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Shipping Calculator Implementation

Shipping Calculator Implementation

You can implement a shipping calculation plug-in by creating a class that extends AbstractShippingCalculationPlugin and implements the following ShippingCalculationCapability interfaces:
  • ShippingCostCalculationCapability
  • ShippingOptionListCapability
  • ShippingOptionListAllCapability
  • ShippingOptionListPerDestinationCapability
Capability Methods Defined
ShippingCostCalculationCapability None, a marker interface to designate which capability interfaces are shipping calculation ones.
ShippingOptionListCapability getUnpricedShippingOptions(ShippableItemContainer<?> unpricedShippableItemContainer);

Returns a List<ShippingOption> object that lists all shipping options for an unpriced lookup.
ShippingOptionListAllCapability getAllShippingOptions(String storeCode, Locale locale);

Returns a List<ShippingOption> object that lists all shipping options for the specific store.
ShippingOptionListPerDestinationCapability 
getUnpricedShippingOptions(ShippingAddress destinationAddress,
String storeCode, 
Locale locale);

Returns a List<ShippingOption> object that lists all shipping options for the given store and destination address.

Caching Implementation

Caching is implemented in the com.elasticpath.shipping.connectivity.service.cache package. The caching service consists of the following:
  • The CachingShippingCalculationServiceImpl class, which implements ShippingCalculationService. The ShippingCalculationService implementation provides cached shipping options to the user through the ShippingOptionService.
  • The ShippingCalculationResultCacheKey interface and a default implementation of this interface, ShippingCalculationResultCacheKeyImpl. This implementation defines information as a key to retrieve the cached shipping option.
  • The ShippingCalculationResultCacheKeyBuilder interface and default implementation of this interface, ShippingCalculationResultCacheKeyBuilder. Use this class to create cache keys for shipping options.

Selection of a Shipping Calculation Plugin

The selection of a shipping calculation plugin is defined in the PricedShippingCalculationPluginSelector and UnpricedShippingCalculationPluginSelector interfaces in the com.elasticpath.shipping.connectivity.service.selector package. The default implementation of these interfaces returns the default Elastic Path shipping calculator plugin.

A selector might choose different plugins based on the Elastic Path store being serviced for store-specific shipping plugins. A selector can also choose a different plugin depending on what is being shipped. For example, if you want high value goods to be shipped by a particular shipping provider, such as FedEx rather than USPS, you can implement that functionality in the selector class.

When implementing a new shipping calculation plugin, you must override the default implementation of the following methods to return the shipping calculator plugin implementation:
  • PricedShippingCalculationPluginSelector.getPricedShippingCalculationPlugin()
  • UnpricedShippingCalculationPluginSelector.getUnpricedShippingCalculationPlugin()

These implementations must provide logic to select your shipping calculation plugin, however the default setting must be to select Elastic Path's default shipping calculator plugin.