We now use the methods described above to add partial support to the RepMgr example that we presented in Transactional Application. That is, in this section we will:
Enhance our command line options to accept information of interest to a replicated application.
Configure our environment handle to use replication and the Replication Manager.
Minimally configure the Replication Manager.
Start replication.
Note that when we are done with this section, we will be only partially ready to run the application. Some critical pieces will be missing; specifically, we will not yet be handling the differences between a master and a replica. (We do that in the next chapter).
                Also, note that in the following code fragments, additions
                and changes to the code are marked in bold.
            
                    To begin, we copy the 
                    
                    SimpleTxn
                    code to a new file called
                    RepMgrGSG.cpp.
                    
                    
                            Having done that, we must make some significant
                            changes to our 
                            RepConfigInfo
                            class because now we will be using it to
                            maintain a lot more information.
                    
            
                First, we create a new structure,
                RepHostInfoObj, which we use to store
                host and port information for all "other" servers
                identified to the application via the
                -o command line option. This structure
                is chain-able, which makes cleaning up at program shutdown
                time easier.
            
#include <db_cxx.h>
#include <iostream>
// Chain-able struct used to store host information.
typedef struct RepHostInfoObj{
    char* host;
    u_int16_t port;
    RepHostInfoObj* next; // used for chaining multiple "other" hosts.
} REP_HOST_INFO; 
      
        Next, we update our RepConfigInfo class
        definition to manage a lot more information and a new method.
class RepConfigInfo {
public:
    RepConfigInfo();
    virtual ~RepConfigInfo();
    void addOtherHost(char* host, int port);
public:
    u_int32_t start_policy;
    char* home;
    bool got_listen_address;
    REP_HOST_INFO this_host;
    int totalsites;
    int priority;
    // used to store a set of optional other hosts.
    REP_HOST_INFO *other_hosts;
}; 
      Then, we update our constructor to initialize our new variables.
RepConfigInfo::RepConfigInfo()
{
    start_policy = DB_REP_ELECTION;
    home = "TESTDIR";
    got_listen_address = false;
    totalsites = 0;
    priority = 100;
    other_hosts = NULL;
} 
      
        Next, we implement our new method, RepConfigInfo::addOtherHost,
        which is used to create RepHostInfoObj instances and add them to
        the chain of "other" hosts.
RepConfigInfo::addOtherHost(char* host, int port)
{
    REP_HOST_INFO *newinfo;
    newinfo = (REP_HOST_INFO*)malloc(sizeof(REP_HOST_INFO));
    newinfo->host = host;
    newinfo->port = port;
    if (other_hosts == NULL) {
        other_hosts = newinfo;
        newinfo->next = NULL;
    } else {
        newinfo->next = other_hosts;
        other_hosts = newinfo;
    }
}
      
        Having done that, we update our class destructor to release the RepHostInfoObj
        chain of objects at class destruction time.
RepConfigInfo::~RepConfigInfo()
{
    // release any other_hosts structs.
    if (other_hosts != NULL) {
        REP_HOST_INFO *CurItem = other_hosts;
        while (CurItem->next != NULL)
        {
            REP_HOST_INFO *TmpItem = CurItem;
            free(CurItem);
            CurItem = TmpItem;
        }
        free(CurItem);
    }
    other_hosts = NULL;
} 
      
        Having completed our update to the
        RepConfigInfo 
         
        class, we can now start making
        changes to the main portion of our program. We begin by changing
        the program's name. 
using std::cout;
using std::cin;
using std::cerr;
using std::endl;
using std::flush;
                
#define CACHESIZE   (10 * 1024 * 1024)
#define DATABASE    "quote.db"
                
const char *progname = "RepMgrGSG"; 
      
        Next we update our usage function. The application will continue to
        accept the -h parameter so that we can identify
        the environment home directory used by this application. However,
        we also add the 
                    -l parameter which allows us to
                    identify the host and port used by this application to
                    listen for replication messages.
                
                        -r parameter which allows us to
                        specify other replicas.
                
                        -n parameter which allows us to
                        identify the number of sites in this replication
                        group.
                
                    -p option, which is used to identify
                    this replica's priority (recall that the priority is
                    used as a tie breaker for elections)
                
class RepMgrGSG
{
public:
    // Constructor.
    RepMgrGSG();
    // Initialization method. Creates and opens our environment handle.
    int init(RepConfigInfo* config);
    // The doloop is where all the work is performed.
    int doloop();
    // terminate() provides our shutdown code.
    int terminate();
private:
    // disable copy constructor.
    RepMgrGSG(const RepMgrGSG &);
    void operator = (const RepMgrGSG &);
    // internal data members.
    RepConfigInfo   *app_config;
    DbEnv           dbenv;
    // private methods.
    // print_stocks() is used to display the contents of our database.
    static int print_stocks(Db *dbp);
};
static void usage()
{
    cerr << "usage: " << progname << endl
         << "-h home[-r host:port][-l host:port]"
         << "[-n nsites][-p priority]" << endl;
    cerr << "\t -l host:port (required; l stands for local)" << endl
         << "\t -r host:port (optional; r stands for replica; any "
         << "number of these may be specified)" << endl
         << "\t -h home directory" << endl
         << "\t -n nsites (optional; number of sites in replication "
         << "group; defaults to 0" << endl
         << "\t  in which case we try to dynamically compute the "
         << "number of sites in" << endl
         << "\t  the replication group)" << endl
         << "\t -p priority (optional: defaults to 100)" << endl;
    exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
} 
      
        Now we can begin working on our main() function.
        We begin by adding a couple of variables that we will use to
        collect TCP/IP host and port information. 
        
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    RepConfigInfo config;
    char ch, *portstr, *tmphost;
    int tmpport;
    int ret; 
      Now we collect our command line arguments. As we do so, we will configure host and port information as required, and we will configure the application's election priority if necessary.
    // Extract the command line parameters
    while ((ch = getopt(argc, argv, "h:l:n:p:r:")) != EOF) {
        switch (ch) {
        case 'h':
            config.home = optarg;
            break;
        case 'l':
            config.this_host.host = strtok(optarg, ":");
            if ((portstr = strtok(NULL, ":")) == NULL) {
                cerr << "Bad host specification." << endl;
                usage();
            }
            config.this_host.port = (unsigned short)atoi(portstr);
            config.got_listen_address = true;
            break;
        case 'n':
            config.totalsites = atoi(optarg);
            break;
        case 'p':
            config.priority = atoi(optarg);
            break;
        case 'r':
            tmphost = strtok(optarg, ":");
            if ((portstr = strtok(NULL, ":")) == NULL) {
                cerr << "Bad host specification." << endl;
                usage();
            }
            tmpport = (unsigned short)atoi(portstr);
            config.addOtherHost(tmphost, tmpport);
            break;
        case '?':
        default:
            usage();
        }
    }
    // Error check command line.
    if ((!config.got_listen_address) || config.home == NULL)
        usage(); 
      
        Having done that, the remainder of our main()
        function is left unchanged:
    RepMgrGSG runner;
    try {
        if((ret = runner.init(&config)) != 0)
            goto err;
        if((ret = runner.doloop()) != 0)
            goto err;
    } catch (DbException dbe) {
        cerr << "Caught an exception during initialization or"
            << " processing: " << dbe.what() << endl;
    }
err:
    runner.terminate();
    return 0;
}  
      
        Now we need to update our 
            RepMgrGSG::init()
            
        method. Our updates are at first related to configuring
        replication. First, we need to update the method so that we can 
        identify the local site to the environment handle (that is, the site identified by the 
-l command line option):
RepMgrGSG::RepMgrGSG() : app_config(0), dbenv(0)
{
}
int RepMgrGSG::init(RepConfigInfo *config)
{
    int ret = 0;
    app_config = config;
    dbenv.set_errfile(stderr);
    dbenv.set_errpfx(progname);
    if ((ret = dbenv.repmgr_set_local_site(app_config->this_host.host,
        app_config->this_host.port, 0)) != 0) {
        cerr << "Could not set listen address to host:port "
             << app_config->this_host.host << ":"
             << app_config->this_host.port
             << "error: " << ret << endl;
    } 
      
    And we also add code to allow us to identify "other" sites to the environment handle (that is,
the sites that we identify using the -o command line
option). To do this, we iterate over each of the "other" sites provided to
us using the -o command line option, and we add each one
individually in turn:     
    for ( REP_HOST_INFO *cur = app_config->other_hosts; cur != NULL;
        cur = cur->next) {
        if ((ret = dbenv.repmgr_add_remote_site(cur->host, cur->port,
                                                NULL, 0, 0)) != 0) {
                cerr << "could not add site." << endl
        }
    }  
      And then we need code to allow us to identify the total number of sites in this replication group, and to set the environment's priority.
    if (app_config->totalsites > 0) {
        try {
            if ((ret = dbenv.rep_set_nsites(app_config->totalsites)) != 0)
                dbenv.err(ret, "set_nsites");
        } catch (DbException dbe) {
            cerr << "rep_set_nsites call failed. Continuing." << endl;
        }
    } 
    dbenv.rep_set_priority(app_config->priority);  
      
            
            We can now open our environment. Note that the flags
            
            we use to open the environment are slightly different for a
            replicated application than they are for a non-replicated
            application. Namely, replication requires the
            
            DB_INIT_REP flag. 
            
            
    
            Also, because we are using the Replication Manager, we must prepare
            our environment for threaded usage. For this reason, we also
            need the DB_THREAD flag.
    
    dbenv.set_cachesize(0, CACHESIZE, 0);
    dbenv.set_flags(DB_TXN_NOSYNC, 1);
    try {
        dbenv.open(app_config->home, 
            DB_CREATE | 
            DB_INIT_LOCK | 
            DB_INIT_LOG | 
            DB_INIT_MPOOL |
            DB_INIT_REP |
            DB_INIT_TXN | 
            DB_RECOVER |
            DB_THREAD;
            0);
    } catch(DbException dbe) {
        cerr  << "Caught an exception during DB environment open." << endl
              << "Ensure that the home directory is created prior to "
              << "starting the application." << endl;
        ret = ENOENT;
        goto err;
    }
      
        Finally, we start replication before we exit this method.
        Immediately after exiting this method, our application will go into
        the 
        RepMgrGSG::doloop()
        
        method, which is where
       the bulk of our application's work is performed. We update that
       method in the next chapter. 
    if ((ret = dbenv.repmgr_start(3, app_config->start_policy)) != 0)
        goto err;
err:
    return ret;
} 
      This completes our replication updates for the moment. We are not as yet ready to actually run this program; there remains a few critical pieces left to add to it. However, the work that we performed in this section represents a solid foundation for the remainder of our replication work.