Global versus function scope

Creates a heavy object only once per function instance, and shares it across all function invocations reaching the given instance.

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For detailed documentation that includes this code sample, see the following:

Code sample

C#

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 

using Google.Cloud.Functions.Framework;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Scopes;

public class Function : IHttpFunction
{
    // Global (server-wide) scope.
    // This computation runs at server cold-start.
    // Warning: Class variables used in functions code must be thread-safe.
    private static readonly int GlobalVariable = HeavyComputation();

    // Note that one instance of this class (Function) is created per invocation,
    // so calling HeavyComputation in the constructor would not have the same
    // benefit.

    public async Task HandleAsync(HttpContext context)
    {
        // Per-function-invocation scope.
        // This computation runs every time this function is called.
        int functionVariable = LightComputation();

        await context.Response.WriteAsync(
            $"Global: {GlobalVariable}; function: {functionVariable}",
            context.RequestAborted);
    }

    private static int LightComputation()
    {
        int[] numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 };
        return numbers.Sum();
    }

    private static int HeavyComputation()
    {
        int[] numbers = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 };
        return numbers.Aggregate((current, next) => current * next);
    }
}

Go

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 


// h is in the global (instance-wide) scope.
var h string

// init runs during package initialization. So, this will only run during an
// an instance's cold start.
func init() {
	h = heavyComputation()
	functions.HTTP("ScopeDemo", ScopeDemo)
}

// ScopeDemo is an example of using globally and locally
// scoped variables in a function.
func ScopeDemo(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	l := lightComputation()
	fmt.Fprintf(w, "Global: %q, Local: %q", h, l)
}

Java

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 


import com.google.cloud.functions.HttpFunction;
import com.google.cloud.functions.HttpRequest;
import com.google.cloud.functions.HttpResponse;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class Scopes implements HttpFunction {
  // Global (instance-wide) scope
  // This computation runs at instance cold-start.
  // Warning: Class variables used in functions code must be thread-safe.
  private static final int INSTANCE_VAR = heavyComputation();

  @Override
  public void service(HttpRequest request, HttpResponse response)
      throws IOException {
    // Per-function scope
    // This computation runs every time this function is called
    int functionVar = lightComputation();

    var writer = new PrintWriter(response.getWriter());
    writer.printf("Instance: %s; function: %s", INSTANCE_VAR, functionVar);
  }

  private static int lightComputation() {
    int[] numbers = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 };
    return Arrays.stream(numbers).sum();
  }

  private static int heavyComputation() {
    int[] numbers = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 };
    return Arrays.stream(numbers).reduce((t, x) -> t * x).getAsInt();
  }
}

Node.js

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 

const functions = require('@google-cloud/functions-framework');

// TODO(developer): Define your own computations
const {lightComputation, heavyComputation} = require('./computations');

// Global (instance-wide) scope
// This computation runs once (at instance cold-start)
const instanceVar = heavyComputation();

/**
 * HTTP function that declares a variable.
 *
 * @param {Object} req request context.
 * @param {Object} res response context.
 */
functions.http('scopeDemo', (req, res) => {
  // Per-function scope
  // This computation runs every time this function is called
  const functionVar = lightComputation();

  res.send(`Per instance: ${instanceVar}, per function: ${functionVar}`);
});

PHP

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 


use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface;

function scopeDemo(ServerRequestInterface $request): string
{
    // Heavy computations should be cached between invocations.
    // The PHP runtime does NOT preserve variables between invocations, so we
    // must write their values to a file or otherwise cache them.
    // (All writable directories in Cloud Functions are in-memory, so
    // file-based caching operations are typically fast.)
    // You can also use PSR-6 caching libraries for this task:
    // https://packagist.org/providers/psr/cache-implementation
    $cachePath = sys_get_temp_dir() . '/cached_value.txt';

    $response = '';
    if (file_exists($cachePath)) {
        // Read cached value from file, using file locking to prevent race
        // conditions between function executions.
        $response .= 'Reading cached value.' . PHP_EOL;
        $fh = fopen($cachePath, 'r');
        flock($fh, LOCK_EX);
        $instanceVar = stream_get_contents($fh);
        flock($fh, LOCK_UN);
    } else {
        // Compute cached value + write to file, using file locking to prevent
        // race conditions between function executions.
        $response .= 'Cache empty, computing value.' . PHP_EOL;
        $instanceVar = _heavyComputation();
        file_put_contents($cachePath, $instanceVar, LOCK_EX);
    }

    // Lighter computations can re-run on each function invocation.
    $functionVar = _lightComputation();

    $response .= 'Per instance: ' . $instanceVar . PHP_EOL;
    $response .= 'Per function: ' . $functionVar . PHP_EOL;

    return $response;
}

Python

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 

import time

import functions_framework


# Placeholder
def heavy_computation():
    return time.time()


# Placeholder
def light_computation():
    return time.time()


# Global (instance-wide) scope
# This computation runs at instance cold-start
instance_var = heavy_computation()


@functions_framework.http
def scope_demo(request):
    """
    HTTP Cloud Function that declares a variable.
    Args:
        request (flask.Request): The request object.
        <http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/1.0/api/#flask.Request>
    Returns:
        The response text, or any set of values that can be turned into a
        Response object using `make_response`
        <http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/1.0/api/#flask.Flask.make_response>.
    """

    # Per-function scope
    # This computation runs every time this function is called
    function_var = light_computation()
    return f"Instance: {instance_var}; function: {function_var}"

Ruby

To authenticate to Cloud Run functions, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for a local development environment. 

# Global (instance-wide) scope.
# This block runs on cold start, before any function is invoked.
#
# Note: It is usually best to run global initialization in an on_startup block
# instead at the top level of the Ruby file. This is because top-level code
# could be executed to verify the function during deployment, whereas an
# on_startup block is run only when an actual function instance is starting up.
FunctionsFramework.on_startup do
  instance_data = perform_heavy_computation

  # To pass data into function invocations, the best practice is to set a
  # key-value pair using the Ruby Function Framework's built-in "set_global"
  # method. Functions can call the "global" method to retrieve the data by key.
  # (You can also use Ruby global variables or "toplevel" local variables, but
  # they can make it difficult to isolate global data for testing.)
  set_global :my_instance_data, instance_data
end

FunctionsFramework.http "tips_scopes" do |_request|
  # Per-function scope.
  # This method is called every time this function is called.
  invocation_data = perform_light_computation

  # Retrieve the data computed by the on_startup block.
  instance_data = global :my_instance_data

  "instance: #{instance_data}; function: #{invocation_data}"
end

What's next

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