The GenericSummarizer class extends DataCollectorService, which provides the summarizer with several methods in controlling how summary data gets flushed from the summarizer. When the summarizer component or the Oracle ATG Web Commerce server is shut down, you want to make sure that any data in the summarizer is flushed before shutdown. To accomplish this, the summarizer’s doStopService() method calls its flush() method.

You might also want the summarizer to instruct its data listeners to flush the data as well. To provide for that case, the summarizer has a propagateFlush property. If propagateFlush is set to true, the flush() method also causes the data listeners to flush.

Special localFlush() and flushListeners() methods are available to selectively flush only the summarizer or its listeners, respectively.