contextMap = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
    return () -> {
        setMDCContext(contextMap);
        try {
            return task.run();
        } finally {
            // once the task is complete, clear MDC
            MDC.clear();
        }
    };
}

public static void setMDCContext(Map<String, String> contextMap) {
   MDC.clear();
   if (contextMap != null) {
       MDC.setContextMap(contextMap);
    }
}

Below are some guidelines for usage:

• Use the class MDCAwareCompletableFuture rather than the class CompletableFuture.
• A couple of methods in the class CompletableFuture instantiates the self version such as new CompletableFuture.... For such methods (most of the public static methods), use an alternative method to get an instance of MDCAwareCompletableFuture. An example of using an alternative could be rather than using CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(...), you can choose new MDCAwareCompletableFuture<>().completeAsync(...)
• Convert the instance of CompletableFuture to MDCAwareCompletableFuture by using the method getMDCAwareCompletionStage when you get stuck with one because of say some external library which returns you an instance of CompletableFuture. Obviously, you can't retain the context within that library but this method would still retain the context after your code hits the application code.
• While supplying an executor as a parameter, make sure that it is MDC Aware such as MDCAwareForkJoinPool. You could create MDCAwareThreadPoolExecutor by overriding execute method as well to serve your use case. You get the idea!

With that, your code would look like

List<CompletableFuture<UpdateHotelAllotmentsRsp>> futures =
    tasks.stream()
        new MDCAwareCompletableFuture<UpdateHotelAllotmentsRsp>().completeAsync(
            () -> businesslogic(task))
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

List results = futures.stream()
    .map(CompletableFuture::join)
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

public UpdateHotelAllotmentsRsp businesslogic(Task task) {
       LOGGER.info("mdc fishtag context is not lost here");
}

You can find a detailed explanation of all of the above here in a post about the same.