1. Developing SOA Applications with Oracle SOA Suite
  2. Using the BPEL Process Service Component
  3. Using Fault Handling in a BPEL Process
  4. Introduction to the Business and Runtime Fault Categories of BPEL Faults
  5. Runtime Faults

Runtime Faults

Runtime faults are the result of problems within the running of the BPEL process service component or web service (for example, data cannot be copied properly because the variable name is incorrect). These faults are not user-defined, and are thrown by the system. They are generated for a variety of reasons, including the following:

  • The process tries to use a value incorrectly.

  • A logic error occurs (such as an endless loop).

  • A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) fault occurs in a SOAP call.

  • An exception is thrown by the server.

Several runtime faults are automatically provided. These faults are included in the http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension namespace. These faults are associated with the messageType RuntimeFaultMessage. The WSDL file shown in the following example defines the messageType: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
<definitions name="RuntimeFault"
  targetNamespace="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/">

  <message name="RuntimeFaultMessage">
   <part name="code" type="xsd:string" /> 
   <part name="summary" type="xsd:string" /> 
   <part name="detail" type="xsd:string" /> 
  </message>
</definitions>

If a faultVariable (of messageType RuntimeFaultMessage) is used when catching the fault, the fault code can be queried from the faultVariable, along with the fault summary and detail.