Apache Thrift Demo Application

Apache Thrift allows you to define data types and service interfaces in a simple definition file. Taking that file as input, the compiler generates code to be used to easily build RPC clients and servers that communicate seamlessly across programming languages. Instead of writing a load of boilerplate code to serialize and transport your objects and invoke remote methods, you can get right down to business.

Installation of apache-thrift

sudo apt-get install libboost-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-program-options-dev libevent-dev automake libtool flex bison pkg-config g++ libssl-dev
wget http://apachemirror.wuchna.com/thrift/0.12.0/thrift-0.12.0.tar.gz
tar -xvzf thrift-0.12.0.tar.gz
cd thrift-0.12.0
./configure
make
sudo make install  

If any error occurs solve the dependency problem and sudo make install again until it is solved and installed

Thrift version

thrift --version

Demo Project Description

I am assuming that you know what Apache Thrift is and why to use it. Here my focus is on how to do it.

I am developing two micro services. One of micro-service will expose some functions or service to be used by another micro service. The two micro services can be in same or different language as well as on same or diffrent machine. For this demonstartion

• MicroService service-py in Python
• MicroService service-node in Node.JS

Thrift File

Thrift is IDL (Interface Definition Language) which holds the definition of exposed functions and services and their respective data types. This file will be used to generate codes. Extension of file is .thrift

For this project we have defined demo.thrift Compiling thrift IDL code and Generating codes in desired languages

cd service-py
thrift -gen py ../demo.thrift 
cd service-node
thrift -gen js:node ../demo.thrift 

All the generated codes will be in folder gen-{language} renamed to gen_py for gen-py other wise it will throw error in python

Running Demo Application

git clone https://github.com/merajsiddiqui/thrift-demo.git

open two diffrent terminals

Terminal 1 (Python-Srever)

cd service-py
virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python app.py

Terminal 2 (Node Express API)

cd  service-node
npm install
node index.js

Open Browser and visit http://localhost:3000/{id}

on Exception

{"name":"InvalidUser","message":"User Id does not exist"}

on sucess

{"name":"Meraj Ahmad Siddiuqui","id":1,"active":true}

If you have any issue running this app feel free to contact me at merajsiddiqui@outlook.com