Google API Extensions for Java

Documentation

Google API Extensions for Java (GAX Java) is a library which aids in the development of client libraries for server APIs, based on GRPC and Google API conventions.

Application code will rarely need to use most of the classes within this library directly, but code generated automatically from the API definition files can use services such as paged list iteration, request batching, and polling of long-running operations to provide a more convenient and idiomatic API surface to callers.

Currently, this library shouldn't be used independently from google-cloud-java, otherwise there is a high risk of diamond dependency problems, because google-cloud-java uses beta features from this library which can change in breaking ways between versions. See VERSIONING for more information.

Quickstart

If you are using Maven, add this to your pom.xml file

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.google.api</groupId>
  <artifactId>gax</artifactId>
  <version>2.8.1</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.google.api</groupId>
  <artifactId>gax-grpc</artifactId>
  <version>2.8.1</version>
</dependency>

If you are using Gradle, add this to your dependencies

compile 'com.google.api:gax:2.8.1',
  'com.google.api:gax-grpc:2.8.1'

If you are using SBT, add this to your dependencies

libraryDependencies += "com.google.api" % "gax" % "2.8.1"
libraryDependencies += "com.google.api" % "gax-grpc" % "2.8.1"

Java Versions

Java 8 or above is required for using this library.

To build this project, JDK 11 or above is required. The build produces Java bytecode targeted for Java 8.

Contributing

Contributions to this library are always welcome and highly encouraged.

See the CONTRIBUTING documentation for more information on how to get started.

Versioning

This library follows Semantic Versioning, but with some additional qualifications:

Components marked with @BetaApi are considered to be "0.x" features inside a "1.x" library. This means they can change between minor and patch releases in incompatible ways. These features should not be used by any library "B" that itself has consumers, unless the components of library B that use @BetaApi features are also marked with @BetaApi. Features marked as @BetaApi are on a path to eventually become "1.x" features with the marker removed.

Special exception for google-cloud-java: google-cloud-java is allowed to depend on @BetaApi features without declaring the consuming code @BetaApi, because gax-java and google-cloud-java move in step with each other. For this reason, gax-java should not be used independently of google-cloud-java.
Components marked with @InternalApi are technically public, but are only public for technical reasons, because of the limitations of Java's access modifiers. For the purposes of semver, they should be considered private.
Components marked with @InternalExtensionOnly are stable for usage, but not for extension. Thus, methods will not be removed from interfaces marked with this annotation, but methods can be added, thus breaking any code implementing the interface. See the javadocs for more details on other consequences of this annotation.

Submodule notes

gax is stable (>= 1.0.0), so anything not marked @BetaApi, @InternalApi, or @InternalExtensionOnly won't break between minor releases. Anything marked @InternalExtensionOnly can only break extensions between minor releases.
gax-grpc is stable (>= 1.0.0), so anything not marked @BetaApi, @InternalApi, or @InternalExtensionOnly won't break between minor releases. Anything marked @InternalExtensionOnly can only break extensions between minor releases.
gax-httpjson is beta (0.x.y), so anything may change at any time and the public API should not be considered stable. There is no difference whether a class is marked @BetaApi or not; that annotation is only present as a reminder. There is also no difference whether a class is marked @InternalExtensionOnly or not; that only implies that the annotation will still be present in 1.0.0.

Feature notes

Long Running Operations - This feature is not yet considered stable.
Streaming - Streaming features are not yet considered stable.
Batching - Batching features are not yet considered stable.
Generated Code Support - Features to support generated code is not yet considered stable.
Testing - There are no plans to consider any code in the testlib jar to be stable.

Repository Structure

This repository contains the following java packages.

gax

com.google.api.gax.batching - Contains general-purpose batching logic.
com.google.api.gax.core - Contains core interfaces and classes that are not specific to grpc and could be used in other contexts.
com.google.api.gax.longrunning - Contains classes related to long running operations.
com.google.api.gax.paging - Contains classes related to list calls that return results in pages.
com.google.api.gax.retrying - Contains classes related to retrying API calls.
com.google.api.gax.rpc - Contains classes related to making RPC calls.

gax-grpc

com.google.api.gax.grpc - Contains classes that provide functionality on top of gRPC calls.
com.google.longrunning - Contains the mix-in client for long-running operations which is implemented by a number of Google APIs.

gax-httpjson

com.google.api.gax.httpjson - Contains classes that provide functionality on top of http/json calls.

License

BSD - See LICENSE for more information.