Adding and Editing Actions in Message Flows

Actions are the elements of pipeline stages, error handler stages, route nodes, and branch nodes that define how messages are to be defined as they flow through a proxy service.

Before you begin

These instructions assume you are already editing a message flow in the Edit Message Flow page, as explained in Creating, Editing, and Viewing Message Flows.

They also assume you have already added a pipeline stage, a route node, and/or an error handler stage. See:

To add an action to a message flow

  1. Select the component to which you want to add an action. For example, click the  Stage icon, then click Edit Stage, or click the  Route Node icon, then click Edit Route.
  2. Depending on whether actions have already been added to the stage or to the route node, do one of the following:
    • If no actions have yet been added, the Edit Stage Configuration page displays only the Add an Action icon. Click that icon, then select an action type.
    • If one or more actions have already been added, the Edit Stage Configuration page displays one or more icons representing those actions, for example, a  Publish icon or a  Routing icon, etc. Click the appropriate icon, click Add an Action, then select an action type.
    • Some actions, such as request and response actions in publish actions, include an  Add an Action link where an action is appropriate. Click that icon, then select an action type.
    • There are no restrictions on what actions may be chained together in a message flow.

      Table 19-1 lists the actions you can configure for message flows.

      Table 19-1 Message Flow Actions 
      Action
      Description
      More Information
      Communication
         
      Dynamic Publish
      Publish a message to a service identified by an Xquery expression
      Publish
      Publish a message to a statically specified service.
      Publish Table
      Publish a message to zero or more statically specified services. Switch-style condition logic is used to determine at run time which services will be used for the publish.
      Routing Options
      Modify any or all of the following properties in the outbound request: URI, Quality of Service, Mode, Retry parameters, Message Priority.
      Service Callout
      Configure a synchronous (blocking) callout to an ALSB-registered proxy or business service.
      Transport headers
      Set the transport header values in messages
      Dynamic Routing
      Assign a route for a message based on routing information available in an XQuery resource.
      Routing
      Identify a target service for the message and configure how the message is routed to that service:
      Routing Table
      Assign a set of routes wrapped in a switch-style condition table.Different routes are selected based upon the results of a single XQuery expression.
      Flow Control
         
      For each
      Iterate over a sequence of values and execute a block of actions
      If...then...
      Perform an action or set of actions conditionally, based on the Boolean result of an XQuery expression.
      Raise error
      Raise an exception with a specified error code (a string) and description.
      Reply
      Specify that an immediate reply be sent to the invoker.
      Resume
      Resume message flow after an error is handled by an error handler.
      Skip
      Specify that at run time, the execution of the current stage is skipped and the processing proceeds to the next stage in the message flow.
      Message Processing
         
      Assign
      Assign the result of an XQuery expression to a context variable.
      Delete
      Delete a context variable or a set of nodes specified by an XPath expression.
      Insert
      Insert the result of an XQuery expression at an identified place relative to nodes selected by an XPath expression.
      Java callout
      Invoke a Java method from the pipeline.
      MFL transform
      Convert non-XML to XML or XML to non-XML in the pipeline.
      Rename
      Rename elements selected by an XPath expression without modifying the contents of the element.
      Replace
      Replace a node or the contents of a node specified by an XPath expression.
      Validate
      Validate elements selected by an XPath expression against an XML schema element or a WSDL resource.
      Reporting
       
      Reporting
      Alert
      Send an alert notification based on pipeline message context.
      Log
      Construct a message to be logged.
      Report
      Enable message reporting for a proxy service.

  3. When you have finished adding actions, you can further configure the actions in stage or route node, as described in Table 19-2.
  4. Table 19-2 Edit Stage Configuration Tasks 
    To...
    Complete This Step...
    Delete an action
    Click the appropriate icon, then click Delete this Action.
    Move an action down (demote)
    Click the appropriate icon, then click Move Action Down. The action is moved below the next action contained in this stage.
    This option is displayed only when a stage contains two or more actions.
    Move an action up (promote)
    Click the appropriate icon, then click Move Action Up. The action is moved above the previous action contained in this stage.

    This option is displayed only when the stage contains two or more actions.

    Cut an action
    Click the appropriate icon, then click Cut.
    Copy an action
    Click the appropriate icon, then click Copy.
    Paste an action that you have cut or copied
    Click the appropriate icon, then click Paste Action.
    You can copy and paste actions across stages. However, in the case of Assign, Replace or Insert actions, note the following:
    • All variable-related and user-defined namespaces from the source (copied) stage are added as user-defined namespaces in the target (pasted) stage.
    • Duplicate namespaces (identical namespaces in both source and target stage) are not copied.
    • Conflicting namespaces (namespace declarations that use the same prefix but different URIs) are copied. Users will be able to save the configuration, but will not be able activate it until the conflicting namespace declarations in stage B are removed.
    Validate a stage
    In the Edit Stage Configuration page, click Validate to validate all the actions configured in that stage.

  5. Click Save to commit the updates in the current session.
  6. On the Edit Message Flow page, continue to construct the message flow, as described in Creating, Editing, and Viewing Message Flows.
  7. Click Save to commit the updates in the current session.
  8. To end the session and deploy the configuration to the run time, click Activate under Change Center.