How to send a Signal-with-Start in Java

To send Signals to a Workflow Execution whose status is unknown, use SignalWithStart with a WorkflowStub in the Client code. This method ensures that if the Workflow Execution is in a closed state, a new Workflow Execution is spawned and the Signal is delivered to the running Workflow Execution.

Note that when the SignalwithStart spawns a new Workflow Execution, the Signal is delivered before the call to your @WorkflowMethod. This means that the Signal handler in your Workflow interface code will execute before the @WorkfowMethod. You must ensure that your code logic can deal with this.

In the following example, the Client code uses SignalwithStart to send the Signal setCustomer to the UntypedWorkflowStub named GreetingWorkflow. If the GreetingWorkflow Workflow Execution is not running, the SignalwithStart starts the Workflow Execution.

...
public static void signalWithStart() {
        // WorkflowStub is a client-side stub to a single Workflow instance
        WorkflowStub untypedWorkflowStub = client.newUntypedWorkflowStub("GreetingWorkflow",
        WorkflowOptions.newBuilder()
                .setWorkflowId(workflowId)
                .setTaskQueue(taskQueue)
                .build());

        untypedWorkflowStub.signalWithStart("setCustomer", new Object[] {customer2}, new Object[] {customer1});

        printWorkflowStatus();

        try {
            String greeting = untypedWorkflowStub.getResult(String.class);
            printWorkflowStatus();
            System.out.println("Greeting: " + greeting);
        } catch(WorkflowFailedException e) {
            System.out.println("Workflow failed: " + e.getCause().getMessage());
            printWorkflowStatus();
        }
    }
...

The following example shows the Workflow interface for the GreetingWorkflow called in the previous example.

...
@WorkflowInterface
public interface GreetingWorkflow {
    @WorkflowMethod
    String greet(Customer customer);

    @SignalMethod
    void setCustomer(Customer customer);

    @QueryMethod
    Customer getCustomer();
...
}

Note that the Signal handler setCustomer is executed before the @WorkflowMethod greet is called.