Issue - 91 - Nested Activities in Abstract Processes

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Issue - 91 - Nested Activities in Abstract Processes

Status: open
Date added: 22 Jan 2004
Submitter: Dieter Koenig1
Date submitted: 21 January 2004
Document: BPEL4WS 1.1 (May 5, 2003)
Description: In abstract processes, one may want to hide the internals of pick/onMessage,
eventHandlers/onEvent, and onAlarm elements.

Example:

   <pick>
      <onMessage partnerLink="pl1" portType="mypt" operation="myop">
         <flow>...</flow>
      </onMessage>
      <onAlarm for="P1M">
         <sequence>...</sequence>
      </onAlarm>
   </pick>

Currently, the nested activities must be replaced by an explicit <empty> because the schema requires a nested activity.

Example:

   <pick>
      <onMessage partnerLink="pl1" portType="mypt" operation="myop">
         <empty/>
      </onMessage>
      <onAlarm for="P1M">
         <empty/>
      </onAlarm>
   </pick>
Submitter's proposal: Allow to omit the nested activity of pick/onMessage, eventHandlers/onEvent, and onAlarm in abstract processes. New syntax - added '?' after "activity" (4 times):

   <pick createInstance="yes|no"? standard-attributes>
        standard-elements
        <onMessage partnerLink="ncname" portType="qname"
             operation="ncname" variable="ncname"?>+
            <correlations>?
                <correlation set="ncname" initiate="yes|no"?/>+
           </correlations>
           activity?
       </onMessage>
       <onAlarm (for="duration-expr" | until="deadline-expr")>*
            activity?
       </onAlarm>
   </pick>


   <eventHandlers>?
           <!-- there must be at least one onEvent or onAlarm handler -->
           <onEvent partnerLink="ncname" portType="qname"
                operation="ncname" messageType="qname"
                variable="ncname">*
               <correlations>?
                  <correlation set="ncname" initiate="yes|no"/>+
               </correlations>
               activity?
           </onEvent>
           <onAlarm for="duration-expr"? until="deadline-expr"?>*
                activity?
           </onAlarm>
   </eventHandlers>

Changes: 22 Jan 2004 - new issue

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