1. Developing SOA Applications with Oracle SOA Suite
  2. Completing Your Application
  3. Debugging and Auditing SOA Composite Applications
  4. Introduction to the SOA Debugger

Introduction to the SOA Debugger

You can test and debug SOA composite applications with the SOA debugger in Oracle JDeveloper. The SOA debugger reduces the development cycle for a SOA composite application by providing a troubleshooting environment within Oracle JDeveloper. This eliminates the lengthy process of building a SOA composite application in Oracle JDeveloper, deploying it to the SOA Infrastructure, starting Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control to test or view audit trails and flow traces, and then returning to Oracle JDeveloper to repeat the exercise. Instead, you can set breakpoints in Oracle JDeveloper for troubleshooting on the following components:

  • Binding components and service components in SOA composite applications

  • Synchronous and asynchronous BPEL processes

  • Oracle BPM processes

  • Oracle Service Bus pipelines (see Debugging Oracle Service Bus Applications in Developing Services with Oracle Service Bus)

Note the following guidelines when using the SOA debugger:

  • The SOA composite application name and the Oracle JDeveloper project name must be the same.

  • Any SOA composite application encountered during a debugging session must reside in the currently active workspace in Oracle JDeveloper.

  • Debugging is limited to design view in Oracle JDeveloper. You cannot run the SOA debugger in Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control.

  • Debugging is a localized user experience. If you want to switch to other tasks (for example, search for instances or initiate new instances of the same composite from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control), close the debugging session.

  • You cannot set breakpoints on REST services.

  • The breakpoints that you create for debugging in a SOA composite application in one installation of Oracle JDeveloper are not available to other Oracle JDeveloper installations. You must create the breakpoints again for debugging.

  • During a debugging session in which you are using the embedded Integrated WebLogic Server, you cannot use the version of Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control included with the embedded server to generate new instances or query instances. For information about the Integrated WebLogic Server, see Installing SOA Suite and Business Process Management Suite Quick Start for Developers.

  • You cannot debug cross-language features, such as a Java exec activity, XSLT and XQuery transformations, and so on.

  • You can debug SOA composite applications on servers on which Oracle SOA Suite is installed. For example, if Oracle SOA Suite runs on managed servers, clients must connect using the managed server host and port.

  • Only one client at a time can connect to the SOA debugger.

  • You cannot debug multiple instances of the same SOA composite application at a given time even though Oracle JDeveloper does not restrict you from this action. This is not the correct approach. The SOA debugger is a development tool. It is your responsibility to ensure that only a single instance is debugged at any given time.

  • Adapter endpoint errors are not displayed in the SOA debugger in Oracle JDeveloper. Those errors are logged in the log file.

  • You can only debug if the server is in development mode. Debugging in production mode is not supported.

  • Oracle B2B and Oracle SOA for Healthcare service and reference binding components cannot be debugged with the SOA debugger even though you can set debugging points on both components.

  • SOA composite application-to-SOA composite application debugging is not supported.