Sling Component Filters in CQ5

Understanding & Utilizing Apache Sling Filters in Adobe CQ5 / AEM

Dominik Süß, Senior Developer, pro!vision GmbH

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Agenda
• The Sling Request Invocation Chain
• Implementing own Sling Filters
• Use Cases and Samples

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 !!!WARNING!!!
Sling Filters are a very generic and mighty extensionpoint. When
utilizing them you should always have in mind that AEM/CQ Core
functionality relies on the data provided by Sling, manipulation
of this data therefore may break CQ.

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The Sling Request Invocation Chain
How the Sling Engine processes HTTP Requests

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Sling Request Invocation Chain
SlingMainServlet

Registered as Services
SlingRequestProcessor (preferably via SCR Annotation)

dispatchRequest() processRequest()

Filter A
FilterChain
Scope: REQUEST
FilterManager Filter B
FilterChain
Scope: COMPONENT
Filter C

Component Servlet

INCLUDE/FORWARD

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Implementing Sling Filters
How to use Filters as Extensionpoint

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Registration of Filters
• Standard Servlet Filter (javax.servlet.Filter)
– Need to be registered as Service („manually“ or SlingFilter SCR Annotation)
• Order and FilterScopes can be defined

• Order defined by Serviceranking

• Filterscopes
– REQUEST
– COMPONENT
– ERROR
– INCLUDE *
– FORWARD *
* FilterChain executes COMPONENT scope for these scopes as well.

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SCR Annotation
@SlingFilter(scope = SlingFilterScope.COMPONENT, order = -10000, metatype =
false)
public class MyComponentFilter implements javax.servlet.Filter {

@Override
public void doFilter(ServletRequest pRequest, ServletResponse pResponse,
FilterChain pChain) throws IOException, ServletException {

// Implement Filter

// continue with filter chaining

pChain.doFilter(pRequest, pResponse);
}
}

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Filter Order
• Existing Filters might use the deprecated „filter.order“ instead
„service.ranking“

• NOTE: SLING-2920 was identified while verifying this behavior – look up the
mailing list for further information how to use it for now

• Existing Filters and their execution ORDER can be inspected via

– http://<instance>:<port>/system/console/status-slingfilter

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Check Filterconditions at first place
public void doFilter(ServletRequest pRequest, ServletResponse pResponse,
FilterChain pChain) throws IOException, ServletException {
if (!(pRequest instanceof SlingHttpServletRequest)) {
throw new ServletException("Request is not a Sling HTTP request.");
}
if (isFilterEnabled(slingRequest)) {
// Implement Filter-Logic
} else {
// continue with filter chaining
pChain.doFilter(pRequest, pResponse);
}
}

• Check available Information from slingRequest if Filter should do anything.

• Be aware that these checks may be performed a lot especially for COMPONENT scope

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Accessing and Using Data in Filter
public void doFilter(ServletRequest pRequest, ServletResponse pResponse,
FilterChain pChain) throws IOException, ServletException {
if (!(pRequest instanceof SlingHttpServletRequest)) {
throw new ServletException("Request is not a Sling HTTP request.");
}
if (isFilterEnabled(slingRequest)) {
Resource resource = slingRequest.getResource(); // already resolved
if (null != resource) {
PrintWriter writer = pResponse.getWriter();
writer.write("<component resourceType=\"" + resource.getResourceType()
"\">");
pChain.doFilter(pRequest, pResponse);
writer.write("</component>");
return;
}
}
pChain.doFilter(pRequest, pResponse);
}

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Useful Wrapper Objects in Filters
• SlingHttpServletRequestWrapper
– Implement to override parts of the request
• E.g. Inject impersonated ResourceResolver*
• SlingHttpServletResponseWrapper
– Implement to inject additional logic to response
• E.g. inject own writer to buffer the response to perform some postprocessing

* Security-Note: Make sure you don’t create security holes this way – the request
should always respect the permissions of the current user!

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Dispatch to other Resource
RequestDispatcher dispatcher =
slingRequest.getRequestDispatcher(otherResource);

dispatcher.forward(request, response);

Required in any situation where you need to redirect the request.

Note: You should be aware that a Dispatcher Forward or Include will retrigger
the FilterChain. Place such filters early in the Filterchain to prevent other
Filters to be executed twice.

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Usecases & Samples

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Usecases
• Logging
• Measuring
• Decoration
• Pre-Processing
• Post-Processing
• Manipulating Inclusions

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Logging
• Allows to hook in Requestcentric logging at Sling Level
• It is possible to log even requests/includes of components which are not
part of the own application (like foundation components)

• Sample
– org.apache.sling.engine.impl.debug.RequestProgressTrackerLogFilter

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Measuring
• Since the Filterchain gets consulted at each call of a component they
provide a natural location to measure the actual usage of the system

• The concrete usecases depend on the goal of the application

• You should just add additional measuring if no other techniques like

loganalysis or available reports are not sufficient.

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Decoration
• Adding generic but usecasespecific decoration to components

• Sample
– WCMDebugFilter ( for Requestparameter debug=layout)

• Further Usecase
– For specific selector: Metadata for third party systems like
• Search Parsers
• Integrating Systems (e.g. Portals)

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Preprocessing
• Injecting data that needs to be available within the components

• Sample:
– WCMComponentFilter – generic logic that links CQ Authoring logic with Sling
Components
– I18nFilter – Injecting I18n Resource Bundles

• Further Usecases
– Build Java Bean and place in Request to be used via jsp:useBean and EL within
JSPs (Sepearation of businesslogic)*

* Just a proof of concept, impact of preprocessing on performance yet untested

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Postprocessing
• Injecting custom writer to postprocess output

• Sample:
– RewriterFilter

• Further Usecases:
– Integration of thirt party markup (e.g. via Velocity or Freemarker)
– Injection of a generic Placeholderlogic (e.g. Personalization)

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Manipulating Inclusions
• Redirecting , Skipping or manipulating further processing

• Samples:
– Mobile RedirectFilter (trigger Redirect with matching selector for device)
– TimeWarp Filter ( replacing ResourceData & corresponding Objects with Objects at
given Timestamp)

• Further Usecases
– Controlled Impersonation in Author Mode for Permissionpreview
(Publishpermissions)
– Component Level Caching (Record response to cache and answer subsequent
requests from cache)*

* Not yet verified, but might be a solution for partial caching where dispatcher caches
cannot be used

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Some last words…
• The Apache Sling Stack is the core of CQ5 / AEM
• Apache Sling is an open source project that relies on an active community

• So – be part the community!

– Join the User and/or Dev Mailinglist
– File Bugs and contribute Patches
– Participate in community events to drive evolution of Apache Sling …

… like adaptTo() 2013 in Berlin (http://www.adaptto.org)

;)
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Contact
Karim Khan
Tel. +49 (69) 8700328-0
E-Mail kkhan@pro-vision.de

Berlin Frankfurt
pro!vision GmbH pro!vision GmbH
Wilmersdorfer Str. 50-51 Löwengasse 27 A
10627 Berlin 60385 Frankfurt am Main
Germany Germany

Tel. +49 (30) 818828-50 Tel. +49 (69) 8700328-0

E-Mail info@pro-vision.de E-Mail info@pro-vision.de

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