org.powertac.common.interfaces
Interface InitializationService

public interface InitializationService

Implementations of this interface are expected to initialize individual plugins prior to the beginning of a game. Before initialization, the database will contain only a single Competition instance, and possibly the Brokers that will be participating in the game.

Because some plugins may depend on the initialization of other plugins (for example, the default broker may depend on the tariff market and accounting service so that it can successfully publish its tariffs), the completedInits argument contains the list of plugin roles that have already been successfully initialized. If the completedInits list contains the names of all the plugins that must be initialized before the plugin being initialized, then the initialization can proceed, and the plugin must return its role name. If a plugin returns null, then it will be assumed that its dependencies are not satisfied, and it will be called again after all other plugins have been initialized. As long as there are no cycles in the dependency graph, this approach will terminate.

When the database is cleared, all the PluginConfig instances as well as the Competition instance will be deleted. To make it easy to configure individual games through a web interface, they must be re-created before the configuration process begins. This is accomplished by calling the setDefaults method at bootstrap time and after the end of each game. There should be no sequence dependencies for this process.

Author:

John Collins

Method Summary

String	initialize(org.powertac.common.Competition competition, List<String> completedInits) Initializes a plugin prior to the beginning of a game.
void	setDefaults() Creates and saves default PluginConfig instances.

Method Detail

setDefaults

void setDefaults()

Creates and saves default PluginConfig instances.

initialize

String initialize(org.powertac.common.Competition competition,
                  List<String> completedInits)

Initializes a plugin prior to the beginning of a game. The completedInits parameter is the list of plugin role names that have been successfully initialized. If sequence dependencies are satisfied (or if there are no sequence dependencies), then an implementation must complete its pre-game initialization process and return its role name. If sequence dependencies are not satisfied, then an implementation must return null. It will be called again after additional successful initializations have been completed. If initialization is not possible, then returning the string 'fail' will cause the server to log an error and shut down. This will be helpful just in case the implementation also logs a detailed error message.