Hello lovely folks! I have a question with regards...

# ktor

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

Hello lovely folks! I have a question with regards to HttpClient re-use. What is the accepted wisdom here? Create a new one as needed, or never close() the existing one? What do people do? Thanks!

[shaktiman_droid]

https://ktor.io/docs/create-client.html#close-client

[shaktiman_droid]

there is a note in official docs at the end

[shaktiman_droid]

Note that creating HttpClient is not a cheap operation, and it’s better to reuse its instance in the case of multiple requests.

[shaktiman_droid]

for single request, you can also utilize use , so you don’t have to worry about closing manually

val status = HttpClient().use { client ->
    // ...
}

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

right, so leaving it open and having it handle multiple requests is ok, without concerns for memory leaks?

[shaktiman_droid]

you can also close it at a safe point when you feel it’s not going to be used anymore, but apart from that having it open shouldn’t be an issue. At least I haven’t faced any

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

sweet, we're in a memory and resources constrained env so we have to be careful 🙂

[shaktiman_droid]

yeah then maybe figure out a way to close when you absolutely don’t need it

[shaktiman_droid]

that way you’d be more at peace with it

[Ioannis Mavroukakis]

thanks Jigar 😄

[Luiz Aguiar]

but what if you use the client in multiple (independent) places and each of them performs a few thousand requests/min, you basically don’t have a "safe point" to ever close it… is there any real risks on this scenario?

[Jorge Bo]

Is it a good approach to use just one instance of HttpClient to hit different uServices ? I mean multiple request but to different external services not just one service.