Monday, November 26, 2012

more notes on java embedding

I noted in the past on BPEL java embedding http://yuanmengblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/few-bpel-java-embedding-notes.html

here are some additional notes:

1. importing syntax:

I'm using BPEL 2.0 this time. This is the importing syntax I'm using now, not sure if it's BPEL 2.0 thing. For sure it's different from my previous post:

add imports right above partner links and right below name spaces.


  <import location="oracle.xml.parser.v2.XMLElement" importType="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension/java"/>      
  <import location="java.io.File" importType="http://schemas.oracle.com/bpel/extension/java"/>      

2. Two ways to get and set variables:

2.1. getting and setting string variables:
   nothing fancy, you can do straight:
    String foo = (String) getVariableData("foo");
    setVariableData("foo", "bar");

2.2. If you need to get to an Xpath in an element, then you have to do something like

XMLElement srcElem = (XMLElement) getVariableData("inputVariable", "payload", "/client:foo/client:bar");      
String bar = srcElem.getTextContent();      

remember you need to add "import" like in step 1. 

3. Gotcha's

Although it's very tempting, don't do this:
   String srcElem = (String) getVariableData("inputVariable", "payload", "/client:foo/client:bar");   
it doesn't work that way.

If you don't want to deal with the hassles of "importing" and casting, here is a recommended way to go around it. 
Using above example:
 a) create a BPEL string variable, call it "bar"
 b) inside BPEL, assign ("inputVariable", "payload", "/client:foo/client:bar") to the "bar" variable
 c) inside your java embedding, you can use get/set freely on "bar", just like in step 2.1 above.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

"Teach" JDEV where to look for MDS artifacts

A common task with JDEV is to tell it where to find the MDS connection. If JDEV fails to find MDS, then you may get errors like:

  • Error: Error in getting XML input stream: oramds:/apps/xsd/foo.xsd: oracle.mds.exception.MDSException: MDS-00054: The file to be loaded oramds:/apps/xsd/foo.xsd does not exist. 
There might be many reasons for this error. One possible reason could be that JDEV does not know where to look for MDS. JDev uses ad-config.xml to look for MDS connections.


Assume you use DB based MDS, here is how I give JDev a "jolt" and make it to learn:

1. make sure you have a DB connection points to your MDS schema, create one if needed (default schema name is "DEV-MDS")
2. make sure you have your MDS connection in the resource panel, create a new MDS connection if needed and point to your DB connection above

3. finally, create a dummy SOA project, called it "junk", "dummy" or anything, create it with a BPEL process, on the BPEL process screen do these steps:
  1) click on the search glass for input schema
  2) click on search schema in "Type Chooser" popup window
  3) click on search glass in "Import Schema File" popup window
  4) select "Resource Palette" in "SOA Resource Browser" popup window
  5) find your MDS connection, and drill down to where you stored your XSD
  
pick a XSD and any element, pretend you need to use it for your "junk" project input, save your project. That should do it. We just gave JDev a "jolt", it should know where to find your missing MDS artifacts now.

 Now go back and open your adf-config.xml again, you should see the file has picked up a new entry for your MDS connection.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

OSB, http basic authentication and OWSM policy

OWSM and OSB are bundled together after-fact. So OSB doesn't support some of the security policies that comes with OWSM.

However, it is misleading that OSB allows you to attach any OWSM policy to your proxy,but  that doesn't mean it will actually work. It took me a while to find out that the simplest of all: OWSM "wss_http_token_service_policy" does not work in OSB!

However, not all is lost. OSB actually supports http basic authentication out of box without OWSM. You just need to go to "HTTP Transport Configuration" tab in your proxy configuration page, check that "basic authentication" checkbox.

Then the caller needs to add a HTTP header like:
     Authorization: Basic d2VibG9naWM6d2VsY29tZTE=
where d2VibG9naWM6d2VsY29tZTE= is base64 encoded user:password, in this example, it's "weblogic:welcome1". You are not required to encode it, but it's the common practice.

You can base64 encode your stuff online from here: http://www.base64decode.org/

that's all.