These tutorials target Micronaut Framework 3. Read, Guides for Micronaut Framework 4.

Table of Contents

Micronaut MongoDB Asynchronous

Learn how to use a non-blocking reactive streams MongoDB client with a Micronaut application

Authors: Sergio del Amo

Micronaut Version: 3.9.2

1. Getting Started

In this guide, we will create a Micronaut application written in Kotlin.

You will use MongoDB for persistence.

2. What you will need

To complete this guide, you will need the following:

  • Some time on your hands

  • A decent text editor or IDE

  • JDK 1.8 or greater installed with JAVA_HOME configured appropriately

3. Solution

We recommend that you follow the instructions in the next sections and create the application step by step. However, you can go right to the completed example.

4. Writing the Application

Create an application using the Micronaut Command Line Interface or with Micronaut Launch.

mn create-app example.micronaut.micronautguide \
    --features=mongo-reactive,reactor,graalvm,serialization-bson \
    --build=gradle
    --lang=kotlin
If you don’t specify the --build argument, Gradle is used as the build tool.
If you don’t specify the --lang argument, Java is used as the language.

The previous command creates a Micronaut application with the default package example.micronaut in a directory named micronautguide.

If you use Micronaut Launch, select Micronaut Application as application type and add mongo-reactive, reactor, graalvm, and serialization-bson features.

If you have an existing Micronaut application and want to add the functionality described here, you can view the dependency and configuration changes from the specified features and apply those changes to your application.

Setup IntelliJ IDEA to develop Micronaut Applications.

4.1. POJO

Create Fruit POJO:

src/main/kotlin/example/micronaut/Fruit.kt
package example.micronaut

import io.micronaut.core.annotation.Creator
import io.micronaut.serde.annotation.Serdeable
import org.bson.codecs.pojo.annotations.BsonCreator
import org.bson.codecs.pojo.annotations.BsonProperty
import javax.validation.constraints.NotBlank

@Serdeable (1)
data class Fruit @Creator @BsonCreator constructor( (4)
    @field:BsonProperty("name") @param:BsonProperty("name") @field:NotBlank val name: String,  (2) (3)
    @field:BsonProperty("description") @param:BsonProperty("description") var description: String?) { (3)

    constructor(name: String) : this(name, null)
}
1 Declare the @Serdeable annotation at the type level in your source code to allow the type to be serialized or deserialized.
2 Use javax.validation.constraints Constraints to ensure the data matches your expectations.
3 Since the POJO does not have an empty constructor, use the annotations @BsonCreator and BsonProperty to define data conversion between BSON and POJO with the MongoDB Java driver. See POJOs without No-Argument Constructor.
4 Annotate with @Creator to provide a hint as to which constructor is the primary constructor.

4.2. Repository

Create a repository interface to encapsulate the CRUD actions for Fruit.

src/main/kotlin/example/micronaut/FruitRepository.kt
package example.micronaut

import org.reactivestreams.Publisher
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono
import javax.validation.Valid

interface FruitRepository {

    fun list(): Publisher<Fruit>

    fun save(@Valid fruit: Fruit): Mono<Boolean> (1)
}
1 Add @Valid to any method parameter which requires validation.

4.3. Controller

Create FruitController:

src/main/kotlin/example/micronaut/FruitController.kt
package example.micronaut

import io.micronaut.http.HttpStatus
import io.micronaut.http.HttpStatus.CONFLICT
import io.micronaut.http.HttpStatus.CREATED
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Controller
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Post
import org.reactivestreams.Publisher
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono
import javax.validation.Valid

@Controller("/fruits") (1)
open class FruitController(private val fruitService: FruitRepository) { (2)

    @Get (3)
    fun list(): Publisher<Fruit> = fruitService.list()

    @Post (4)
    open fun save(@Valid fruit: Fruit): Mono<HttpStatus> { (5)
        return fruitService.save(fruit) (6)
                .map { added: Boolean -> if (added) CREATED else CONFLICT }
    }
}
1 The class is defined as a controller with the @Controller annotation mapped to the path /fruits.
2 Use constructor injection to inject a bean of type FruitRepository.
3 The @Get annotation maps the list method to an HTTP GET request on /fruits.
4 The @Post annotation maps the save method to an HTTP POST request on /fruits.
5 Add @Valid to any method parameter which requires validation.
6 Micronaut controller methods can return reactive types

4.4. Configuration

Create a configuration object to encapsulate the MongoDB database name and collection name.

src/main/kotlin/example/micronaut/MongoDbConfiguration.kt
package example.micronaut

import io.micronaut.context.annotation.ConfigurationProperties
import io.micronaut.core.naming.Named

@ConfigurationProperties("db") (1)
interface MongoDbConfiguration : Named {

    val collection: String
}
1 The @ConfigurationProperties annotation takes the configuration prefix.

Define the values via configuration:

src/main/resources/application.yml
db:
  name: 'fruit'
  collection: 'fruit'

4.5. MongoDB repository

Implement FruitRepository by using a MongoClient

src/main/kotlin/example/micronaut/MongoDbFruitRepository.kt
package example.micronaut

import com.mongodb.reactivestreams.client.MongoClient
import com.mongodb.reactivestreams.client.MongoCollection
import io.micronaut.core.annotation.NonNull
import jakarta.inject.Singleton
import org.reactivestreams.Publisher
import reactor.core.publisher.Mono
import javax.validation.Valid

@Singleton (1)
open class MongoDbFruitRepository(
    private val mongoConf: MongoDbConfiguration,  (2)
    private val mongoClient: MongoClient) : FruitRepository { (3)

    override fun save(@Valid fruit: Fruit): Mono<Boolean> =
        Mono.from(collection.insertOne(fruit)) (4)
                .map { true }
                .onErrorReturn(false)

    @NonNull
    override fun list(): Publisher<Fruit> = collection.find() (4)

    private val collection: MongoCollection<Fruit>
        get() = mongoClient.getDatabase(mongoConf.name)
                .getCollection(mongoConf.collection, Fruit::class.java)
}
1 Use jakarta.inject.Singleton to designate a class as a singleton.
2 Use constructor injection to inject a bean of type MongoDbConfiguration.
3 Use constructor injection to inject a bean of type MongoClient.
4 MongoClient methods return reactive sequences.

By using the feature mongo-reactive, the application includes the following dependency:

build.gradle
implementation("io.micronaut.mongodb:micronaut-mongo-reactive")

This registers a non-blocking reactive streams MongoDB client with MongoClient, which you can inject in other Micronaut beans as illustrated in the above code sample.

4.6. Test

Add a Micronaut declarative HTTP Client to src/test to ease the testing of the application’s API.

src/test/kotlin/example/micronaut/FruitClient.kt
package example.micronaut

import io.micronaut.http.HttpStatus
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Get
import io.micronaut.http.annotation.Post
import io.micronaut.http.client.annotation.Client
import javax.validation.Valid

@Client("/fruits")
interface FruitClient {

    @Post
    fun save(@Valid fruit: Fruit): HttpStatus

    @Get
    fun findAll(): List<Fruit>
}

By using the feature mongo-sync, the application includes the following test dependencies:

build.gradle
testImplementation("org.testcontainers:junit-jupiter")
testImplementation("org.testcontainers:mongodb")
testImplementation("org.testcontainers:testcontainers")

Test Resources will provide us with a MongoDB instance for local testing and execution.

Create a test:

src/test/kotlin/example/micronaut/FruitControllerTest.kt
package example.micronaut

import io.micronaut.http.HttpStatus.CREATED
import io.micronaut.test.extensions.junit5.annotation.MicronautTest
import org.junit.jupiter.api.AfterAll
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertFalse
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertNull
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertTrue
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test
import org.junit.jupiter.api.TestInstance
import org.junit.jupiter.api.TestInstance.Lifecycle

@MicronautTest
@TestInstance(Lifecycle.PER_CLASS)
class FruitControllerTest {

    @Test
    fun fruitsEndpointInteractsWithMongo(fruitClient: FruitClient) {

        var fruits = fruitClient.findAll()
        assertTrue(fruits.isEmpty())

        var status = fruitClient.save(Fruit("banana"))
        assertEquals(CREATED, status)

        fruits = fruitClient.findAll()
        assertFalse(fruits.isEmpty())
        assertEquals("banana", fruits[0].name)
        assertNull(fruits[0].description)

        status = fruitClient.save(Fruit("Apple", "Keeps the doctor away"))
        assertEquals(CREATED, status)

        fruits = fruitClient.findAll()
        assertTrue(fruits.any { (_, description): Fruit -> "Keeps the doctor away" == description })
    }
}

5. Test Resources

When the application is started locally — either under test or by running the application — resolution of the property mongodb.uri is detected and the Test Resources service will start a local MongoDB docker container, and inject the properties required to use this as the datasource.

When running under production, you should replace this property with the location of your production MongoDB instance via an environment variable.

MONGODB_URI=mongodb://username:password@production-server:27017/databaseName

For more information, see the MongoDB section of the Test Resources documentation.

6. Testing the Application

To run the tests:

./gradlew test

Then open build/reports/tests/test/index.html in a browser to see the results.

7. Running the Application

To run the application, use the ./gradlew run command, which starts the application on port 8080.

curl -d '{"name":"Pear"}'
     -H "Content-Type: application/json"
     -X POST http://localhost:8080/fruits
curl -i localhost:8080/fruits
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
date: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 12:40:15 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
content-length: 110
connection: keep-alive

[{"name":"Pear"}]

8. Generate a Micronaut Application Native Executable with GraalVM

We will use GraalVM, the polyglot embeddable virtual machine, to generate a native executable of our Micronaut application.

Compiling native executables ahead of time with GraalVM improves startup time and reduces the memory footprint of JVM-based applications.

Only Java and Kotlin projects support using GraalVM’s native-image tool. Groovy relies heavily on reflection, which is only partially supported by GraalVM.

8.1. Native executable generation

The easiest way to install GraalVM on Linux or Mac is to use SDKMan.io.

Java 11
sdk install java 22.3.r11-grl
If you still use Java 8, use the JDK11 version of GraalVM.
Java 17
sdk install java 22.3.r17-grl

For installation on Windows, or for manual installation on Linux or Mac, see the GraalVM Getting Started documentation.

After installing GraalVM, install the native-image component, which is not installed by default:

gu install native-image

To generate a native executable using Gradle, run:

./gradlew nativeCompile

The native executable is created in build/native/nativeCompile directory and can be run with build/native/nativeCompile/micronautguide.

It is possible to customize the name of the native executable or pass additional parameters to GraalVM:

build.gradle
graalvmNative {
    binaries {
        main {
            imageName.set('mn-graalvm-application') (1)
            buildArgs.add('--verbose') (2)
        }
    }
}
1 The native executable name will now be mn-graalvm-application
2 It is possible to pass extra arguments to build the native executable

Consume the endpoints exposed by the native executable with cURL:

curl -d '{"name":"Pear"}'
     -H "Content-Type: application/json"
     -X POST http://localhost:8080/fruits
curl -i localhost:8080/fruits
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
date: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 12:40:15 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
content-length: 110
connection: keep-alive

[{"name":"Pear"}]

9. Next steps

Explore more features with Micronaut Guides.

10. Next Steps

Read more about the integration between the Micronaut framework and MongoDB.

11. Help with the Micronaut Framework

The Micronaut Foundation sponsored the creation of this Guide. A variety of consulting and support services are available.