setup service method not called in async plugin

[ksmth]

Even though the setup method isn't called, the services work properly.

// app.js
require('feathers')()
    .configure(function () {
        var app = this;
        app.use('/setup', {
            get : function (id, params, callback) {
                callback(null, {});
            },
            setup : function (app) {
                console.log('setup');
            }
        });

        setTimeout(function () {
            app.use('/nosetup', {
                get : function (id, params, callback) {
                    callback(null, {});
                },
                setup : function (app) {
                    console.log('no setup :(');
                }
            });
        }, 100);
    })
    .listen(8080);

$ node app.js
setup

[daffl]

setup is being called on .listen for every registered service here. The problem with setting up services right away when calling .use() is that they won't be able to use any other service that has been registered later on. Not sure right now what the best way would be to check if the application has been set up already or not.

[ksmth]

One option would be to wait for configure to finish by making it async, i.e.:

app.configure(function (done) { 
    setTimeout(done, 500);
})

Or if backwards compatibility is a concern:

app.configure(function (async) { 
    // if async isn't called, configure must be sync
    var done = async();
    setTimeout(done, 500);
})

In my blueprints plugin I'm calling the setup method manually for now.

[daffl]

I wouldn't use .configure to set up the application. At least in the example case the problem can be easily solved by changing the code to:

var app = require('feathers')();

app.use('/setup', {
    get : function (id, params, callback) {
        callback(null, {});
    },
    setup : function (app) {
        console.log('setup');
    }
});

setTimeout(function () {
    app.use('/nosetup', {
        get : function (id, params, callback) {
            callback(null, {});
        },
        setup : function (app) {
            console.log('no setup :(');
        }
    });

    app.listen(8080);
}, 100);

Because we can't know if the provider (REST, SocketIO, Primus - and potentially more in the future) might hook into app.setup (see here) and needs all services registered right from the beginning Feathers should probably throw an error if you try to app.use() a service after app.setup() has been called already. An alternative might be adding individual setup functionality for a provider.

[ksmth]

Hmm, ok. That was the approach I took when developing a blueprints plugin. What'd be an alternative? The goal for my plugin was to generate services based on model definitions and hook them up to the application using the plugin architecture. You can have a look at the source code to check implementation details.

Since I have opened this issue I changed from calling setup manually to providing a callback, so you can wait for the initialization to be finished.

[ksmth]

The more I'm thinking about it ... it should also be possible to mount another express application. Theoretically, I could implement the blueprints as a standalone feathers app and mount that, but I'm uncertain whether that's really necessary - maybe you can share your thoughts.

[daffl]

The question is why you need to register services after starting the application. One option would be to override app.listen and only call _super once everything has been set up.

I will probably add an error for version 1.0 if you are trying to register a service on an already running application so that nobody runs into weird issues that could happen if you do.

[lock]

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