Hello, I am trying to implement a broadcast join of two streams in flink using 
the broadcast functionality. In my usecase I have a large stream that will be 
enriched with a much smaller stream. In order to first test my approach, I have 
adapted the Taxi ride exercise in the official training repository (this one: 
https://github.com/apache/flink-training/blob/release-1.13/rides-and-fares/src/solution/scala/org/apache/flink/training/solutions/ridesandfares/scala/RidesAndFaresSolution.scala
 ), where the two streams are joined using .connect()

Instead, I have adapted my code as follows:

//The main function has been abbreviated for ease of reading
def main(){

//Main stream
    val rides = env
      .addSource(rideSourceOrTest(new TaxiRideGenerator()))
      .filter { ride => ride.isStart }
//      .keyBy { ride => ride.rideId }

//Small stream
    val fares = env
      .addSource(fareSourceOrTest(new TaxiFareGenerator()))

    val broadcastStateDescriptor = new 
MapStateDescriptor[Long,TaxiFare]("fares_broadcast",classOf[Long],classOf[TaxiFare])
    val faresBroadcast: BroadcastStream[TaxiFare] = fares
     .broadcast(broadcastStateDescriptor)

    val result: DataStream[(TaxiRide,TaxiFare)] = rides
      .connect(faresBroadcast)
      .process(new BroadcastJoin())
}

class BroadcastJoin() extends 
BroadcastProcessFunction[TaxiRide,TaxiFare,(TaxiRide,TaxiFare)]{//IN1, IN2, 
OUT。 That is, non broadcast stream type, broadcast stream type and output 
stream type
    //Broadcast state descriptor
    private lazy val broadcastStateDescriptor =  new 
MapStateDescriptor[Long,TaxiFare]("fares_broadcast",classOf[Long],classOf[TaxiFare])

    //Process the broadcast stream element, value is the broadcast stream 
element passed in, and the modifiable broadcast state can be obtained through 
CTX
    override def processBroadcastElement(value: TaxiFare, ctx: 
BroadcastProcessFunction[TaxiRide,TaxiFare,(TaxiRide,TaxiFare)]#Context, out: 
Collector[(TaxiRide,TaxiFare)]): Unit = {
      val broadcast_status: BroadcastState[Long,TaxiFare] = 
ctx.getBroadcastState(broadcastStateDescriptor)
      broadcast_status.put ( value.rideId , value) // add the broadcast stream 
element to the broadcast state, which will be saved in local memory
    }

    //Handle non broadcast stream elements. Value is the non broadcast stream 
element passed in. Only read-only broadcast status can be obtained through CTX
    override def processElement(value: TaxiRide, ctx: 
BroadcastProcessFunction[TaxiRide,TaxiFare,(TaxiRide,TaxiFare)]#ReadOnlyContext,
 out: Collector[(TaxiRide,TaxiFare)]): Unit = {
      //Read broadcast status
      val broadcast_status: ReadOnlyBroadcastState[Long, TaxiFare] = 
ctx.getBroadcastState(broadcastStateDescriptor)
      if(broadcast_status.contains(value.rideId)) {
        val foundMatch = broadcast_status.get(value.rideId)
        out.collect((value, foundMatch)) //Send out the desired results
      }
    }
  }

I have limited the TaxiFare generator to only produce 20 samples. This approach 
seems to work, but I am not always getting 20 joined samples (both generators 
output samples starting with id=1 and increase by one). I did some 
investigating and what I believe is happening is this: In the case a sample is 
broadcasted to at least one of the nodes (I have 4) before the corresponding 
sample from the main stream is processed, then everything is fine and these 2 
records will be joined. However if it happens that a record from the main 
sample is processed before the corresponding record from the small stream is 
broadcasted to at least one of the 4 nodes, this join never happens, as when 
the processElement() function is called, the lookup on the broadcast_status map 
will not find anything with that ride_id.

There is clearly something wrong with this approach. If anyone has any idea of 
what I am doing wrong, I would very much appreciate any advice.

Thank you,
Gerald

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