BPEL applies logic to make choices through conditional branching. You can use the following activities to design your code to select different actions based on conditional branching:

• If activity (in a BPEL version 2.0 project)

  Enables you to use an if activity when conditional behavior is required for specific activities to decide between two or more branches. The if activity replaces the switch activity that appeared in BPEL 1.1 processes. For information about how to create if activities, see Defining Conditional Branching with the If Activity in BPEL 2.0.

• Switch activity (in a BPEL version 1.1 project)

  Enables you to set up two or more branches, with each branch in the form of an XPath expression. If the expression is true, then the branch is executed. If the expression is false, then the BPEL process service component moves to the next branch condition, until it either finds a valid branch condition, encounters an otherwise branch, or runs out of branches. If multiple branch conditions are true, then BPEL executes the first true branch. For information about how to create switch activities, see Defining Conditional Branching with the Switch Activity in BPEL 1.1 .

• While activity

  Enables you to create a while loop to select between two actions. Defining Conditional Branching with the While Activity describes while activities.

Many branches are set up, and each branch has a condition in the form of an XPath expression.

You can program a conditional branch to have a timeout. That is, if a response cannot be generated in a specified period, the BPEL flow can stop waiting and resume its activities. Using Events and Timeouts in BPEL Processes explains this feature in detail.