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Reduce per-request work across the request path - #16149

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Reduce per-request work across the request path#16149
codeconsole wants to merge 18 commits into
apache:8.0.xfrom
codeconsole:perf/request-path-8.0.x

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Reduces per-request work across the request path, and adds an opt-in JMH module so the
changes are measured rather than asserted.

Measured

Before/after on the same machine and JDK (21.0.7, Apple M4 Max), 2 forks x (5 warmup +
5 measurement):

Benchmark before ns/op after ns/op
ControllerActionBenchmark.plainAction 34.8 3.6 −89.7%
InterceptorChainBenchmark.oneInterceptorNoOpRegistry 295.3 127.5 −56.8%
InterceptorChainBenchmark.threeInterceptorsNoOpRegistry 1116.9 545.6 −51.2%
GrailsWebRequestBenchmark.construct 16.3 11.7 −28.1%
UrlMappingBenchmark.matchRestfulUriCacheMiss 1550.0 1287.8 −16.9%
UrlMappingBenchmark.matchDefaultMappingUriCacheMiss 1881.3 1595.4 −15.2%

Nothing regressed. Run them with:

./gradlew :grails-web-benchmarks:jmh

What changed

  • Multipart: request is no longer replaced by the resolved MultipartHttpServletRequest.
    It is discovered from the wrapper chain instead, so the security and method-override
    wrappers survive. request.getFile(..), params.myFile and byte[] binding are unchanged.
  • Application attributes were built per request through a reflective constructor, discarding
    the five beans they cache. Now resolved once per servlet context.
  • Handler chain assembly delegates to AbstractHandlerMapping instead of duplicating it, so
    Grails-mapped requests no longer miss what Spring adds there (currently the API version
    deprecation interceptor). Two per-request interceptor allocations removed.
  • Interceptors no longer allocate a JDK dynamic proxy per phase: the as BooleanSupplier
    coercion ran even when the ObservationRegistry is a no-op.
  • Generated actions no longer carry allowed-methods bookkeeping when the controller declares
    no allowedMethods. A plain action went from 8 request-attribute operations to none. It was
    also being emitted twice into the same method.
  • Data binding resolves its collaborators once per ApplicationContext, and caches the
    negative result of the whitelist field lookup, which previously rebuilt a NoSuchFieldException
    on every bind for untransformed classes.
  • Redirect / render cache the controller namespace, the redirector and the view resolver
    instead of resolving them per call.
  • URL matching skips candidate patterns whose segment count rules them out, before any regex
    runs. Candidates are skipped, never reordered, so precedence is unchanged.
  • Deletes unreachable multipart resolution in DefaultUrlMappingInfo, and repairs a
    SpringSecurityUtils branch that read an attribute only that dead code ever wrote.

Behaviour changes

Documented in the 8.0 upgrade guide, sections 45 and 46:

  • request instanceof MultipartHttpServletRequest and casts to it no longer work. The file
    methods are unaffected.
  • API versioning headers (spring.mvc.apiversion.*) are now emitted for Grails-mapped requests.
  • The LocaleContext is restored rather than cleared at the end of a request.
  • GrailsWebRequest.getCurrentRequest() is deprecated in favour of getRequest(). Tests that
    stubbed it need updating; getRequest() is final on Spring's ServletRequestAttributes, so
    that was the only stubbable accessor.

Limitations

The request Grails exposed to controllers, tag libraries and GSPs was replaced
with the resolved MultipartHttpServletRequest for file uploads. That discarded
every request wrapper contributed after multipart resolution - the hidden HTTP
method filter, Spring Security, and any application filter - and required a
mutable pointer on GrailsWebRequest plus propagation code to maintain it.

The request is now always the outermost request, and multipart capabilities are
discovered from its wrapper chain via WebUtils.resolveMultipartRequest. When the
DispatcherServlet resolves a request Grails had already bound, the wrapper sits
above that request and cannot be reached by unwrapping, so it is also published
as a request attribute.

- Add WebUtils.resolveMultipartRequest and isMultipartContentType
- Add the MultipartRequest read surface to HttpServletRequestExtension so
  request.getFile(..) and friends keep working, failing loudly rather than
  returning null when the request is not a resolved multipart request
- Populate GrailsParameterMap through discovery rather than an instanceof check
- Replace GrailsWebRequest.setMultipartRequest and the multipart branch in
  getCurrentRequest with multipartRequestResolved, which only invalidates the
  cached params (apachegh-13837)
- Return the processed request from GrailsDispatcherServlet.checkMultipart, so
  the dispatch runs against it as Spring MVC expects
- Delete the unreachable multipart resolution in DefaultUrlMappingInfo, along
  with the undocumented grails.web.disable.multipart setting
- Make the SpringSecurityUtils multipart branch functional again; it read an
  attribute only the deleted DefaultUrlMappingInfo code ever wrote

request instanceof MultipartHttpServletRequest and casts to that type no longer
work; documented in the 8.0 upgrade guide.
isMultipartContentType had no production caller - only the test written for it.
Condense the six per-method javadoc blocks on the file upload accessors into one.
…ntext

GrailsWebRequest built a GrailsApplicationAttributes on every request, through a
reflective Constructor.newInstance. That object holds no request state - it caches
the beans its own comment calls "used very often" (template engine, GrailsApplication,
GroovyPagesUriService, MessageSource, plugin manager) - so building one per request
paid for the reflection and then discarded all five caches immediately.

It is now created on first use and cached in the servlet context, and rebuilt only
if the ApplicationContext it resolved against is no longer current, so a replaced or
restarted context (as happens between tests) is never served a stale instance. Its
lazily populated fields become volatile now that one instance is shared across
request threads.

Also stop allocating a UrlPathHelper per request or per call. Spring exposes
UrlPathHelper.defaultInstance and none of the four Grails instances were configured,
so they can share it.
…ceptors

UrlMappingsHandlerMapping.getHandlerExecutionChain re-implemented the loop from
AbstractHandlerMapping, so Grails-mapped requests silently missed whatever Spring
added to that method later. Currently that is the API version deprecation
interceptor, which means the Deprecation, Sunset and Link headers configured by
spring.mvc.apiversion.* were never emitted for a Grails-mapped request.

It now calls super and inserts the WebRequestInterceptors at the front, which
keeps the "OSIV must run first" ordering that motivated the override. The two
Grails interceptors are stateless, so they become shared instances instead of two
allocations per request, and the @CompileDynamic MappedInterceptor cast helper
goes away with the copied loop.

Also:
- Keep UrlMappingsHandlerMapping's own UrlPathHelper. UrlPathHelper.defaultInstance
  is read-only and that field is protected, so pointing it at the shared instance
  would break any subclass configuring it. It is a singleton bean, so there was no
  per-request allocation to save there anyway.
- Restore the previous LocaleContext in GrailsWebRequestFilter rather than clearing
  it, so a LocaleContext set by a filter outside Grails survives, matching Spring's
  own RequestContextFilter.
GrailsParameterMap's constructor defensively copied request.getParameterMap() into
a LinkedHashMap before walking it. updateNestedKeys only ever reads that map -
every put it makes goes into wrappedMap or a nested map it created - so the copy
was only ever needed to merge uploaded files in.

The servlet map (immutable per the servlet contract) is now walked directly, and
copied only when there are multipart files to merge, removing a map allocation and
a full entry copy per request for every non-upload request.
A URL mapping cache miss was the most expensive thing in the request path by three
orders of magnitude - 1964 ns for a URI only the default mapping serves, against
2.5 ns for a cache hit - because every miss ran a linear scan allocating a Matcher
for each of the ~56 compiled patterns in a mid-size application.

RegexUrlMapping now records each pattern's slash count at parse time and skips
patterns whose segment count rules them out. Every construct convertToRegex emits
is bounded to a single path segment except ".*", which comes only from a "**"
token, so a pattern without "**" can only match a URI with exactly its slash count
or one more, the extra one coming from the trailing "/??" every pattern ends with.
Patterns containing "**" are never skipped.

Candidates are skipped, never reordered, so the scan still returns the first
mapping that matches and declaration precedence is unchanged.

This replaces the patternByTokenCount map, which built exactly this index and was
never read by anything.

The holder computes the URI's slash count once per request rather than once per
mapping, and hoists the per-candidate LOG.isDebugEnabled() call out of the three
scan loops.
The adapter passed its callback to observe() as `{ -> i.before() } as BooleanSupplier`.
Groovy evaluates that coercion before entering observe(), so it ran even when the
ObservationRegistry is a no-op, and DefaultGroovyMethods.asType routes it through
CachedSAMClass.coerceToSAM to Proxy.newProxyInstance. Every matched interceptor
therefore cost a Closure, a Class[], a ConvertedClosure and a JDK dynamic proxy per
phase per request, with each callback dispatching reflectively through
ConversionHandler rather than calling the interceptor directly.

The phase is now a private enum that dispatches straight to before()/after(), so the
default path is a field read, a no-op check and an interface call. In the compiled
class groovy.lang.Reference references drop from 15 to 0 and the two closure classes
are gone. The observing path is structurally unchanged.

Also caches the logical interceptor name per class rather than recomputing it per
interceptor per phase per request, and reverses the matched-interceptor list in place
rather than copying it - the reversed list is stored back under the request attribute
and read by afterCompletion, so the ordering remains observable and unchanged.

Adds coverage for the observation path, which previously had none, including the
null-registry branch, the no-op registry branch, and error recording.
The controller AST transformer emitted the ALLOWED_METHODS_HANDLED request-attribute
guard twice into the same generated wrapper - once from convertToMethodAction and
again from wrapMethodBodyWithExceptionHandling - producing two byte-identical blocks
where the second could never do anything, because the first had already set the
attribute. It also emitted the guard, and its finally-block cleanup, for controllers
that declare no allowedMethods at all.

An action on a controller with no allowedMethods was paying four dynamic request
property gets, two getAttribute, a setAttribute, a removeAttribute and a compareEqual
per request for a guard that could never fire. Each request property get goes through
an indy callsite and RequestContextHolder, so this was not free.

The duplicate emission is removed, and the bookkeeping is now generated only for
controllers that declare a non-empty allowedMethods map. Gating it per action rather
than per controller looks equivalent but is not: the marker means "an action has
already begun handling this request" (apachegh-11444), so an unrestricted action must still
set it, or a restricted action it invokes programmatically starts rejecting the
request. Controllers that use allowedMethods generate byte-identical code to before.

Adds coverage for the command-object path, which had none.
…okup

Binding a command object resolved the DataBindingSourceRegistry, the MimeTypeResolver
and the GrailsWebDataBinder from the bean factory on every request, each with a
containsBean followed by a getBean, and did so twice because bindObjectToInstance
runs createDataBindingSource again. Holders.findApplication() is itself a getBean
rather than a field read, and was called twice more per bind.

These now resolve once per ApplicationContext, held in a single-entry volatile cache.
A map keyed by ApplicationContext would retain every context ever seen, since the
cached beans reference the context, so a single entry replaced whenever a different
context appears is both cheaper and the correct invalidation signal for dev restarts
and test contexts.

Separately, getBindingIncludeList used getDeclaredField to look up the AST-injected
whitelist field and cached the result after the call. For any class the transformer
did not touch - inner-class command objects, precompiled classes, plain POJOs - that
call threw, control jumped past the caching, and the exception was reconstructed on
every subsequent bind. It now uses ReflectionUtils.findField, which returns null, and
caches the negative result too, while still requiring the field to be declared on the
class itself so an untransformed subclass does not inherit its parent's whitelist.
…ing paths

Four lookups repeated per request, all resolving to values that are stable:

- Every redirect read the controller's static namespace field reflectively, through
  a hierarchy walk plus makeAccessible plus Field.get. The in-code comment already
  noted this was avoidable. Now cached per controller Class; a reloaded class is a
  different Class object, so a stale namespace cannot be served.
- Every redirect allocated a ResponseRedirector and called three setters on it. That
  object holds only configuration and takes the request, response and arguments per
  call, so one is now built lazily and reused. Each of its setters clears the cached
  instance, so a configuration change after the first redirect is still honoured.
- Every template render resolved CompositeViewResolver from the bean factory. It is
  now held in a field, matching how this trait already caches the plugin manager,
  mime utility and layout selector.
- The domain map constructor resolved the GrailsApplication and PersistentEntity,
  discarded them, then resolved both again to autowire the instance. They are now
  resolved once and passed down.

The redirector is held in an AtomicReference rather than a volatile field: Groovy's
trait field remapping drops the volatile modifier, and unlike the other cached values
this object is constructed here after its setters run, so it needs safe publication.
GrailsWebRequest.getCurrentRequest() returned the resolved MultipartHttpServletRequest
in place of the request Grails was bound to. That substitution is gone, so the method
is now literally `return getRequest();`.

The two can never disagree. getRequest() is final on Spring's ServletRequestAttributes
and fixed at construction, and nothing wraps or replaces the request for the lifetime of
a GrailsWebRequest: includes and forwards wrap only the response and dispatch the same
request object, layout decoration swaps the response and re-renders against the original
request, and async builds a new GrailsWebRequest around the request it is given. The two
places that do cope with a later request wrapper avoid this method entirely - multipart
through WebUtils.resolveMultipartRequest, and Spring Security by binding a fresh
DelegatingGrailsWebRequest.

All 65 framework call sites now use getRequest(). The method is deprecated rather than
deleted so plugins keep compiling; removing it is a separate decision.

- Move the "always the outermost request" note to the class javadoc, where it outlives
  the deprecated method
- Keep getCurrentRequest in DelegatingGrailsWebRequest's @DeleGate exclusions. Delegating
  it would hand back the request from earlier in the filter chain, which is what that
  filter exists to prevent. Both reasons the exclusion list exists are now written down
- Cover that filter with a spec; it had none
- Stop JsonViewTemplateResolverSpec mocking GrailsWebRequest and stubbing
  getCurrentRequest(). It relied on the deprecated method being the only stubbable
  request accessor and produced an object whose two accessors disagreed; it now drives a
  real GrailsWebRequest over a MockHttpServletRequest
Covers controller action invocation (with and without allowedMethods, and a
command-object action), the interceptor chain with a no-op and an observing
registry, and collectControllerMappings - the uncached wrapper that runs on every
request even when the URL mapping cache hits.

The existing benchmarks measured GrailsWebRequest construction (12 ns) and
multipart resolution (1.7 ns), neither of which is where request time goes.
getRequest() is final on ServletRequestAttributes, so getCurrentRequest() was the
only stubbable request accessor on GrailsWebRequest. Tests that mocked it will see
framework code take a different path now that it calls getRequest() directly.
@codecov

codecov Bot commented Aug 15, 2026

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Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 64.26426% with 119 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 52.4045%. Comparing base (b964e60) to head (aaefad8).

Files with missing lines Patch % Lines
...ails/compiler/web/ControllerActionTransformer.java 19.5122% 29 Missing and 4 partials ⚠️
...rails/web/json/PathCapturingJSONWriterWrapper.java 0.0000% 30 Missing ⚠️
...g/grails/web/mapping/DefaultUrlMappingsHolder.java 60.0000% 5 Missing and 5 partials ⚠️
...b/controllers/api/ControllersDomainBindingApi.java 75.0000% 3 Missing and 2 partials ⚠️
.../GrailsInterceptorHandlerInterceptorAdapter.groovy 80.9524% 0 Missing and 4 partials ⚠️
...roovy/grails/web/databinding/DataBindingUtils.java 91.4894% 3 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️
...sting/AbstractGrailsMockHttpServletResponse.groovy 0.0000% 3 Missing ⚠️
...eb/servlet/DefaultGrailsApplicationAttributes.java 70.0000% 3 Missing ⚠️
...y/org/grails/web/servlet/mvc/GrailsWebRequest.java 92.3077% 3 Missing ⚠️
...org/grails/web/errors/GrailsExceptionResolver.java 25.0000% 3 Missing ⚠️
... and 19 more
Additional details and impacted files

Impacted file tree graph

@@                Coverage Diff                 @@
##                8.0.x     #16149        +/-   ##
==================================================
+ Coverage     52.3252%   52.4045%   +0.0793%     
- Complexity      18536      18619        +83     
==================================================
  Files            2039       2039                
  Lines           97498      97545        +47     
  Branches        17138      17135         -3     
==================================================
+ Hits            51016      51118       +102     
+ Misses          38998      38964        -34     
+ Partials         7484       7463        -21     
Files with missing lines Coverage Δ
...s/web/async/AsyncWebRequestPromiseDecorator.groovy 20.0000% <100.0000%> (ø)
.../src/main/groovy/grails/artefact/Controller.groovy 0.0000% <ø> (ø)
...efact/controller/support/ResponseRedirector.groovy 0.0000% <ø> (ø)
.../web/gsp/io/GrailsConventionGroovyPageLocator.java 45.7143% <100.0000%> (ø)
...ovy/org/grails/gsp/jsp/GroovyPagesPageContext.java 64.1975% <100.0000%> (ø)
...roovy/org/grails/gsp/jsp/PageContextFactory.groovy 100.0000% <100.0000%> (ø)
.../grails/plugins/web/api/MimeTypesApiSupport.groovy 89.5833% <100.0000%> (ø)
...vy/grails/artefact/controller/RestResponder.groovy 0.0000% <ø> (ø)
...groovy/grails/testing/web/GrailsWebUnitTest.groovy 100.0000% <ø> (ø)
...ovy/grails/web/servlet/mvc/GrailsParameterMap.java 78.8732% <100.0000%> (+4.7725%) ⬆️
... and 35 more

... and 7 files with indirect coverage changes

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  • ❄️ Test Analytics: Detect flaky tests, report on failures, and find test suite problems.
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The filter sets the locale from the request unconditionally, but restored the
previous LocaleContext only on the outermost dispatch. An include or forward
therefore left the enclosing request with the locale it had installed, and replaced
any TimeZoneAwareLocaleContext with a plain SimpleLocaleContext for the remainder
of that request.

The restore now happens on every invocation, matching the unconditional set. Only
the GrailsWebRequest handling stays branched, since an include restores the previous
web request rather than clearing it.

This filter had no test coverage; adds one, including a case that fails without the
change.
…8.0.x

Upstream landed the mass-assignment hardening (apache#15947) and the clearMissing
work (apache#15950), both of which rewrote the DataBindingUtils methods this branch
had touched in "Cache the data binding collaborators and the databinding
whitelist lookup". The conflict is resolved in favour of upstream everywhere
the two overlap, so that the deny-by-default binding behaviour is exactly the
one upstream shipped.

Superseded by upstream and dropped from this branch:

* The whitelist include-list caching in getBindingIncludeList. Upstream's
  rewrite already caches the negative result behind a NO_BINDING_INCLUDE_LIST
  sentinel and resolves the runtime bindable names only on a cache miss, and it
  keys the cache on whether deny-by-default is enabled, which this branch's
  single cache could not express. The method is taken from upstream verbatim.

* The resolveBindingIncludeList helper. Upstream's getField / getPairedField /
  getStaticListFieldValue replace it and fix the same defect: the lookup no
  longer lets getDeclaredField throw for a class the AST transform never
  enhanced, so nothing is owed here any more. The helper also honoured only a
  whitelist declared on the class itself, whereas upstream deliberately walks
  the superclass chain, so DataBindingUtilsSpec now asserts that an inherited
  whitelist applies. Its test of the private include-list cache is dropped: the
  negative result is still covered through the public binding API, and upstream
  now keeps two caches rather than the one the test reached into.

Kept from this branch:

* The ContextBoundBeans cache of the data binding collaborators, which upstream
  does not touch.

* Resolving the GrailsApplication once per bind and passing it down. It now
  travels through a private bindObjectToDomainInstance overload which runs
  upstream's include normalisation, so the include.isEmpty() /
  NO_BINDABLE_PROPERTIES handling and the clearMissing && explicitInclude
  gating apply on every path, including bindToCollection.
…er tests

Holders keeps its application discovery strategies in a static list and consults them in
registration order, and tests share a JVM fork. The spec registered its own strategy but did
not clear the list first, so a strategy left behind by an earlier test - holding an application
context that had since been closed - was asked first and threw IllegalStateException before the
spec's strategy was reached.

Clearing in setup as well as cleanup makes the spec independent of whatever ran before it.
@testlens-app

testlens-app Bot commented Aug 15, 2026

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✅ All tests passed ✅

🏷️ Commit: aaefad8
▶️ Tests: 25213 executed
⚪️ Checks: 80/80 completed


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@codeconsole
codeconsole requested review from jdaugherty and matrei and removed request for jdaugherty and matrei August 15, 2026 21:53
@matrei

matrei commented Aug 17, 2026

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Just as a FYI, this is breaking Grails 7 plugin interceptors:

... does not define or inherit an implementation of the resolved method 'abstract java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference grails_artefact_controller_support_ResponseRedirector__responseRedirector$get()' of interface grails.artefact.controller.support.ResponseRedirector$Trait$FieldHelper

At this point, I'm not sure how much that matters, but I wanted to call it out.

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