33.2. Handling Failure

The preceding design provides a solution for client-side caching of ProductSpecification objects in a persistent file, to improve performance, and also to provide at least a partial fall-back solution if the external products service can't be accessed. Perhaps 10,000 products are cached in the local file, which may satisfy most requests for product information even when the external service fails.

What to do in the case where there isn't a local cache hit and access to the external products service fails? Suppose that the stakeholders asked us create a solution that signals the cashier to manually enter the price and description, or cancel the line item entry.

This is an example of an error or failure condition, and it ...

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