While working for a project objective, we had lots of stylesheet (XSLT) files in the BPEL processes, which underwent frequent modifications. The XSL files were created and stored under a common folder inside the BPEL process, which required deployment of the BPEL process everytime we made changes to the stylesheets.
This seemed very bad and time consuming, as we were compiling and deploying the entire BPEL process even for the smallest change in the stylesheet. Then I found a solution where the BPEL process would be made to pick up / load the stylesheet during runtime which will be stored at some physical location under the $SOA_Home accessible via a http URL.
By dynamically constructing the http URL in the BPEL process, the BPEL process was able to load the stylesheets dynamically thereby eliminating the tight coupling between the stylesheet configuration & BPEL process.
# Create a folder called "xsl" (user-defined) under the following location;
$SOA_Home\bpel\system\xmllib
# Place all your XSLT files under the xsl folder
# Construct the dynamic HTTP URL as shown below for this folder location in your BPEL process
1. Create a copy operation under the Assign activity which will construct and store the http URL for the xsl folder, and assign the value to a variable; say xsl_variable
concat(substring-before(ora:getProcessURL(),ora:getDomainId()),'xmllib/xsl/',bpws:getVariableData('stylesheet1'))
2. Pass this variable (In this example xsl_variable) as the first parameter to the ora:processXSLT() function
After the above said modifications are performed, the stylesheets can be modified and copied into the xsl folder which will be loaded & transformed by the BPEL processes on the fly.
This seemed very bad and time consuming, as we were compiling and deploying the entire BPEL process even for the smallest change in the stylesheet. Then I found a solution where the BPEL process would be made to pick up / load the stylesheet during runtime which will be stored at some physical location under the $SOA_Home accessible via a http URL.
By dynamically constructing the http URL in the BPEL process, the BPEL process was able to load the stylesheets dynamically thereby eliminating the tight coupling between the stylesheet configuration & BPEL process.
# Create a folder called "xsl" (user-defined) under the following location;
$SOA_Home\bpel\system\xmllib
# Place all your XSLT files under the xsl folder
# Construct the dynamic HTTP URL as shown below for this folder location in your BPEL process
1. Create a copy operation under the Assign activity which will construct and store the http URL for the xsl folder, and assign the value to a variable; say xsl_variable
concat(substring-before(ora:getProcessURL(),ora:getDomainId()),'xmllib/xsl/',bpws:getVariableData('stylesheet1'))
2. Pass this variable (In this example xsl_variable) as the first parameter to the ora:processXSLT() function
After the above said modifications are performed, the stylesheets can be modified and copied into the xsl folder which will be loaded & transformed by the BPEL processes on the fly.
