I wish to implement a HttpRequestRetryHandler for a HttpClient in case the request fails first time.
I also wish to implement Exponential backoff for subsequent retries. Mathematically it can be implemented as
E(c) = 1/2(2 power (c) -1)
but I am struggling for quite some time now to implement it in the code
with HttpRequestRetryHandler.
HttpRequestRetryHandler doesn't allow you that level of control; if you want to do something very specific like that, I'd recommend implementing something like a Handler where you can post Runnables to be executed with a delay, using for example Handler.postDelayed() with increasing delays as per your formula.
Handler mHandler = new Handler();
int mDelay = INITIAL_DELAY;
// try request
mHandler.postDelayed(mDelay, new Runnable() {
public void run() {
// try your request here; if it fails, then repost:
if (failed) {
mDelay *= 2; // or as per your formula
mHandler.postDelayed(mDelay, this);
}
else {
// success!
}
}
});
Here is a good framework with backoff algorithms - https://github.com/rholder/guava-retrying
I use guava-retrying for a strategy of retrying arbitrary function call.
I integrate it with a library Guavaberry that I wrote and that contains several waiting strategies that allow to easily build a solid exponential backoff combined with random interval (aka jitter) : ExponentialJitterWaitStrategy
For instance for building an exponential backoff capped to 15 seconds and with jitter of 50% on a callable:
Retryer<Boolean> retryer = RetryerBuilder.<Boolean>newBuilder()
.retryIfResult(Predicates.isNull())
.withWaitStrategy(WaitStrategies.exponentialJitterWait(Duration.ofSeconds(15), 0.5D))
.build();
retryer.call(callable);
The library is well tested and documented and can be easily integrated via Maven Central.
I hope that can be of help.