I should not be forced to call `.build()` on a `Ht...

# ktor

[ribesg]

I should not be forced to call .build() on a HttpRequestBuilder to get the attributes already set on that builder

[e5l]

Could you provide your use case?

[ribesg]

I have X multiplatform libraries which implement micro-services (MS libs) using another library H which is basically a configured ktor client provider. Among other things, this configured client handles everything jwt tokens (storage on device, auto-refresh with our API on 401 & retry, etc). this library H exposes an extension function useAuthentication() on HttpRequestBuilder which is used on the endpoint implementations that require authentication in MS libs. This extensions function just adds an attribute to the request, so that the authentication feature interceptor knows if it needs to add the authentication header (among other things).

[ribesg]

I use another extension on HttpRequestBuilder to check if useAuthentication has been called, and it would be nice if it did less work.

internal fun HttpRequestBuilder.isUseAuthentication(): Boolean =
    build().attributes.getOrNull(requiresAuth) ?: false

[ribesg]

@e5l you actually can’t call .build() mutliple times it seems...

[ribesg]

@Suppress("KDocMissingDocumentation")
class HeadersBuilder(size: Int = 8) : StringValuesBuilder(true, size) {
    override fun build(): Headers {
        require(!built) { "HeadersBuilder can only build a single Headers instance" }
        built = true
        return HeadersImpl(values)
    }
}

[ribesg]

Isn’t this incredibly random

[ribesg]

Meh, I’m forced to use a toplevel data structure next to my extensions to implement this as I can’t use attributes. Actually I wonder how I could do that.

[e5l]

Probably we’ll make request builder attributes available in 1.2.0 could you file an issue?

[ribesg]

It already is, the problem is that it’s not available in HttpRequestBuilder. I’ll open an issue for that

[ribesg]

https://github.com/ktorio/ktor/issues/1068

[ribesg]

Oh, I can use the fact that setAttributes is a function to remove the builder from my toplevel map when it’s called 🧞‍♂️

[ribesg]

I’m still exposed to memory leaks with this solution...