faastruby-rpc

Wrapper to make it easy to call faastRuby functions.

What is faastRuby?

faastRuby is a serverless software development platform for Ruby and Crystal.

• Tutorial

Calling functions from within a function asynchronously

To call another function you must first require it on the top of handler.rb, passing a string that will be converted to a constant. You then use the constant to call the function and get its response.

To call the function, use the method call. Here is an example.

require_function 'hello-world', as: 'HelloWorld'
def handler(event)
  hello = HelloWorld.call # Async call
  hello.class #=> FaaStRuby::RPC::Function
  hello.returned? #=> false # READ BELOW TO UNDERSTAND
  puts hello #=> Hello, World! - Will block and wait until the response arrives
  returned_value = hello.value #=> 'Hello, World!' - Block, wait for the response and assign to variable 'returned_value'
  hello.returned? #=> true # READ BELOW TO UNDERSTAND
  hello.code #=> 200 - The status code
  hello.headers #=> {"content-type"=>"text/plain", "x-content-type-options"=>"nosniff", "connection"=>"close", "content-length"=>"5"} - The response headers
  render text: hello
end

The biggest problem with serverless applications is the latency resultant of multiple calls to different functions. This is called Tail Latency. To minimize this problem, faastruby-rpc will handle the request to other functions in an async fashion. You should design your application with that in mind. For example, you can design your application so the external function calls are done early in the program execution and perform other tasks while you wait for the response.

In the example above, hello = HelloWorld.call will issue a non-blocking HTTP request in a separate thread to the called function's endpoint, assign it to a variable and continue execution. When you need the return value from that function, just use the variable. If you call the variable before the request is completed, the execution will block until an answer is received from the external function. To minimize tail latency, just design your application around those async calls.

If at any point you need to know if the external function call already returned without blocking the execution of your program, use the method returned?. So in the example above, hello.returned? will be false until the request is fulfilled.

Passing arguments to the called function

Say you have the following function named echo:

require 'json'
def handler(event)
  arguments = JSON.parse event.body
  render text: arguments['name']
end

If you want to call this function from another function, you can simply pass the argument within call:

require_function 'echo', as: 'Echo'
def handler(event)
  name = Echo.call(name: 'John Doe') # Async call
  render text: "Hello, #{name}!" # calling 'name' will block until Echo returns
end

You can use positional or keyword arguments when calling external functions, and have the called function's handler method parse the event.body as JSON.

This gem is already required when you run your functions in faastRuby, or using faastruby local.

Running code when the invoked function responds

If you pass a block when you call another function, the block will execute as soon as the response arrives. For example:

require_function 'echo', as: 'Echo'
def handler(event)
  name = Echo.call(name: 'john doe') do |response|
    # response.body      #=> "john doe"
    # response.code      #=> 200
    # response.headers   #=> {"content-type"=>"text/plain",...}
    # What you return from the block will be the value of `name` or `name.body`
    response.body.capitalize
  end
  render text: "Hello, #{name}!" # Will render 'John Doe'
end

Handling errors

By default, an exception is raised if the invoked function HTTP status code is greater or equal to 400. This is important to make your functions easier to debug, and you will always know what to expect from that function call.

To disable this behaviour, pass raise_errors: false when requiring the function. For example:

require_function 'hello-world', as: 'HelloWorld', raise_errors: false

Stubbing RPC calls in your function tests

If you are testing a function that required another one, you likely will want to fake that call. To do that, use the following test helper:

# This will make it fake the calls to 'hello-world'
# and return the values you pass in the block.
require 'faastruby-rpc/test_helper'

FaaStRuby::RPC.stub_call('hello-world') do |response|
  response.body = "hello, world!"
  response.code = 200
  response.headers = {'A-Header' => 'foobar'}
end