Automatic protobuf serialization for ActorRefs

@ignatius wrote:

I’d like to configure scalaPB to automatically convert actorRefs to and from their serialized string format.

This can be done in theory using scalaPB TypeMappers, and such a type mapper could looks as simple as this:

    TypeMapper[String, ActorRef](system.provider.resolveActorRef)(Serialization.serializedActorPath)

I.e. we instruct scalaPB to serialize from actorRef to string using Serialization.serializedActorPath, and from string to actorRef using system.provider.resolveActorRef.

Then you could use it like this in a protobuf message:

  string recipient = 1 [(scalapb.field).type = "akka.actor.ActorRef"];

Now, the problem is that system is of course not available to ScalaPB at that time in the TypeMapper. At least not the way it’s done above.

Is there any other way how I can automatize the serialization/deserialization of actorRefs, so that I don’t have to add an extra wrapper class for each actorRef in messages? A way how I can make the actorSystem available “at compile time”? Maybe a suggestion involving dependency injection frameworks? Or a solution based on Akka serialization adapters?

PS: With implicit conversion (implicit unwrapping) I get half way, i.e. by having an implicit converter that takes an implicit ActorSystem, and implicitly returns ActorRef. Only wrappedRef ! message does not work, because the tell also has an implicit sender argument, which becomes just too many implicits for the compiler to handle.

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