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Subject: Re: [wsbpel] Issue 147 - Proposal For Vote




Yaron Y. Goland wrote:

> 147 - Serial and Parallel For-Each
>
> Proposal: Introduce a foreach to BPEL with both serial and parallel 
> semantics.
>
> Rationale: Just check the issue list for issue 147. There is a whole 
> series of mails attesting to how important this activity is.
>
> Introduce a section 12.6
>
> Note: This proposal assumes that issue 126 is adopted.
>
> 12.6 - Foreach
>
> <foreach iteratorVariableName="ncname" iteratorVariableType="qname"\
>            parallel="xs:Boolean" validate="yes|no"? standard-attributes>
>      standard-elements
>      <expression expressionLanguage="anyURI">...</query>
>      activity
> </foreach>
>
> A foreach activity is used to iterate over a variable, either serially 
> or in parallel. The foreach activity specifies an expression that is 
> to return a set of element information items (EIIs). The foreach also 
> specifies a variable name in the iteratorVariableName attribute and a 
> variable type in the iteratorVariableType attribute. All the EIIs 
> returned by the expression MUST be of the type specified by the 
> variable type. By default however a BPEL engine is not required to 
> validate variable types, if the programmer wishes to guarantee that 
> the output of the expression will be validated to be of the 
> appropriate type then the validate attribute should be set to 'yes'. 
> If the validate attribute is set to 'yes' and the output of the 
> expression are not all EIIs of the type specified by 
> iteratorVariableType then a mismatchedAssignment failure MUST be 
> thrown. Note that variable validation, if activated, is performed 
> before any of the 'notional' virtual scopes described below are created.
>
> If parallel="no" then the foreach is a serial foreach. In that case, 
> conceptually, a new 'notional' virtual scope is created that does not 
> contain a fault handler nor a compensation handler. In fact, this 
> 'notional' virtual scope cannot be said to exist for purposes of 
> determining which scopes are children of other scopes. Please refer to 
> section 13.5.1 for a full description of the compensation handle of 
> this 'notional' virtual scope. This 'notional' virtual scope contains 
> a single variable declaration with the name given in 
> iteratorVariableName and the type given in iteratorVariableType. The 
> virtual scope conceptually contains a virtual sequence. The first 
> entry in the sequence is an assign that assigns an EII from the 
> returned set, in document order where possible, in random order where 
> not, to the scope's only variable. Once an EII from the return set is 
> assigned to the local variable that EII is removed from the return 
> set. The next activity in the sequence is then the activity specified 
> in the body of the foreach activity. If the virtual scope exits 
> without error and if there are remaining EIIs in the returned set then 
> the process repeats until the returned set is empty.


-1 to the notion of spelling out the "returned set" and removing 
elements from it.  Why specify to such detail how the iterator works?

>
> The EIIs in the returned set are aliases to real EII instances held in 
> BPEL variables. It is possible for one of the EIIs being pointed to, 
> to be deleted while the for-each is executing. Such a deletion would 
> occur if the EII being pointed to was removed from the BPEL variable 
> that contained it. In that case the EII disappears from the returned 
> set and is not iterated over.


-1 to the above paragraph.

>
> The foreach virtual scope local variable in the foreach iteration 
> instance is also an alias to an actual EII in a BPEL variable. While 
> the iteration instance is executing the EII could have its value 
> changed. If that happens then the situation is similar to what happens 
> if a BPEL variable is shared by two simultaneously executing sections 
> of a BPEL, the change made in one section is instantly visible to the 
> other. If, however, the EII instance is deleted then the virtual scope 
> local variable will become null. It is legal to assign to the virtual 
> scope local variable after it becomes null but the value will be lost 
> when that iteration ends, just as with any other scope local variable. 
> To prevent other parts of a BPEL from altering the return set or the 
> scope local variable the foreach can be placed in a serialized scope.


All this talk of references/aliases is going to expand the scope of the 
spec.  I'm sure you have a proposal in the wings, but why not alias 
variables?

>
> If the parallel attribute is set to 'yes' then a parallel foreach is 
> created. In a parallel foreach a virtual flow is created that contains 
> a series of virtual scopes, one for each EII in the returned value 
> set, defined as given previously. As with a serial foreach the local 
> variables in the parallel scopes are aliases to actual BPEL values 
> with the same behavior as given above. While the possibility of 
> interference can be reduced by placing a parallel foreach into a 
> serialized scope this cannot prevent parallel virtual scopes generated 
> by the foreach from interfering with each other since they all exist 
> inside of the same serialized scope. A parallel foreach ends using the 
> same logic that controls any flow's behavior. That is, either all the 
> scopes in the flow successfully exit or one of the scopes throws an 
> unhandled fault and the flow is terminated.
>
> Addition to Appendix A:
>
> mismatchedAssignment  Thrown from a for-each if the returned iterator 
> set is validated and contains entries of a type other than that 
> specified in iteratorVariableType.
>
>
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