Request For More README Details To Extend Module As Producer

[fuzzygreenblurs]

Hello, can you share details on how to extend this module to produce messages and transmit over through a Kafka broker for downstream consumption? The repo README claims this is relatively simple, but I'm not sure how to get started with this step.

Thank you!

[Kevin-McClusky]

The readme should probably mention that it's relatively simple if you know Java, Ignition, and the Java Kafka client library. If you aren't familiar with any of the three, I'd suggest filling those knowledge gaps first. If there are knowledge gaps on the Ignition side, Inductive Automation has https://inductiveuniversity.com to teach concepts of Ignition, and there's an SDK guide in the user manual.

If you're up to speed on those three topics, this would be how I'd approach it:

1. Look at how the current module does Ignition's RPC (and refer to the Ignition SDK docs if you're not familiar with the Ignition SDK). Add new functions in there with whatever method signature you'd like for producing messages.
2. Create methods in the -gateway context that will take those RPC function calls and simply map them to the Kafka library's methods for producing. I'd probably just add those methods next to the consumer methods. You can read through the consumer methods to get an idea of how they currently work. https://github.com/IgnitionModuleDevelopmentCommunity/Kafka/blob/master/kafka-gateway/src/main/java/org/ignitionmdc/apache/kafka/Kafka.java

That should be all you need to do.

If you add that functionality, please feel free to submit a PR back here. It would be great to have more contributors to this repo.

[fuzzygreenblurs]

ok great, thank you for the breakdown! I'll potentially plan to circle back to this update soon.

[Freeno83]

@fuzzygreenblurs @Kevin-McClusky I have added a pull request that shows how to add producer functionality. I believe for streaming production etc. you would need to go further, but for the purpose of demonstrating how to add additional functions in, I believe it is good.